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The Beatles Appear in iTunes Store

Surf Monkey said:
Disagree. It's really only one year too late. Why? Because the previous Beatles CDs were HORRIBLY mastered and Apple Corps was working on comprehensive remasters of the entire catalogue for the bulk of the eight years that you think they should have been in the digital realm. It was the right move on Apple Corps' part to wait until the remasters were done before entering the digital market. The mistake was to refuse to do so until a year after the physical media versions of the albums were out.
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It looks to me as they are getting the double dip.
 
netdoc66 said:
I think it's funny that everyone has internalized this news as to how it affects them personally but what it actually means and what Apple is crowing about is the final acceptance by copy holders of legendary music is that downloads are here to stay and ain't nothing changing that. More copy holders will release their catalogs making the whole of all music assessable for download. THAT IS a BIG DAY for us whether you guys like it or not.
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Indeed. It's a huge symbolic victory and big news.

Plus, it's going to be cash cow. Critics are wrongly assuming Beatles fans have their entire catalogue digitized.
 
Surf Monkey said:
I classify them as Brit Pop.
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I have them under Japanese Chamber Music, but that's only because the first program I used to rip my CD's many years ago required a genre to be entered and I have never cared about them, so just picked one that seemed fun.

I'm not sure why I still do it now.
 
bobr1952 said:
Regardless, I have to say I am tempted by the box set--really seems not a bad price for everything. :)
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... if you want the crappy '60s era stereo mixes, which were not how the albums were originally mastered and intended to be heard. Until the mono releases are on iTunes Apple doesn't really "have The Beatles" in their store. At least, not in the form that the band sanctioned.
 
Surf Monkey said:
... if you want the crappy '60s era stereo mixes, which were not how the albums were originally mastered and intended to be heard. Until the mono releases are on iTunes Apple doesn't really "have The Beatles" in their store. At least, not in the form that the band sanctioned.
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Oh come on. The band sanctioned these remixes. That's ridiculous.

And they aren't the 60's stereo mixes (which George Martin and the band also sanctioned). They were done between 2007-2009.
 
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I wish this inane, pointless rantfest would burn itself out...

[EDIT] Can't believe I just used my 900th post on saying that! :'(
 
netdog said:
Oh come on. The band sanctioned these remixes. That's ridiculous.

And they aren't the 60's stereo mixes (which George Martin and the band also sanctioned). They were done between 2007-2009.
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Wrong. Go read what John Lennon had to say about the stereo remixes. The fact of the matter is that the band was directly involved in the mastering process for the mono versions of the albums, which they considered the "official" versions. The stereo versions were mixed and mastered with no input from the band and were heavily criticized by Lennon and McCartney. Though George Martin was involved in the stereo remixes, even he is on record saying that they were primarily gimmicks and that the true versions of the albums were the monos.

And you're wrong about the mixes on the current stereo set. These are the mixes from the 60s, just remastered in the '00s. The hard panning of instruments and voices from the original stereo masters are still there and still just as crappy sounding as they were back in the day. The only truly new stereo mixes of these songs are found on the Love soundtrack. None of the official stereo album releases have modern stereo remixes.
 
Surf Monkey said:
And you're wrong about the mixes on the current stereo set. These are the mixes from the 60s, just remastered in the '00s. The hard panning of instruments and voices from the original stereo masters are still there and still just as crappy sounding as they were back in the day. The only truly new stereo mixes of these songs are found on the Love soundtrack. None of the official stereo album releases have modern stereo remixes.
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Just to be pedantic, Help and Rubber Soul on the boxset are a 1980's mix. Rather bizarrely, you need the Mono box to get the original stereo mixes of those albums.
 
KeithJenner said:
Just to be pedantic, Help and Rubber Soul on the boxset are a 1980's mix. Rather bizarrely, you need the Mono box to get the original stereo mixes of those albums.
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Yes, that's correct and that's why I said earlier in the thread that the sucky thing about the remasters is that you have to buy BOTH sets in order to get all the albums in their original form, both mono and subsequent stereo retrofits. Either that or buy the mono box and then buy Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let it Be separately.

Those '80s mixes are better than the original '60s masters, but not by much. The baseline here is that if you want to hear the recordings in the way the band intended you have to listen to the monos for everything but YS, AR and LiB.

Seriously, compared to modern stereo mixes, the stereo Beatles masters suck except for those three late albums. If you want to hear how the songs might sound with good, modern stereo mixes, go get the Love CD. It's almost a foregone conclusion that Apple Corps will eventually remix and remaster all the older albums in modern stereo... causing Beatles fans to have to buy the albums all over again for about the fourth or fifth time.
 
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iAmLegend said:
So Apple fanboys can't even admit that calling that announcement unforgettable wasn't corny as $#!t? There really is no hope for you guys.
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It's advertising/marketing. Of course it's corny and over the top. Because it's Apple, it actually had quite a bit more subtlety and class than a screaming late night President's Day mattress sale TV pitchman, but it's pretty much the same thing.

Anybody who literally and genuinely expected their life to be dramatically changed forevermore based on any announcement that a consumer electronics company could possibly make needs to get their head examined. Relative to the product cycles, lead time, press invites, and rumors, and keynote events that typically surround Apple's "magical" and "revolutionary" presentations and announcements, this one was perfectly scaled. Setting anything beyind modest expectations over this was never warranted, and there were many voices of reason throughout the Monday night threads trying to point this out to the rabid fans/haters.

In a strange twist of fate, after all the hubbub created on this board, Apple's Monday night prediction probably will come true for many MacRumors readers. Remember the first part: "Tomorrow is just another day." It was the frenzied speculators that ended up making this whole thing unforgettable.
 
Surf Monkey said:
Look at the history of Beatles marketing on various media formats. The double dip is a standard part of being a Beatles fan.
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For the Beatles and a few other bands, I actually have no problem with this at all. Consider I've now purchased Abbey Road 4 times in my lifetime...the vinyl LP, the original 80s CD, the remaster last year, and now the "full circle" to the iTunes LP (just to see what it's like).

I've listened to the album countless times over the past 30 years. Even without new & improved formats, sound quality, or extras becoming available with each iteration, is it really that egregious to pay $10-15 every 10 years to continue to enjoy this classic record? The incremental upgrade in quality each go round is a nice bonus.

There's people on this forum I'm sure who pay Adobe several hundred dollars for each incremental upgrade to the CS Suite every 2-3 years. For that matter we pay $129 every couple years for Mac OS X upgrades. Few new features but largely the same thing each time...double dip?

It's been mentioned a few times, but shortly after the CD release last year on 9/9/09, EMI did offer a limited-edition Apple-shaped USB stick with the entire collection in MP3 and lossless FLAC. So while iTunes may be a new retailer, digital-direct Beatles is nothing brand new and there's now potential for triple-dip on the remasters for the hardcore collector. For me it's just about the music really, the CDs are still sitting in the exact same corner of my desk untouched since I ripped them 15 months ago.
 
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I didn't see any lossless tracks (though I may have stupidly overlooked them). No lossless no sale.
 
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