Attempt To "Digitalize" Beatles Goes Sour

An anonymous reader points to this article at exclaim.ca, which begins "Just when Beatles fans thought the band were finally going digital, the Norwegian national broadcaster has been forced to call off the deal. Broadcasting company NRK has had to remove a series of 212 podcasts, each of which featured a different Beatles song and would have effectively allowed fans to legally download the entire Fab Four catalogue for free."

Comments

Is this that important ?

[2.7182]

Can we please move beyond the Beatles ? They're OK but enough already.

Re:Is this that important ?

[MightyMait]

Heresy!! :P

Would you say, "Can we please move beyond Mozart"? Some music is timeless.

Re:Is this that important ?

[omeomi]

Am I the only one that's incredibly annoyed by the fact that people seem to have forgotten that CD's ARE DIGITAL?!?!? I know what they mean is digital distribution, but nobody says that. They say things like, "the Beatles are resisting going digital", or "The Beatles are finally going digital with Rock Band", or whatever...You can already listen to the Beatles in digital form. You've been able to listen to the Beatles in digital form for 30 years...

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are being pedantic. They are distributing little bits of plastic that contain lots of ones and zeroes. Look, nobody calls book publishing "Alpha/numeric character distribution".

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Flock of Seagulls!

Re:Is this that important ?

[2.7182]

Yes yes yes!! Thank you for adding that. It's along the same lines of saying you can only listen to music purchased from iTunes on an iPod.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Swizec]

Look I'm sorry but The Beatles are nowhere NEAR Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and the likes. Please don't even hint at the possibility that they might be timeless even taking into account that "timeless" really means "until the end of our civilisation". The moment everybody who remembers them from their youth dies, The Beatles will fade into obscurity and/or will become an musicophiliac's thing.

Hell, Marlene Dietrich was "timeless", now most people don't even know who she was, same goes for people like von Braun, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Marlon Brando etc. etc. All very well known, all very timeless, all almost unknown of amongst the modern youth.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A CD is digital in the sense of being "not analog".

However it is not digital in the more up-to-date sense of "occupying (practically) zero shelf space".

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but this is like saying that something being published on Google Book Search means that the work is "finally being recorded in written form!"

Re:Is this that important ?

[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

Well, let's put it this way. The Beatles are WAY more important than YOU are.

All these people who find the Beatles so uninteresting gets me wondering why they're compelled to write and
tell everybody about it. I mean, when I'm uninterested in a slashdot story, I just don't read it! And I
sure don't bother visiting classical music forums in order to announce my disinterest in classical music.

Why, that would be completely stupid!

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in order for something to be timeless, it has to be under the genre of classical and predate the 20th century?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, why did the guy who posted a less well-thought out version of the same comment 3 minutes later gets modded up as "insightful", while OP gets modded down as "redundant"? Timestamps don't lie.

If that had happened to me I might be thinking, Christ. You know it ain't easy. You know how hard it can be.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude you are so right! Just consider the lyrics from the Flock of Seagulls hit "I ran": (this is so awesome!!!)

I walked along the avenue.
I never thought Id meet a girl like you;
Meet a girl like you.
With auburn hair and tawny eyes;
The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through;
Hypnotize me through.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldnt get away.

A cloud appears above your head;
A beam of light comes shining down on you,
Shining down on you.
The cloud is moving nearer still.
Aurora borealis comes in view;
Aurora comes in view.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldnt get away.

Reached out a hand to touch your face;
Youre slowly disappearing from my view;
Disappearing from my view.
Reached out a hand to try again;
Im floating in a beam of light with you;
A beam of light with you.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldnt get away.

Re:Is this that important ?

[artor3]

Nonsense. People always over-glorify that one period of music. Do you really think that the only great musicians in all of human history were born in a span of a hundred years?

The modern youth you describe remember Frank Sinatra and the Beatles just as well as they do Mozart and Bach. Which is to say, vaguely. No music remains truly popular forever. Your definition of timeless as "lasting until the end of civilization" is overly strict. Nothing could meet such a standard, or, if something could, there would be no way for us to know it.

Music can be fairly described as timeless so long as some people in the modern day, who were not around when the music first became popular, still enjoy it. I think the Beatles can easily meet that criterion.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozart is in the public domain.

I wish we reformed to copyright system and allow works to become timeless sooner.

Re:Is this that important ?

[couchslug]

[quote]Would you say, "Can we please move beyond Mozart"? Some music is timeless.[/quote]

The Beatles were wildly popular, but their work is quite dated and much of it was lame fluff.
Their now elderly original fan base is dying off, and their work is not the sort that will excite many new fans.

The Beatles didn't have anyone with the personal intensity of a Jim Morrison, or the amazing guitar ability of Jimi Hendrix. Their work was accessable, but tame and not very interesting.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Swizec]

Interesting observation actually, I think many more modern youth know Frank Sinatra than they do the Beatles.

Of course not all great music was done in that classical span of a hundred years, but I really wouldn't call The Beatles as something all that worthwhile. Dunno, they just don't seem all that special and most other people under 30 that I ask also seem to agree. Perhaps it's just not what's "in" these days as we seem to be far more into 1950's, 1970's and 1980's music than 1960's. Interesting no?

Also, strangely enough, I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?

Re:Is this that important ?

[khellendros1984]

The Beatles were pop music...some good songs, some that I would classify as "weird crap".

Re:Is this that important ?

[Idiomatick]

Popular for over a hundred years and respected if not liked by a wide range of society. I think a lot frank sinatra might make it but only a fraction of beatles songs. As the summary says, 212songs i'm sure only a handful will get the timeless classification.

Re:Is this that important ?

[david@ecsd.com]

Yes, you are the only one.

Quit being pedantic. It's just not sexy.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Datamonstar]

Yeah, General Custard drinking from a dead dog's eye/nose would definitely be considered "wierd crap" in my book.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anthony_Cargile]

Look, nobody calls book publishing "Alpha/numeric character distribution".

Am I wrong for naming content by its content (MIME) type? My mother asked if I would send her pictures of my vacation, and I told her "yep, I'll have those image/jpegs to you in a multipart/mixed by saturday", then she called me a human/x-weirdo and I modem/NO-CARRIER'd her! We haven't spoken since, but at first I thought you were her posting AC before I noticed your improper labeling of publish/multichar so you couldn't possibly be her. Besides, a human/female on http://slashdot.org./article.pl? No way!

Re:Is this that important ?

[shoemilk]

Marlene Dietrich - actress
Chaplin - actor (and still decently well known)
Keaton - actor
Brando - acotr
The only "timeless" person you name that isn't a musician is a scientist. Let me challenge you, name one of Shakespeare's actors. Can't can you? But you sure know who Shakespeare is. Actors and actresses fade away. No one watches old movies, they'll just watch the remake.

Music, however, is different. It gets redone and remade and covered, people remember, it gets taught in school. The Beatles have already outlasted their generation.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, Louis Armstrong asked this 80 years ago.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 47 and I like new music, I actively seek good music I haven't heard 36 thousand times before.
It's harder than it should be, esp. considering I live in Chicago...

I know many 20 somethings who know the Beatles and consider them "classic" as in "From before my time but still worth listening to" Of course they think that about The Clash too...

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, we don't quite know who Shakespeare is. But we do know his works and pseudonym quite well.

Re:Is this that important ?

[bluefoxlucid]

It's not like we're talking Aerosmith here. They don't really get a fan base; they're just good.

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

The moment everybody who remembers them from their youth dies, The Beatles will fade into obscurity and/or will become an musicophiliac's thing.

Kind of like ... oh, any musician ever born? Some prophet, you.

Hell, Marlene Dietrich was "timeless", now most people don't even know who she was, same goes for people like von Braun, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Marlon Brando etc. etc. All very well known, all very timeless, all almost unknown of amongst the modern youth.

