The Beatles on iTunes: Five reasons it's not all that exciting

So Nov. 16, 2010. Never forget. By now you've surely programmed the date as a yearly "event" into your iPhone, an annual reminder of the day your music collecting habits forever changed.

Look, no love lost for the Beatles. Pop & Hiss adores the Beatles. Yay Beatles. And it's about time Beatles songs are available on iTunes.

Now, not to be Cranky Man Cynic, but the development was treated with a wee bit more fanfare than necessary. Granted, it was not met with the same media shock as was The Beatles: Rock Band (GASP! Will future generations only know of Paul McCartney as a video game character?), but the topic dominated news and Twitter feeds, and nary a headline or story went without the phrase "finally on iTunes." Sure, finally, but Nov. 16 has come and gone without changing the world, so forgive the #kanyeshrug on behalf of this writer.

In fact, here's five reasons not to be excited.

1) Price. At $12.99 per album, EMI, Apple and Apple Corps. are putting a download copy of a Beatles album at a higher premium than just about every other album available at iTunes. Never mind the lack of costs associated with manufacturing, distribution and retail-placement, but the digital download has long been a cheaper and more convenient alternative to the physical CD. With most albums on iTunes selling at $9.99, the Fab Four's move into the digital realm has come complete with its own Beatles Tax. What's more, the cost of owning the actual CDs is cheaper, at least if you buy them from iTunes' biggest online competitor, Amazon. Pop & Hiss absolutely believes every music fan should own, say, "Rubber Soul." If you want to buy it online, you can snare a $12.99 download, or a $7.99 remastered CD from Amazon. Something's backward there. The file, the one dependent upon the user routinely backing up a collection and the one without many of the costs associated with creating and distributing the CD, should be the cheaper option.

2. Apple's major-label-like hype. Plenty has been written about Apple's grandiose marketing statements. "Tomorrow is just another day that you'll never forget," Apple told us the day before the Beatles announcement. Speculation immediately trended toward the launch of a streaming service, or perhaps a move to the cloud -- something, maybe, that utilized some of the beloved features of LaLa.com (RIP). Nope -- just the long rumored addition of the Beatles to iTunes.

But Apple's Beatles hype signifies more than just a marketing mishap. When the iTunes store launched in 2001 it was something of a rebel. Digital marketing strategies were still in their nascent stages, and Apple essentially laid down the law: Digital singles cost 99 cents and digital albums cost $9.99. This isn't going to go into the financials of record labels and pros and cons of Apple's price points, yet will simply note that iTunes once made news for innovations, and this week begged for attention for simply adding more product.

3. Many already have the Beatles in their iTunes library. If this release uncovered troves of lost or rare Beatles material, by all means, hype it. Yet it didn't. There were no treasures here on the par, for instance, of Bruce Springsteen's "The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story." No doubt Apple will spur many impulse buys. Considering how prevalent Beatles songs are, expect fans to regularly grab digital downloads of songs such as "Yesterday" and "Let It Be." Great. Availability on iTunes also means that those who have long considered adding some Beatles to their library can now do so with a couple of clicks. Also great. There are new revenue streams aplenty, and the Beatles catalog is always a consistent seller. It's also widely available, and being late to a party isn't always an excuse to make a grand entrance.

4. The Beatles need to stop being given a free pass. Last year's remastered Beatles CDs didn't go far enough, and this iTunes release doesn't either. The Beatles are quite possibly the most important rock band ever, but that's no excuse to simply keep releasing the same songs in different formats. Yes, even legends can take advantage of their fans. It was unfair to die-hards when last year's remastered box set kept mono and stereo mixes separate, which forced fans to spend around $300 or more to hear both takes. If the Beatles keep finding ways to repackage the same content, then the extras need to start being content that's never before been widely available. See the Beach Boys' boxed set "The Pet Sounds Sessions," which provides a detailed, four-disc look behind the making of one album. It may be for music nerds only, but its uniqueness extends beyond a Beatles-branded Apple-shaped USB drive. 

5. Because it doesn't really signify anything. The Beatles have been held up as one of the last great holdouts in terms of selling digital music. The announcement of the deal with iTunes simply indicates that longstanding royalty negotiations finally came to an end. There was no moral album-only stance, or any aversion to the digital world. In fact, the Beatles camp has long talked about wanting the deal to happen. If it had happened in 2002 or 2003, then maybe it could have been held up as a dramatic shift for the music industry. Yet there's no underlying importance to this story, as it simply marks the conclusion of a complex business relationship among three parties with separate agendas. 

-- Todd Martens

Photo: Screenshot of the iTunes homepage.

Comments

[jess]

The Beatles have`nt been repackaged over and over like Elvis, The Doors, The Who The Beach boy..plus to get The Washington DC concert when purchasing the box set thru itunes makes it all the more sweet.Great Concert full of energy.But i`m sure everyone has their own opinion and mine is The Beatles are worth it and nobody forced me to purchase the music as you say.

[GiGi]

Amen! I consider digital purchases too much of a problem. I've lost licensing rights when online stores shut down or changed. I am a LAYperson at computers, so I have trouble with backing up licenses, etc. They place too many limits on how many devices you can copy onto, so when you get new mp3 players or computers, you lose. Digital copies just don't have the freedom and flexibility of physical CD's.

