WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, SO MUCH YOUNGER THAN TODAY...
...I'd never thot their music would be sold in every-which-way...
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Remember on the TV show "Home Improvement", when Tim the Toolman Taylor's trusty sidekick would say, "I don't think so, Tim". (?) I think this would be a good time to implement that quote. I read today, on the internet, about how the Beatles' "Love" album is going to be re-released on I-Tunes, with two songs that weren't included on "Love's" first issue. Granted, they're two more old Beatle songs which I already have elsewhere in my collection. On the "Love" album, though, 28 Beatle songs were re-mixed around each other, and now two more BeatleSongs are going to be subjugated to that process, weaving in and out of the distorted swirling and semi-monstrous mix that resulted in the original "Love" album. So am I gonna pay for another CD to get two more old songs newly remixed? Is that what the Powers that Be think I'm gonna do?
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Well, NO. I won't do it. I can't, really. Because the two additional tunes, plus all the rest on the existing "Love" album, are being sold thru I-Tunes, and being something of a dinosaur, I don't really know what an "I-Tune" is, other than it's some kind of virtual song format that you play on your computer or in a hand-held device of some sort. So you can now have BeatlesTunes without really having them 'cos you can't hold them or touch them the way you can with a Record or CD release. So I'm 'sposed to join I-Tunes just so I can get two more remixed, but still old, Beatles songs? This isn't the first Beatles project I've declined to add to my collection. I didn't buy any of the "Capitol" U.S.A. Beatles CD's that came out a few years ago. Plus, there's a new Special Beatle Box available featuring all their U.K. albums in re-mastered Mono that I'm supposed to buy if I am to stay current (that is, after I buy the Capitol Albums CDs, which I'm not going to buy). What? Didn't I just get their remastered STEREO CD's only last year? Didn't I just buy the remastered '1962-1966' and '1967-1970' CDs just a month or two ago? Whoa, there, pod'ner...and I've heard that those last two remastered CD albums will be available on vinyl soon. Help! I'm feeling down!
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Look, I Love the Beatles. Their music courses thru my soul on a daily basis. I've bought not only all of their original U.S. vinyl albums, I've also bought all of the re-packaging over the years, in both LP and CD formats even though those repackages consisted entirely of songs I already had in my collection. For instance, I bought both the CD of "Love" as well as the 2-LP Limited Edition set, which I'm told, only 5,000 copies were pressed for sale in the States. I bought all their original CD's of '60s albums that came out in the '80s. I've bought all three of their 1995 "Anthology" albums on vinyl (each set is a triple-LP set) and I recently got those on CD as well. (I think, actually, the 'Anthology' series works better on CD than LP.) Plus, in addition to their U.S. albums that I've always had, I've bought vinyl copies of their British albums. I wanted to hear their songs like a British fan would've originally heard them. (The song lineups and the number of songs on their U.S. albums up thru "Revolver" are different from their British albums.)
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I'm getting a bit weary of how the Beatles are being re-packaged over and over again. The collector in me wants to get everything right now. My heart jumps when I see New Beatle Product. Because I WANT it, in spite of the fact that I feel terribly manipulated by it all. When I bought all of the Beatles' Remastered CD's in Stereo a while back, I didn't really want 'em, but I felt I had to have them, so I clenched my jaw and bought them. And that expenditure set me back financially for months! And now I'm supposed to buy the MONO remasters? I don't think so, Tim. I've bought so much Beatle Product over the years that I'm beginning to feel like a "Beatles' Hoarder". If Apple Corps decided to release an album of Beatles out-takes that no one had ever heard of before, I'd jump on it. If I knew the half-hour-long version of "Helter Skelter" was going to be made available, I'd be surfing online instead of paying penance here, looking for a way to get it. That tape is currently sitting in a vault in London. In my Beatles Library is contained a book titled "The Long and Winding Road" by Neville Stannard, which enumerates all of the Beatles stuff that's yet to be issued. Release some of that lot, guys, and I'll buy that! C'mon, you guys! Us "first generation" fans know there's more songs you haven't released. How about it!?
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It becomes apparent that Apple Corps, which holds license to all products Beatle, is looking past my generation, the original fans, and is charting a future course that has no end, sort of like the "Voyager"space probe leaving the solar system, sailing in deep space, forever and ever. Uncharted territory. It should be mentioned that The Beatles were among the last of the major groups to let their material be issued on the newly-prominent CD format in the '80s. They were also one of the last to be made available on I-Tunes, which happened just recently. That tells me that before Apple Corps, the Beatles organization, takes any forward leap, they want to exhaust all possibilities of sales in older formats, and having done that, they've now migrated to I-tunes. That's my theory, anyway. Stall. Get a good controversy going. Create Demand. Buy it! Sell it! Rah-Rah-Rah!!!
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It's sad to realize that everyone's in it for the money. It's sad to think that this music that I hold dear is being mass-merchandised on a cost-per-thousand (or million) basis. The good thing is that their musical legacy will be passed on, perhaps Across The Universe...