Yeah. Kind of like Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, et al? Or do you hear the modern youth bumpin' those classics as they roll down the block? Yeah, man, music is dead all right. Might as well cut off our ears.

No. How about this one? Fuck the modern youth. What did the modern youth ever know?

Much as you might not like the Beatles, some (but not all) of their rather broad and diverse catalog still stomps the crap out of just about any rock band that ever existed. Yeah, Led Zeppelin was great, too -- but much of their stuff is pompous, self-indulgent claptrap. Pink Floyd was great, but a lot of their stuff was silly, navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual rubbish, with a good measure of holier-than-thou arrogance thrown in. And honestly, I doubt that either of those bands would deny the debt they owe to the Beatles.

And FWIW, at 35 I'm hardly the Beatles' "original fan base." To me, for you to imply that nobody but a bunch of rotting mummies listens to one of the greatest rock bands ever just shows you out as your basic, self-important young person who thinks you know everything. Guess what? The older you get, the more you'll "forget."

And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.

Re:Is this that important ?

[dov_0]

Perhaps timelessness is something only truly proven after a few generations. We can't really say that something from ours or our parents generation is timeless. Only declare hopefully that it will be.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yellow Matter Custard"

Re:Is this that important ?

[bluefoxlucid]

That's nothing, you should see christian forums. People spend their entire waking lives heckling them about gayness. I used to talk to people who complained how horrible it is that people bitch about gay people, and then go heckle the christian forums and talk about how stupid they were; I had so much fun just spouting four words: "You are a faggot."

Re:Is this that important ?

[Dripdry]

And how popular was Mozart a generation after he died? Did most people recognize his genius? No. They'd say "Oh that sounds nice!" Modern pop music began with The Beatles, just as Mozart redefined and pushed the boundaries of music theory during his time.

Timeless implies not only mastery of an art, but that music moves anyone from any generation given that they can appreciate it.

Their music is also emotionally timeless. Try listening to Revolver, for instance. If it doesn't move you at all, check your pulse.

Mozart is dying out. How many people do YOU know that would go to a Mozart concert and really appreciate it and be moved by it? It's taught academically in music history, but Amadeus was no more than a fad (and a cad) in his time.

Even up and coming artists cite the Beatles as an influence. They will be timeless. Billy Joel will not be timeless. Sting will not be timeless. Coolio will not be timeless. As someone who disliked the Beatles for 20 years and remained ignorant, but finally listened to their recordings and quickly became a big fan of the fab four, it seems obvious that their music strikes a chord that will resonate for many years to come.

I won't go so far as to say you don't know much about music, but I will say that it may be worth re-examining your views and understanding of music and media history.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Dripdry]

For heaven's sake mod parent up. Did no one catch the reference?

The way things are goin', they're gonna crucify you!

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

Being the first they perhaps weren't quite talentless, but they were as creative and artistic as Britney Spears.

Let me guess: You don't play any instruments, do you?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Swizec]

It's not that I don't like the Beatles, it's just that whenever I tried giving them the chance to impress me I was like "Ok, so it's like some sort of 1960's version of Britney Spears. Where's the bit that's supposed to make me fall madly in love with their music?" and nobody could ever provide me with an answer.

So perhaps you could enlighten me, WHAT is so awesome about The Beatles, what the flying fuck is so special about them except they had insanely good marketers at a time when music wasn't yet used to the big record companies we know today?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Swizec]

To be fair, I know a LOT of people who would go to a Mozart or somesuch concert and truly appreciate it ... if only the tickets for such things weren't obscenely and idiotically overpriced. We've grown up in a time when music can be "found" on the internet for free and have gotten used to it. We don't like spending big bucks on some concert when we can get a similarly good concert in a different genre for free somewhere else.

I'd be just as hard pressed finding people willing to go to a Beatles concert (if it wasn't free) as I am finding people for a Mozart concert.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Ucklak]

When students use training music that the Beatles wrote to help them learn to play music and musical instruments will the Beatles be as good Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, etc...
Other than that, they are pop artists that created sounds that contemporary people liked.

Now that being said, "Yesterday" and "Michelle" are popular piano pieces just as "Fur Elise" is.

If the Beatles wrote any Etudes or Sonatas, I'd like to know.

Re:Is this that important ?

[2.7182]

Isn't a filter supposed to keep all those caps out of posts ? Anyway, yes you are right, the Beatles weren't commercial at all. That is evident especially now from how they are being such primadonnas about having their music digitally available (online, whatever).

Re:Is this that important ?

[ExtremePhobia]

Yeah, makes perfect sense. When people like me who have been around for that long die then nobody will remember the Beatles... Ohhh wait, I wasn't, nor were any of my friends, my siblings, their friends... wierd huh? The difference is that we're saying that the Beatles will be Timeless 30-40 years after the fact.

Get off your "I know classic" high horse. You find even college students (non-musical) who can differentiate which compositions belonged to which composer and I'll find you 5 that could SING half a dozen beatles songs... let alone capable of differentiating them from ANY other band.

Re:Is this that important ?

[owlnation]

That is very true.

One interesting thing about Beethoven that many may not know. As much as he is regarded as a genius, and very famous, there's still a lot of his music that's never been recorded. In fact, there's a lot that's still never been publicly performed. His entire work that's been recorded fits on about 60 cds, there's probably as much again that's never been publicly performed or recorded. This, I have always found astonishing.

Chaplin was a genius, and should never fade away. Everyone should watch "The Great Dictator." It's a must-see movie. Especially now -- since many of us in the West face darker days from more restrictive governments.

Re:Is this that important ?

[grub]

Look I'm sorry but The Beatles are nowhere NEAR Mozart, Bach, Beethoven

and Motorhead!!! :)

Re:Is this that important ?

[MichaelSmith]

I'm 47 .... I live in Chicago...

Hi Barak you really should register rather than posting as AC.

Re:Is this that important ?

[penguinchris]

You're simply wrong - there were Britney Spears equivalents in the 60's, but that's not what the Beatles were. You're thinking of the Monkees, maybe. Good marketing at that time wasn't as important as today - the legitimately good musicians came through on top of the highly commercialized stuff.

Also - it just takes listening to the Beatles to get the answer you seek. They're very good, with very well written lyrics and musical accompaniment. I'm not sure what more of an answer you need than that - just listen to them!

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

OK -- and mind you it's not as if I listen to Beatles records every day or anything -- but for starters it largely depends on what you're listening to.

Most people who talk about the Beatles as "great music" are talking about their later catalog, and I'm certainly among those. My favorite albums are probably Revolver, Rubber Soul, and Abbey Road, and I like some of the stuff in between. I can not listen to songs like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," so I can't defend them.

As for what makes it good music, believe it or not, at the time a lot of it was highly creative and original. Though a lot of the songs are credited Lennon/McCartney, in truth the Beatles were a band in the truest sense, with all four members contributing. (Witness the fact that none of their solo efforts were as good as the Beatles stuff.)

Furthermore, they really were good musicians, as well as songwriters/arrangers. If you walked up to Jimmy Page tomorrow and told him to his face that you think George Harrison was a better guitar player than he is, he might just agree with you.

As far as Beatles fans go, I myself am a "Paul." I think he wrote great melodies and just really nice songs. You can call them pop if you want, but then all of rock n' roll up until probably the mid-90s could just as easily be categorized as pop.

And I don't think you can really discount that there really hadn't been any music that sounded like that before the Beatles came along. In other words, hindsight is golden.