[dansof]

I agree with pretty much everything you say, and I have nearly every Beatles recording I could possibly want, but I don't mind the hype (not nearly as much as Springsteen). It still feels like a big deal to have "quite possibly the most important rock band ever" (I really think you could lose the qualifier there) available from the biggest music retailer. I'm glad it finally happened even if it is just the wheels of commerce getting in gear.

[J Graty]

The iTunes charts seem to disagree with your comments.

10 albums in top 20 and the $149 box set is tenth! 70 songs in top 200.

[Aaron]

You're right, it's not that exciting. That's why Amazon and Google also fought to make a deal, and that's why Beatles songs are top sellers on iTunes.

I've heard of raining on someone's parade, and in the grand scheme of things, no, it's not exciting, it's just symbolic and it could mean other musicians who've kept their music off iTunes will follow suit. And that's pretty important.

[Tony Lima]

The outside back pages of the front sections of Wednesday's Wall Street Journal and New York Times had full-page ads from Apple touting this event.

Guess which newspaper didn't get in on the big ad buy?

[Mindy]

Now, I was a bit underwhelmed by the whole announcement. I mean, I'm sure it is a day Steve Jobs will never forget. And definitely The Beatles needed to be on iTunes. Or available for digital download anywhere (legally), really. But, the hype from Apple was overblown. Web based iTunes, streaming service or even a monthly download subsription plan would have been more worth it.

And I actually agreed with point #3. Didn't everyone who wanted the Beatles already have them? I thought the remaster releases last year would have siphoned off a lot of the demand.

I was wrong. You are wrong, too, LA Times. At least about point #3. When I looked today The Beatles had all 17 albums in the iTunes Top 40. And at one point they had 70 entries in the Top 200 songs. Clearly there was more of a market than I thought.

So, this kind of renders point #1 moot, even if I still agree with it. Amazon has all the albums for cheaper right now. Cheaper than iTunes regular pricing, even. I mean, the physical discs are cheaper! (They even have the Mono Box Set for $130! That is less than I paid for it last year! Hmph!) Yet, all these albums are still selling on iTunes. The Box Set on iTunes is outselling Taylor Swift and Rhianna today. Even though the physical set is cheaper on Amazon.com. I cannot even believe that.

[Mindy]

Oh, and also, if you glance over at Amazon.com's sales charts, The Beatles are rising up those, too. Seems word has gotten out that Amazon has a deal on Beatles albums right now. The Stereo Box Set was ranked #9 at Amazon when I was there earlier today.

[ChrisD]

The date is significant - it's closure on the old record company world of physical releases.

This signifies that music has gone IP, and there's no going back.

This really was the mark - the crown jewel - the last great stand for the old world.

iTunes and Apple have won...

[Jim]

There are 22 countries which host itunes. Each of them have a top 10 album chart maintained daily. At the end of today...US time, the charts were unreal. 22 countries x 10 = 220 total top 10's. The BEatles occupied 86 of the 220 positions or nearly 40 percent of the top 10 charts worldwide. This is at the end of the second day. They are 1 notch short of having 5 in the top 10 in the USA and all are in the top 40. Not to mention that the box set (with all 13 albums) apears in the top 10 in 12 of the 22 countries. If this is not enough...The Beatles just sold worldwide 13 million plus remastered Cd's..........they split up over 40 years ago!!!

[Truth]

Why The Beatles' arrival on iTunes matters

ROFLMAO! HAHAHHAHAAAAHHAHAHAA!!!

Should be why DO the Beatles matter? They don't.

[greg]

Its about time the Kinks, in my opinion the greatest band ever, deserve the same type of recoginiton. Ray Davies is the greatest songwriter in rock history.

[John E. Bialas]

Anticipation meets Disappointment. This will happen again on Dec. 25.

[Joe Mammy]

Re #1: If the music industry were truly serious about stopping illegal downloads, all they would have to do would be to drop the price for legal downloads to something reasonable. Given that, as noted above, we can buy remastered Beatles CDs for $7.99, I would say a reasonable price for the download would be $4.99 or less, given the lower costs to the retailer/supplier and decreased flexibility for consumers. Charging $12.99 for the download is gouging, plain and simple.

Re #2: No question that the Beatles' reissues have been severely lacking in the kinds of extras we routinely expect from other artists. Most fans are aware that there's a wealth of interesting material that has never seen official release. In most cases, the original albums are short enough so that both mono and stereo versions, plus related singles and out-takes, could have fit on a single CD. We've had reissues like that from Purple Chick and other bootleggers, but the official releases are the same old, same old.

Obviously, there's a desire to maximize profit and minimize expense. The Beatle's recordings will sell, even at inflated prices, and even without the 'extras' most artists would feel compelled to include in order to justify yet another re-re-re-re-reissue. Would be nice if the Beatles--clearly the greatest rock band ever--would set a higher standard.

[Irene Lopez]

Not that big a deal to you because you're not getting a cut of the sales!! Have you been on iTunes since the announcement and seen the top 10 selling albums??

The Beatles are now available digitally through the digital music store that changed it all. That IS a big deal and peoples' wallets obviously concur.

[Mak]

All this Itunes/Beatles hype proves is that there's a whole generation out there that only knows how to listen to music compressed to substandard quality (well below true CD or vinyl quality of sound) through substandard earplugs and are willing to pay more for it than for the real stuff. Itunes/Amazon digital downloads are the music equivalent of chinese knock-offs, Walmart and McDonalds.