Beatles Day is Coming

I was watching the Yankees game this afternoon and they were winning in the 8th inning.  They then proceeded to lose the game.  Let's talk about something that is better than that disgrace of a Yankees game--the fact that on September 9th of this year Beatles fans (of which I am one) will be sent to their local music/video game stores and will be asked to spend literally hundreds of dollars.  Despite the recession I guarantee you that a large percentage of those fans will be happy to spend their money because they will be receiving the most significant Beatles releases certainly since the days of The Beatles Anthology.  There are three items to come out that day:  1) a Beatles Rock Band video game; 2) remastered stereo versions of all of the group's studio albums (and the Past Masters collections) that will be sold individually and in a box set with bonus material; and 3) a box set with the mono versions of those albums.  For Beatles fans the idea of being able to listen to the group's music in a remastered format is a major thing. The majority of Beatles CD's available for listening have not been remastered since they were released in the late 1980's.  Technology has improved drastically since that time and other major artists have re-released their work in remastered form.  Perhaps no other artist in music history is worth spending so much money on.  I will conclude this entry with a lame use of a Beatles lyric:  Money can't buy me love but it can buy me an improved listening experience.  Yes--that was a stupid thing to say, but then again I don't know if anyone is even reading this blog!  

The New Music Industry

I just want to take a moment to share a couple of thoughts on a subject that I have been thinking about for quite some time now.  For those of you who don't know, I am a huge music fan and have a CD collection of over 600 CD's that span a variety of genres.  Also...full disclosure:  I own an Iphone and an Ipod, even though I don't use the Iphone for music but instead just use it for its phone, e-mail, web browsing and application features.  The reason I gave that disclosure is because I am now going to make a statement that you may be unlikely to hear from an Apple fan:  ITunes has partially ruined the music industry.  CD sales are drastically down, record stores are going out of business and it's all because digital sales have become the dominant way in which people buy music.  This is not necessarily a bad thing if one is listening to a single from an artist that may not release an album worthy of being bought. The problem is, as any serious music fan knows, that there are many albums out there that should be listened to in their entirety.  Downloading a song from an album is not the same as going and buying the album, holding it in your hands and listening to it the whole way through. This is why I am glad that The Beatles music is not currently on ITunes (although I do wonder how much longer that will be the case).  Downloading one song from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Abbey Road will never give someone the same and complete listening experience that hearing the album straight through will do.  Albums are sometimes considered art forms, and that is what ITunes has ruined.  Too often now songs will be looked at as individual entities (which is fine) but they will not be looked at as being part of a larger album that in and of itself is a work of art.  OK--enough for now....