Example: Me, the first new music that was really compelling to me in my teenage years was Suicidal Tendencies, GBH, the Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat. Then I discovered Metallica and Slayer, and I ran in that direction. Then one day somebody played me a Black Sabbath record from the 1970s. My reaction? It's crap. It sounds like crap, it's too slow, it's not "heavy," the singing is weak and silly. Well, look -- I was wrong. And really not a single one of those bands I mentioned would have come around had it not been for Black Sabbath. I just wasn't experienced enough, I didn't understand music or recording or anything else enough, to properly be able to appreciate what had come before the bands I was familiar with. I'm thinking a lot of the Beatles-haters in this thread are falling victim to some of the same.

Someone else in this thread said that the Beatles lacked anyone with the "power" of a Jim Morrison. Oh really? And John Lennon had no cultural impact, did he? Interesting.

I'm the first to admit that a lot of the Beatles' stuff is commercial -- particularly, I think they get way too much credit for inspiring the psychedelic movement -- but to pretend that they weren't groundbreaking, highly original, highly creative, highly talented musicians just makes a person sound ignorant.

Re:Is this that important ?

[mattack2]

What is so special about them? Simply the fact that they made a lot of very good music. In fact, I think there's only one song that I would say that I _dislike_, and that's almost all sitar music. I like the rest in varying amounts, of course.

I think people _do_ often go too much into how the band evolved and changed, but that is part of it. The very early stuff ("She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand") was very light pop stuff, I guess you could compare it to (egads) Britney Spears. But then the music did get somewhat more sophisticated, putting orchestras in the background of rock music for example. There are also weird experiments they did, like recording music and cutting up the tape and splicing it together randomly, so use as the background music (as far as i remember).

I say this as someone born in '68, and I know people in their 20s who are huge Beatles fans too. I'm not of the Beatles generation, but they're my favorite band.

There was also a good (IMHO) recent movie, "Across the Universe", which used Beatles songs to essentially create the plot... and it even got me to buy the soundtrack, which is remakes of Beatles songs, by the people in the movie.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Listen, I worked in classical music for two years at one of the premier classical management agencies. Even the people there, some of them having spent their lives being a part of classical music, know that what you're saying is so full of crap, it's almost beyond belief.

You'd be hard pressed to find people willing to go to a Beatles concert??? If you mean that were John and George still alive and they had a reunion concert, you'd be hard pressed to find ticket takers, you are bat-shit insane (Or even if you're saying that just Ringo and Paul were to have a reunion concert, no one would go, that'd be just as insane). If you mean you'd be hard pressed for people to see a Beatles cover band, then I still say you're completely wrong (since I've seen Beatles cover bands sell out some 1000+ capacity venues).

And as for the Beatles fading into obscurity, I don't see that any time soon, especially since their catalog is still being raped (see the recent Julie Taymor film or the Cirque du Soleil show Love, or the countless covers of so many of their tunes).

For the record, I'm 24 and have been a Beatles fan since I was probably about 14.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Chiaro Meratilo]

Honestly, I'm pretty sure The Beatles are more popular than most classical music composers. And IMO, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc. are in near-obscurity and are the obsessions of few individuals. I mean, I just found The Beatles a year ago - I'm fifteen. It just carries on with the generations.

Re:Is this that important ?

[passiveNecro]

Among my social group (ages 24-27) I would say at least half of us would be willing to spend in the $100s of dollars range to see the beatles and some of us might think about going to a mozart if it were $20.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

For heaven's sake mod parent up. Did no one catch the reference?

The way things are goin', they're gonna crucify you!

...like a virgin, touched for the very first time!

Re:Is this that important ?

[Tyir]

Yes, the Beatles are pretty unpopular with today's youth. Oh, wait, actual data and not random anecdotes:
http://www.last.fm/charts

And I seriously hope no one tries to argue that enough baby boomers are on last.fm to skew the data.

Re:Is this that important ?

[mattack2]

Obviously you're exaggerating, since CDs haven't been around for 30 years, but the Beatles albums were released on CD in 1987. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles#CD_releases

Though I think at that time, they were one of the bands to wait longer than many before releasing on CD.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ScrewMaster]

And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.

So are to assume that you a. have had the same girlfriend for the past 14 years, b. have not had a girlfriend for the past 14 years, or c. are dating women 14 years younger than you?

For my part, I'd only have a problem with "b."

Re:Is this that important ?

[Dripdry]

Although I agree with you to an extent, I hope you're wrong.

Having been to a few great acts, David Byrne most recently at Chicago's Civic Opera House, it was an almost religious experience when he had an entire formal opera house jumping and shaking and movin' it. I mean it brought to tears to my eyes. It was 100x better than the album, and worth every penny paid.

Now, I understand that the mentality is that it can be had for free, but that seems dangerous, as it deprives the artist of what they really are there for: Perforance. Also, the fidelity is simply not as good as a concert (even lossless) and the human component of things is taken away. In short, it really is inferior, but I understand that technology has trained many people to eschew concert-going.

Re:Is this that important ?

[powerspike]

Maybe their talent was selling music that was "just good enough".

I'm a comsumer when it comes to music, i listern to it all the time, i don't care about trills and power cords, i just want my music to have a good tune and decent lyrics.

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

It was "c," and I was never totally sure how I felt about it. We used to say you should never date anybody born after the theatrical release of Star Wars. She was born after the theatrical release of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Now, say it! SAY IT!! Tell me I'm lying! COMPLETE THE MEME, DAMMIT! I NEED CLOSURE!

Re:Is this that important ?

[jmpeax]

Anecdotal, but nonetheless: I was born in 1987 and love The Beatles, as do many of my friends!

Re:Is this that important ?

[karnal]

You've got some very good points in your comment regarding the Beatles. However, if someone doesn't care for the Beatles, it doesn't necessarily mean that the band sucked; just means that the person doesn't care for the music.

I tend to agree - my parents were big Beatles fans, and I've tried to listen to some of it. Just doesn't get me going the same way other music does. The band could be the best thing the world has ever produced, but if I don't like it, I'm probably not going to truly appreciate it as much as those that do enjoy it.

Not a thing in the world wrong with not liking the Beatles.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Hecatonchires]

Day in the Life
Eleanor Rigby

There's your answer.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Vectronic]

And only a fraction of Mozart, Beethoven, etc... are still around, or considered timeless...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Ludwig_van_Beethoven

Now tell me if all, or even a quarter of those are well known... hell half of them don't even have a wiki page, which means accorded to the internet masses, they are less relevant than most Beatles songs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Beatles_songs

Re:Is this that important ?

[iminplaya]

You're thinking of the Monkees, maybe.

The Stones

Re:Is this that important ?

[Shimmer]

I really wouldn't call The Beatles as something all that worthwhile. Perhaps it's just not what's "in" these days.Interesting no?

No. It's just sad (for you).

I'm trying to be nice about this. Let me put it this way: I'm confident that most people your age appreciate the Beatles more than you and your friends.

I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?

Going out on a limb here: It's because you and your friends haven't yet been able to drench recent events in the thick layer of "irony" you need before you can enjoy something (e.g. 50s, 70s and 80s music).

I'm over 40 and I love some of the music that's been released in this decade: Mike Doughty, Poe, Iron and Wine, Eels, etc.

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

Not a thing in the world wrong with not liking the Beatles.

Of course not. But "Britney Spears of the 60s"? Ridiculous.

Re:Is this that important ?

[w32jon]

then you just don't like the Beatles, no music has universal appeal

Re:Is this that important ?

[TheoMurpse]

Indeed. A couple days ago, my mom was talking about the band, and my sister (14 years old, and no stranger to good music, as she has two well-versed college-slash-grad-school brothers trained in guitar and classically trained in piano) chimes in: "Who are The Beatles?"

People my sister's age don't seem to know who they are.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Fallingcow]

Chaplin's great. "Modern Times" and "The Great Dictator" are wonderful.

Keaton's another favorite of mine. Slapstick that doesn't make you feel stupid for having watched it.

Re:Is this that important ?

[earlymon]

Would you say, "Can we please move beyond Mozart"? Some music is timeless.

I agree. Uh... ...we're talking about Wyld Stallions, right?

Re:Is this that important ?

[qengho]

II can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?

Define your terms. I'm an old guy (53), and I like a lot of music made in this century, but I despise the dreck that makes it to the top of the charts. The current A&R policy for pop music is driven by a business model based on focus groups; it's a dinosaur, thrashing its tail in its dying throes, crushing a few of the tiny mammalian successors that will eventually reign supreme!!!!

I feel better now.

But I still wish radio didn't suck so much.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

most people couldn't tell you a thing about mozart, bach, beethoven. Ask them their first name, their date of birth and the name of one piece of music they composed and you'll get blank stares.

Don't mistake timeless for popular. Timeless means people who weren't even alive when the music was created will continue to develop a taste for it - as happens to this day with people born in the 80's who enjoy the beatles.

there was a time when 'classical' music was contemporary pop; mozart was a rock-and-roll star, so to speak, in his own era.

Re:Is this that important ?

[value_added]

Modern pop music began with The Beatles ...

Hrmph. No doubt you're old enough to be cognisant of this thing called history, but not old enough to grasp that your own view of it may be narrow. Modulo WTF "modern pop music" means, if anything.

Re:Is this that important ?

[caitsith01]

Much as you might not like the Beatles, some (but not all) of their rather broad and diverse catalog still stomps the crap out of just about any rock band that ever existed. Yeah, Led Zeppelin was great, too -- but much of their stuff is pompous, self-indulgent claptrap. Pink Floyd was great, but a lot of their stuff was silly, navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual rubbish, with a good measure of holier-than-thou arrogance thrown in. And honestly, I doubt that either of those bands would deny the debt they owe to the Beatles.

Wow. You sounded sort of rational and convincing until this point, where your Beatles fanboyism came gushing out.

Led Zeppelin, I think it's widely acknowledged, are great for their guitar work and for bringing that style of music to the (white) masses and into the popular consciousness, but in their own right are probably not "great" musicians in the historical sense. But Pink Floyd... to say "a lot of their stuff was silly navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual rubbish" whilst defending the band which wrote lyrics like:

I'd ask my friends to come and see
An octopus' garden with me
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade.

and

Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower.
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna.
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus,
goo goo gajoob ga goo goo gajoob
(rhythmical speaking along with juba's).
Juba juba juba, juba, juba, juba, juba, juba, juba juba. Juba juba.....
(speaking)

is just laughable. In fact, let me go one further. The Beatles are to Pink Floyd what Coldplay is to Radiohead: one writes catchier and perhaps more memorable songs than the other, but the other truly composes music rather than coming up with a good tune, and dares to create totally new musical concepts rather than tweaking and refining a reliable formula. I will admit the Beatles went through their creative phases, but your anti-Floyd attack is just stupid.

So, let's look at the rest of your ramblings:

Yeah. Kind of like Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, et al? Or do you hear the modern youth bumpin' those classics as they roll down the block? Yeah, man, music is dead all right. Might as well cut off our ears.

Well, go into any half-decent music shop and I'll bet you find more Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven recordings on the shelf than Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin. So it will be interesting to see how many Beatles CDs there are on the shelves (or whatever the 2038 equivalent is) in, say, 30 years time. I'd bet that many 'kids' will perhaps listen to a best of, a few will delve deeper, and most will have heard 1 or 2 songs, mostly those that the band and rights holders seem to kindly license to advertisers.

diverse catalog still stomps the crap out of just about any rock band that ever existed

I direct you to one Mr Bob Dylan. While your boys were singing "She loves you yeah yeah yeah", he was writing "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" and "Masters of War". By the time the fab four got to something really interesting like Sargeant Pepper's, Dylan had (a) been the first popular musician to take a truly electric sound on the road, (b) reinvented himself from folk hero to rock rebel and in the process understood for the first time the true nature of modern musical stardom and the complex relationship between the superstar and the audience (c) written songs of huge cultural and musical significance like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", (d) released easily the longest and most substantial 'single' to that date in the form of "Like a Rolling Stone", (e) invented a totally new sound (the "thin wild mercury sound" of Blonde on Blonde) and released arguably the most consistently good rock album ever in the process, (f

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a beatles obsessive, as are young teens i know, and i found them through my personal musical development, as have others. do say that people who were born during the beatles time will be the only ones keeping them popular is a foolish statement, where are record sales coming from if the people who already own the albums don't buy them. In my observations the people who are buying the original albums are the young people, and it's the grandmothers with new cd players who buy the best offs.

The same can be said for early blues. So many people listen to leadbelly and robert johnson. but few of their peers would be alive today. But just as influential to the musical canvas as the classical arstist you mentioned in your post.

i'm sorry if i'm repeating what someone else opinion is futher in the thread... but i don't have time to read all the replys.

Re:Is this that important ?

[earlymon]

Wyld Stallyns

Yes, preview is my friend.....

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me if all, or even a quarter of those are well known... hell half of them don't even have a wiki page, which means accorded to the internet masses, they are less relevant than most Beatles songs

Yeah, there's a great standard for relevance -- wankers wasting their time on wikis.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, my sir, are an idiot. The Beatles were arguably more popular in there time than any other musician has ever been - including Mozart, Bach, etc.

Who the fuck doesn't know who is?

Eat shit and die.

Re:Is this that important ?

[MightyYar]

and/or will become an musicophiliac's thing.

You mean like Mozart, Bach, and Beetoven? :)

Seriously, most of what I know about classical music comes from the Loony Toons... and they almost certainly used classical music because it was out of copyright. I have a sneaking suspicion that I am in the majority.

Re:Is this that important ?

[indi0144]

What The Fuck does youth know about music.. they listen what they radios stations are paid to play. You can remaster the shit out of that tapes but they will never sound as it was back then, I have a pair of '79 Sylvania Speakers and enven a crappy 128Kbps Mp3 of Queen or Pink Floyd is a whole new dimension in sound, no new hardware sound like that. I don't know how I got some cuadraphonic mix from the dark side of the moon, it's a DVDA DTS and DOLBY and YOU haven't listened anything until you listen to that on the hardware it was meant to be played. Youth never decides what will be timeless, they just live in the now. The only youth thats worth the headache it's Sonic Youth :P

Re:Is this that important ?

[Synonymous Bosch]

You'll find a lot more beatles covers played in pubs any night of the week than mozart covers.

Re:Is this that important ?

[caitsith01]

Nonsense. People always over-glorify that one period of music. Do you really think that the only great musicians in all of human history were born in a span of a hundred years?

Double nonsense. Or do you really think that it's impossible that prevailing social, technological and cultural conditions might give rise to relatively brief "golden ages" in which music (or other aspects of society) move forward in tremendous leaps? I mean, the Beatles themselves were smack bang in the middle of just such a leap forward, as amplification and rapid social change created a window for their art.

The very point the GP was making is that people DO still know who Mozart and Beethoven and the like were. Hell, any half educated kid would have at least heard OF them, if not (knowingly) listened to them. I doubt there are many people alive who haven't heard at least a few snatches of some of their more famous music in one form or another.

On the other hand, will the same be said of the Beatles in 200 years time? So far we know they were extremely popular, changed the conception of popular music in several very closely aligned countries, and made a lot of money. But I think it is a least arguable that when the dust settles from the mid-20th century music revolution (such as it was), that they may not be regarded quite as highly as you seem to be suggesting. In history's eyes they may come out as more of a Rachmaninoff than a Mozart - known to the discerning fan, but not universal.

Re:Is this that important ?

[witherstaff]

Of course they're timeless - Well at least Paul. Even if he dies they'll just find a replacement to keep him around.

Re:Is this that important ?

[caitsith01]

The Beatles didn't have anyone with the personal intensity of a Jim Morrison

Wow. I am not Beatles fan, but have you even seen any footage of John Lennon at his peak? If anything, his personal intensity is exactly what let them get away with 12 minute sitar solos on their mid-to-late period albums.

Re:Is this that important ?

[caitsith01]

Could it possibly be that people like your good self are constantly ramming the Beatles down everyone's throat as 'important' and the 'greatest band of all time'?

I know when people walk around talking pompous, over the top crap about things, I prefer to call them out on it...

But I guess in your world view, only people who like the Beatles have a valid opinion. Interesting approach.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"From before my time but still worth listening to"

That's where I would fall, and I think even the poster that started this thread might fall into that category.

I do think the Beatles are vastly overrated though. Not to slight the actual Beatles, it's just that nobody can live up to the hype some of their rabid fans give them. If they did a show, resurrected John and George, Jesus came again & sung backup vocals, they solved global warming during the show & gave everybody in the world orgasms at the same time, they couldn't live up to the hype.

Re:Is this that important ?

[oblivionboy]

Much like any music that has peaked (ie: Jazz and Classical just to name a couple).

Re:Is this that important ?

[mewshi_nya]

Poe is good. Also, her brother wrote one of my favorite books - House of Leaves.

Anyway...

I appreciate the Beatles, especially, the later stuff - not necessarily because it's good (which, hey, it is) but because of the influence it had on the musical sound.

Re:Is this that important ?

[$0.02]

Can we please move beyond Mozart?

Re:Is this that important ?

[AmberBlackCat]

All very well known, all very timeless, all almost unknown of amongst the modern youth.

The same goes for Mozart, Bach, & Beethoven. The only thing teens know about them is old people keep bringing them up.

Re:Is this that important ?

[lysergic.acid]

there's a difference between being timeless and being popular. art that is timeless simply means that its artistic merits transcend temporal boundaries and the whims of fashion, and thus won't ever be outlived. the music of the Beatles certainly qualify as timeless as it's just as enjoyable now as it was back then. most pop songs OTOH have a very short shelf-life and quickly become dated, as they can only be appreciated by those who lived during a certain era. such music is often shallow, kitsch, and derivative. and the only reason they are popular at first is because they faddishly chase the latest aesthetics and cultural trends.

and just because people don't know who "Marlene Dietrich" is doesn't mean that there's no such thing as timeless art. that has absolutely no bearing on the music of the Beatles. you could just as easily say:

heck, Rowan Atkinson was "timeless," and now no one even knows his name, therefore Mozart/Bach/Beethoven sucks.

likewise, just because you don't like the Beatles doesn't make their music any less timeless. there are Beatles fans of almost every generation currently alive. you can remain in denial all you want, but if you grab any random person off the street, they're more likely to be able to name a Beatles song/album/tune than they are a piece by Mozart/Bach/Beethoven.

Re:Is this that important ?

[bill0755]

And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.

Yeah, but that was 15 years ago. You really need to just let her go, and move on with your life.

Re:Is this that important ?

[shawb]

But would you pay that $20 to see a Beatles cover band?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. The Beatles don't exist any more. I believe their entire catalogue is owned by Michael Jackson, or some label. Two of their members are dead, and the other two haven't collaborated on any music for some time. And even if they still did exist, this sort of thing would be controlled by their distributors and agents.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think that Britney Spears writes her own music?

Re:Is this that important ?

[ghjm]

If you listen in a general way and look for "appeal," then The Beatles will probably not impress you. At the time they recorded, there was nobody better. But since you're listening in 2008, not 1968, you're seeing them through the wrong end of 40 years of improvements in pop music technology and marketability. We're much better now at making "appealing" pop, so Britney Spears (or more precisely, her extensive team of producers, engineers and session players) is just plain better at it than The Beatles were, in the same way that a middling 2008 relief pitcher could consistently strike out Babe Ruth if you didn't give him the benefit of modern training, video replays, etc.

The difference only arises if you listen for detail, which requires a little more work on your part. If you actually want to get what people see in The Beatles, try the following:

1. Play "A Day In The Life" but focus only on the drums (when they come in at about 0:45).

2. Play "Drive My Car" but focus only on the bass.

3. Play "Nowhere Man" and focus only on the vocals. (If you don't get it on this one, remember that electronic vocal effects hadn't been invented yet: This is simply three people singing.)

4. Play "I've Just Seen A Face" and focus on the interplay of the two acoustic guitars.

5. Play "Eleanor Rigby" and really concentrate on the lyrics, and what they mean.

6. Do the same with "For No One."

7. Now that you're in the right frame of mind, play "Strawberry Fields Forever" and listen for detail. You should immediately feel how much "stuff" there is in it, and how it all comes together.

8. Finish with "Here Comes The Sun." Listen the same way.

Let me know if it works.

-Graham

Re:Is this that important ?

[passiveNecro]

fair point, but Mozart would not have actually performed his own music so it is not quite the same thing. There was a guy who did a john lennon show called "looking through a glass onion" in Australia at least maybe 10 years ago. I would probably consider that for $40 even though I would probably be in a minority of the people I know for that.

Re:Is this that important ?

[osu-neko]

Actually, we don't quite know who Shakespeare is. But we do know his works and pseudonym quite well.

Does it matter what his real name was? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

If we knew for sure what it was, we wouldn't know him any better, we'd just know a bit of trivia about him.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are awesome. Well said.

No matter how much you like something, keeping it in perspective keeps you from looking like a fool. The Beatles wrote some catchy pop songs, but they are still riding a wave of hype from the 1960s.

Re:Is this that important ?

[shog9]

Heh, ok. Say they actually managed to resurrect both the dead Beatles and Mozart.

Er... Less-hypothetical: how much would you pay to see a Beatles cover band?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

BECAUSE TODAY'S MUSIC INDUSTRY PRODUCES INDUSTRIALIZED MASS MARKET SHIT, AND IMMATURE STUPID KIDS BUY INTO WHATEVER CRAP THEY'RE FED AND FORCE THEIR PARENTS TO BUY IT.

The Beatles were sellout mass-market shit in their day, and here we are glorifying them all over the place now. Hell, John Lennon himself admitted that he sold out the minute he took off his leather jacket.

Little-known fact: The Beatles were originally a punk rock band in a sub-genre known as "teddy rock" that was popular in England at the time. They weren't anything like what we remember them. They just got cut a fat check.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Keith_Beef]

the Beatles weren't commercial at all.

I trust that was sarcasm...

Help! Hard day's night... those lamentably bad films...

The Monkees! was a tongue-in-cheek parody of the Beatles' commercialism.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Idiomatick]

Oh i'm sure beatles is just as popular as motzart NOW. Buuuut i think when the beatles are 250years old we will see a big difference. Hell i think in 50 years the beatles will be a good deal less relevant than Mozart. Thats the point.

Re:Is this that important ?

[guyminuslife]

Not until the Baby Boomers finally die off. They weren't supposed to live past 30, you know.

Re:Is this that important ?

[santiagodraco]

You think the Beetles are unknown among modern youth? Hmm.

And why do you think Motzart is "timeless"? Probably because it's force fed in music related classes?

Everything fades with time. And I'd be willing to bet that the Beatles are heard more often with youth born after their time, than Motzart ever will be.

Re:Is this that important ?

[guyminuslife]

Yeah, bigotry against stupid people is intolerant and insensitive. People need to put aside their prejudices and learn to accept stupid people. Because we're all part of one big family---the human family.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you completely - there were other more invigorating, innovative, progressive artists around at the time. 65-75 was an amazing time for music.

Like it or not, however, The Beatles were the group who achieved the best balance of artistry and creativity with outrageous popularity.

Compare with Nirvana - surely not the 'best' band of the 90s on any artistic merit, but will always be remembered as 'revolutionary' and hugely popular.

The most creative and innovative bands are never the most popular. Is that news to you?

The Beatles will be timeless in their way, just like Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.

 

She WAS 21, but she's 50 now. Also, you're mom doesn't count as a girlfriend.

Re:Is this that important ?

[proselyte_heretic]

Well, actually... I have a friend who has a Beatles music book for piano training. So, it has happened, now we are just debating market penetration.

Re:Is this that important ?

[TheoMurpse]

Pop music is like chocolate: it may taste really good, but in the back of your mind, you know it's bad for you.

Re:Is this that important ?

[passiveNecro]

I am not sure what I would do if mozart were alive I am not really interested in classical music but I would probably go to a concert. My wife is a pianist and would definitely be keen

If someone were to do a beatles show that was more thought out then just playing covers and it got good reviews I would think $40-60.

For a simple cover band I would drink in a pub with a beatles cover band over one with a generic cover band.

Re:Is this that important ?

[SL Baur]

Hell, any half educated kid would have at least heard OF them, if not (knowingly) listened to them.

Charles Schultz is dead. I first heard of Beethoven as a kid reading Peanuts. I did not learn to appreciate his music for another decade or so.

Old as I am, I never heard any Beatles music while they were still a group. The lyrics are useful to know in Asian Karaoke bars, but other than that, I just do not care.

Re:Is this that important ?

[FrankieBaby1986]

Look, i'm sorry, but my 16 yo cheerleader sister loves the beatles, if only because of the movie "Across the Universe". Just because it isn't the hoity-toity Mozart (which i think is rather boring, btw) doesn't mean it isn't timeless.

On a side to that I don't think that in 20 years "And the sweat drip down my baaalllsss... all these bitches craaawwwlll...." is gonna be near as remembered and well liked as the beatles will be in 20 years, let alone mozart.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ryszard99]

But I still wish radio didn't suck so much.

perhaps you should try http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/. its a radio station that doesnt play too much (any?) of the top 40, no commercials, and streams over t3h n3tz0rz. while i'm out of their demographic at 37, and dont like all the music, i love the fact there is "no fricken ads"

Re:Is this that important ?

[Tellarin]

I don't agree with exactly 100% per cent of your post, but congrats. Great interesting reply.
Too bad I don't currently have any mod points.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am dating someone born after the release of Terminator 2, is that bad? -.-

Re:Is this that important ?

[jddj]

"Most people who talk about the Beatles as "great music" are talking about their later catalog..."

fail.

Honestly, they don't walk on water, but the Beatles' early pop music was night-and-day different from what had gone before.

No syrup, no sap - at least compared to the industry around them. In their earliest releases as a quartet with George Martin producing, the Beatles made music that was spare, direct, harmonically complex and hummable.

Sure it was fun, but Pop is supposed to be. The harmonies of "Hold Me Tight", the energy of "It Won't Be Long", the jangle, falsetto and close harmony of "Ticket to Ride" - dude, you may not like Pop, but just say so. As pop music goes, there hasn't been much greater.

Re:Is this that important ?

[StrahdVZ]

Have to agree with other replies to your post - I was similar to you when I was a kid, (I'm only 31 so they were well before my time) but if you haven't already, please try starting at the end (Abbey Road) and working your way backwards chronologically with Let It Be and the White Album. You may be surprised. I dislike and still dislike their early works, which was next to canned pop.

The middle years (from Rubber Soul onwards) certainly improved dramatically but not until I picked up Sergeant Pepper's did I discover that I loved their music.

Re:Is this that important ?

[SimonInOz]

Define your terms. I'm a young guy (53), and I like a lot of music made in this century, but I despise the dreck that makes it to the top of the charts. The current A&R policy for pop music is driven by a business model based on focus groups [beforethemusicdies.com]; it's a dinosaur, thrashing its tail in its dying throes, crushing a few of the tiny mammalian successors that will eventually reign supreme!!!!

I feel better now.

But I still wish radio didn't suck so much.

Re:Is this that important ?

[FrankieBaby1986]

Yano, the weird thing is, it doesn't matter how musically complex or different a particular artist is, if the song doesn't stick in a person's memory, it isn't timeless. If the feelings envoked by the words and lyrics together don't resonate a with a commonly understood emotion that everyone's hearts and minds and beings can empathize with, it doesn't matter. The beatles made a LOT of music that no matter what year it is, will evoke sympathetic feelings in the human mind, heart, and being.

Re:Is this that important ?

[kklein]

I am so sick of this response.

As a matter of fact, I do play instruments, and even majored in music (vocal performance) for my first 2 years of college, until I realized I didn't want to be a music teacher, and that was all I'd be able to do with that degree.

So, I'd like to think I know a little about music. I don't know as much as my buddy in his PhD course, doing his dissertation on some godawful obscure nook of music theory, but I know a lot more than the average bear.

The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about them, aside from the hype that surrounded them. Don't get me wrong; comparing them to Britney is absolutely unfair, but they aren't really any more skilled or special than, say, Smashing Pumpkins. In fact, Corgan's guitar skill probably outdoes any of the Beatles (why he moved to synths, which he's no good at, I'll never know). It's on the top end of pop-music-seriousness scale, but it's still just pop music.

I have gotten into feelings-hurt-level arguments about this, but it just has to be said: The Beatles are/were nothing special, musically.

Re:Is this that important ?

[qengho]

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/

Thanks, I'll check it out. I've found a few streaming stations that I like, including SomaFM and WFMU.

Re:Is this that important ?

[kimvette]

On top of that, Beatles members are said to have attended more than one Pink Floyd gig at UFO back before they (Pink Floyd) ever released a studio album. Back in the days when they were known as The Abdabs, Sigma 6 and the Meggadeaths. It's also stated in several books that while Pink Floyd was in the studio recording their debut album (Piper at the Gates of Dawn) they (Pink Floyd) were excited to meet the Beatles, and the Beatles were as excited to meet Pink Floyd and hear their new tracks.

It's likely in 100 years that Pink Floyd will be considered to be interesting for their complex compositions, the Jazz and classical influences, and that they actually experimented with new sounds, while The Beatles will be known for being the first big boy-band focused on marketing and hiring screaming "fans" to generate buzz. That's not to say that once the Beatles hit it real big they didn't produce some really great, artsy stuff, but it's on a completely different level musically and lyrically. Sure, they have Sergant Pepper, The White Album, etc. but where is their answer to The Wall? Dark Side of the Moon? Meddle? Animals? Wish You Were Here?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Ihmhi]

Anyone who's serious about comedy or theater would know about Charlie Chaplin. Ditto on Marlon Brando for the theater.

The thing is, a lot of pure crap was released back in the day. That hasn't changed much today either IMO. The good stuff stands out.

Ask people to name their favorite movie from the years 1900-1950, and a lot of people would probably say The Wizard of Oz or a Hitchcock film. Maybe one of the golden oldies. But they're not going to mention some obscure tripe that was the equivalent of big, shitty Hollywood blockbusters of the time.

Re:Is this that important ?

[franki.macha]

why don't you go and ask mr bob dylan, or chuck berry, or the rolling stones, or most of the musicians of the last fifty years, what they think of the beatles?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Bobby Mahoney]

Yes. Personal preference/taste aside, you can't compare the success, popularity or influence of The Beatles to any other pop music act of the 20th century/(ever). The degree to which they influenced the music which followed them IS on the order of Mozart. Not to mention that if man-kind survives until then, you're grandchildren^7 will read about the Beatles in music history, just a few chapters after Bach and Beethoven. That does-in-fact makes it timeless.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Michael Smith, and thanks for the advice. You have your subtle powers of observation to thank for the sudden visit from the Secret Service. Oh, what's that? They're already knocking on your door? Then don't make any sudden moves.
Yours,
B.O.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude you are so right! Just consider the lyrics from the Flock of Seagulls hit "I ran": (this is so awesome!!!)

I walked along the avenue.
I never thought Id meet a girl like you;
Meet a girl like you.
With auburn hair and tawny eyes;
The kind of eyes that hypnotize me through;
Hypnotize me through.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldnt get away.

A cloud appears above your head;
A beam of light comes shining down on you,
Shining down on you.
The cloud is moving nearer still.
Aurora borealis comes in view;
Aurora comes in view.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldnt get away.

Reached out a hand to touch your face;
Youre slowly disappearing from my view;
Disappearing from my view.
Reached out a hand to try again;
Im floating in a beam of light with you;
A beam of light with you.

And I ran, I ran so far away.
I just ran, I ran all night and day.
I couldnt get away.

Thanks for posting those.

Did you notice that he sings the end of the second line of each verse twice?

Thanks again. That was awesome.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Wienaren]

"The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music." Something Britney isn't capable of and never will be. QED.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ChameleonDave]

.At the time they recorded, there was nobody better. But since you're listening in 2008, .../p>

Dude, perhaps you should look at the calendar some time.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Kind of like Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, et al? Or do you hear the modern youth bumpin' those classics as they roll down the block? Yeah, man, music is dead all right. Might as well cut off our ears.

No. How about this one? Fuck the modern youth. What did the modern youth ever know?

How about this one? FUCK you. Music is about personal appreciation. If you like it great, if others don't that's fine too. I am 21 and happen to NOT like the beetles, however i do like Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, etc. So just listen to what you like and don't be ignorant.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

High-resolution pics or it didn't happen.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

tell that to the vienna tourist industry. Even the more obscure ones are played on a weekly and sometimes even daily routine, and its usually sold out. Wikipedia is not *that* good at defining our times. In fact you could fill a warehouse with stuff not in the wiki.

Re:Is this that important ?

[mewshi_nya]

I'm not a huge fan of any particular composer. Here's what I'd love to see in a concert:

1) Beethoven - 5th Symphony (All three movements!)
2) Overture from La Gazza Ladra
3) Dvorak's New World Symphony

Those three (I've played all three) are the best orchestra pieces I've ever heard.

Re:Is this that important ?

[TooMuchToDo]

I'm 26 and also live in Chicago. I consider the Beatles classic, classical music classic, and hope that one of my most favorite bands I've traveled the world to see (Nine Inch Nails) will be something my (eventual) children will see as classic because of the style. Deciding if music is "classic" is like deciding if abstract art is "art". It's all up to the viewer/listener.

Re:Is this that important ?

[germansausage]

I always said that England's three great gifts to the world were the Magna Carta, Branston Pickle and Motorhead.

Re:Is this that important ?

[tirefire]

I'm 19. I never met a person in my HS graduating class who didn't know who The Beatles were. Dunno about Sinatra, but EVERYONE around here had at least a few Beatles songs on their iPod/Zune/Whatever.

Oh, except me. I think they're okay but rock n' roll isn't my thing anyway.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Dephex Twin]

Yeah, these kids today are always listening to timeless music by Mozart and Beethoven!

I remember how Mozart's Symphony no. 25 was all the rage when I was in high school.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ari_j]

Like Flock of Seagulls!

Truly timeless, in the most literal of senses.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Swampash]

they perhaps weren't quite talentless, but they were as creative and artistic as Britney Spears Jesus H. Christ, -5 clueless. Have you ever tried TRANSCRIBING a Beatles song?

Re:Is this that important ?

[freyyr890]

Amen.

I'll try not to bore you all with the rant you've heard thousands of times before, but today's music is so... cold. While the advent of MIDI sequencers and cheap pro audio equipment caused a grassroots indie revolution on the internet (Creative Commons/Jamendo), it also allowed the labels to easily produce a single sound. Today's "artists" have very little creative input on their work.

Any idiot can open up one of the many audio editors, lay down a synthesized rhythm track, and make a dance single. Try it yourself. Pop open an editor, get a beat, record some shitty lyrics (you can fix them with a harmonizer, just like the pros), and add tons of distortion and digital effects. Hey, look at that: you have a rap song that sounds just like one of the top 40.

You think with the power of modern synthesized composition, real artists could actually take advantage of the limitless possibilities. Need a 300-member orchestra for a difficult piece? No problem! A good composition program and a nice set of sampled sound and you've got it in a few days' work.

The problem, really, is the labels. There are LOTS of good independent artists and composers out there, who are doing good things with all these new tools. But the mainstream labels seem to stonewall all of them. All we get is dancefloor song after dancefloor song with the same sound.

Of course, the related issue is the conglomerate ownership of radio. I know of very few independent stations left that aren't owned by some massive corporation. In the local radio market where I live up in Canada, we have four main stations. They are/were called Jet, Magic, CBC, and Jump. Jet and Magic are/were both owned by one of the media conglomerates. CBC needs no introduction, as it is the Canadian national public radio service. Jump is a community-licensed, volunteer run station.

So, massive conglomerate decides that Magic (more locally-focused than Jet) is under threat from the community station, Jump. So they shut Magic down, and seek a new license from the CRTC to open a new station.

Now here's the fun part. The CRTC grants the license to the conglomerate. The new station, Sun, has as of now almost entirely eradicated the publicly-accessible community station, which appears will have to shut down. The airwaves are now pumped with top-40 crap, instead of locally produced content. What gets me is that the CRTC WILLINGLY chose to give priority to the station airing music that has ALREADY SATURATED the market, rather than LOCALLY PRODUCED content. The CRTC needs to be shut down and control transferred to Industry Canada, who at least understand the importance of niche radio applications (Canadian HAMs enjoy some of the laxest restrictions in the world).

Whew... now that that's off my chest...

Re:Is this that important ?

[yo_tuco]

"Perhaps timelessness is something only truly proven after a few generations."

Given that the length of a "generation" is commonly defined to be 20 to 25-years (genealogy) and the early works of the Beatles is around 1962, I'd say that criteria has been met. YMMV.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Gerzel]

No they are worth too much. The copyright will be extended...

He who controls the IP controlls the universe!

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh Excuse me, but, who are "The Beatles"?

Re:Is this that important ?

[azenpunk]

you came up with two songs with silly lyrics, one of which really is just a nice simple song not intended to be really about anything (octopuss' garden) and you defend the band that wrote Astronomy Domine? jesus have you listened to any Floyd past the wall and darkside?

they named a song 'several species of small furry animals gathered around in a cave and grooving with a pict.' that alone offsets the weirdness of 'i am the walrus.' sure they were a good band and wrote one of the best albums ever made, but syd went way off his rocker before they got rid of him and alot of the stuff they came up with right after that was really sort of juvenile attempts at lofty 'meaningful' lyrics (you choose the place, i'll choose the time/and i'll climb/that hill in my own way/just wait a while for the right day).

i mean don't get me wrong i love the floyd, i love the beatles, but if you compare the musical arrangements the beatles used with alot of what floyd used, floyd gets kicked up and down the street. sure floyd did a wierd 7/4 signature with 'money', but the beatles used 3 time signatures in 'here comes the sun'.

musically the beatles did alot more interesting thigns i think.

and there are great bands around today, but theres alot of pure crap too. there's phenominal talent in a band like vampire weekend, but then we have to suffer through the pretentiousness of panic at the disco, the mediocrity of paramour, the boringness of nicleback...

in any age though the mediocrity outweighs the brilliance, but the wierdness of 'i am the walruss' doesn't negate the beatles contributions. and octopus's' garden is just a good song, get over it.

i hate to jump down your throat but the treatment you gave the gp was really unjustified.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anzya]

My advice is: Stop buying crappy chocolate!
If you buy high quality chocolate then you will be satisfied with less and can stop thinking about whether it's good for you or not :)

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd also like to point out that Joseph Haydn (a contemporary of Mozart) cranked out literally hundreds (around 400 I believe) "pop" songs - songs that were appreciated by the masses, often about bonney lads and lasses, etc. - but today he is remembered for his string quartets, symphonies (although many of the lower numbered ones are a little dreary), and especially The Creation.

The vast majority of pop music dies. I dunno, maybe the beatles will survive the way jazz from the likes of Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman has, but we just have to wait and see.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Eddi3]

"Interesting observation actually, I think many more modern youth know Frank Sinatra than they do the Beatles."

I think you're dead wrong. I'm 17, and still in high school. *Everybody* knows who the Beatles are. If you mention Frank Sinatra, most of the time you'll get funny looks.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Within you, without you" on Sgt. Pepper is diatonic with Indian instruments and very strong Indian influence. That's not smashing pumpkins.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Vectronic]

No it's not, thats why I said "accorded to the internet masses" rather than just the masses... and for all I know (cause I didnt bother to look) every single Beatles page could have been made by the same person...

Personally I think Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Wagner, etc are, and will remain more prominent in history's eye... but my point was simply that it's not like they only created the music that they are best known for, every one perfect... they made hundreds, occasionally thousands, and generally less than a handful are really remembered, which is pretty much the same as the Beatles, 200+ songs, but everyone only has 4 or 5 favorites... 2 or 3 tend to show up more often... 1 or 2 ends up (possibly) becoming 'timeless'.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Frank Sinatra is pussy-fag music and the later Beatles stuff is where it's at.

> This message is brought to you by todays disaffected youth.

Re:Is this that important ?

[jrumney]

Well, go into any half-decent music shop and I'll bet you find more Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven recordings on the shelf than Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin.

They're all copies, the "originals" (if Beethoven ever conducted his own symphonies, I guess you could call it an original) are unobtainable because they predate recorded music. Wait until the Beatles music goes out of copyright (if the RIAA ever lets it) before you make any comparison.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ketilwaa]

Little-known fact: The Beatles were originally a punk rock band in a sub-genre known as "teddy rock" that was popular in England at the time. They weren't anything like what we remember them. They just got cut a fat check.

How did The Beatles play a sub genre of a music genre that was invented more than a decade later? The Beatles started out in 1960. Punk in the seventies. Punk has influences, like any other genre, but it's hardly the same genre, if genres are supposed to have meaning at all.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ACDChook]

Mike Doughty, Poe, Iron and Wine, Eels

Are you just making names up? I haven't heard of ANY of these people/places/objects/etc...

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

Uncle Frank, is that you?? Aw, Uncle Frank...

Re:Is this that important ?

[DSmith1974]

I doubt that either of those bands would deny the debt they owe to the Beatles.

I would. On the interviews of the 'Led Zeppelin' DVD Jimmy Page politely states that he has a respect for the Beatles but also that they (the Beatles) are doing their thing and LZ are doing theirs - with no overlap and little common heritage. This stems from the fact that the Beatles were originally a skiffle band whereas LZ have a true rock and blues heritage and is likely the reason why every Beatles album has at least one lame track (Octopus' Garden, Revelution #9, etc) whereas LZ never put a foot wrong. Granted, Lennon/McCartney had their fair share of brilliance as tune-smiths, but not in the same league as the staggering improvisation, writing/playing ability and live touring schedule as LZ. The Beatles deserve to be in the Top-10 bands of all time, maybe even the Top-5 - but they don't deserve the undisputed #1 slot that their popular sales have secured them.

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

I won't argue with it at all. It's just not to my taste. For the most part. You strike a nerve with "Ticket to Ride," which is a great song, and even after I posted that post I realized that "And I Love Her" from a year earlier is as sick as all get-out. In fact, both those albums are full of solid stuff.

Re:Is this that important ?

[aussie_a]

Nothing says timeless like I am the walrus.

Re:Is this that important ?

[dunkelfalke]

pink floyd is my favourite band but still, "silly, navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual rubbish, with a good measure of holier-than-thou arrogance" is a good discription of the final cut album.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Turning 21 in February. I agree about your comment about not as much of the mainstream music of this new millenium. I wasn't a big fan of 90's pop either. I do however love the Beatles, so stfu ;)

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about them, aside from the hype that surrounded them.

I'm not particularly a Beatles fan, but wasn't what was significant was that they did that style of music first?

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

Dammit, tell her to give me back all my Beatles records, then!!! That bitch...

Re:Is this that important ?

[Nocterro]

perhaps you should try http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/. its a radio station that doesnt play too much (any?) of the top 40

Triple J does play a little of the top 40 - before it's in the top 40. As a government funded indie broadcaster, they sink a huge amount of their funding into finding and nurturing new music and musicians. One of the few times I'm truly proud of something my country funds.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tl;DR:

"I don't like the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan are good though"

Music is a subjective experience. You can argue that some music is undeniably "better" than other music, such as Mozart being better than the High School Musical soundtrack but if you ask the average 13 year old what they'd rather listen to (ofc there will be exceptions) they'll choose the latter.

Arguing over "great" bands is never going to get a definitive answer "hey guys we've worked it out finally. The Beatles are 6.3% better than Pink Floyd".

Re:Is this that important ?

[PCM2]

Billy Corgan vs. the Beatles? I am baffled at how you can compare a guitar player from the to a guitar player who recorded most of his music decades earlier. You don't really think Corgan was a prodigy who was born with a guitar in his hands, do you? That's like saying you love John Williams' theme to Star Wars, which makes him better than Mozart. You don't have to be "more skilled or special" if you were the guy who invented it and the other guy learned from what you did.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Valdrax]

They're all copies, the "originals" (if Beethoven ever conducted his own symphonies, I guess you could call it an original) are unobtainable because they predate recorded music. Wait until the Beatles music goes out of copyright (if the RIAA ever lets it) before you make any comparison.

Apples and oranges. There's no such thing as a "Mozart cover band," and there never was.

The original musicians are integral to the modern rock experience. Motörhead's "Whiplash" is not Metallica's "Whiplash," and Metallica's "Overkill" is not Motörhead's "Overkill." Classical music, on the other hand, was always intended to be performed by different people across the ages. While the Reiner and the CSO's Debussy is not the same as the performances by Debussy himself, none would dispute that they are still Debussy.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Valdrax]

And I seriously hope no one tries to argue that enough baby boomers are on last.fm to skew the data.

You seriously think that baby boomers still don't know how to use the internet?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

well, no. Mozart is a classic whether you like it or not. Odyssey is a classic even if none of the younger likes it, and endured millennia. Why? Dunno. But stop thinking that only if everybody likes them, that makes a classic of them, and that classic is an abstract concept with no quantitative meaning, purely subjective.

Re:Is this that important ?

[aussie_a]

Do you really think that the only great musicians in all of human history were born in a span of a hundred years?

They're the only ones we know about.

Now might the Beatles one day be considered their equal? Possibly. Although I personally think the people who sung about living in a yellow submarine will be judged as to not qualify. But who knows. Perhaps marijuana will be legalised and everyone will think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Re:Is this that important ?

[aussie_a]

I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?

Because you weren't conducting a survey in a scientific manner? I know one person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Possibly even 2.

I don't pay much attention myself, as anything from the 90s onwards is rubbish.

Re:Is this that important ?

[dov_0]

A few. Three or more. Not just a couple. Will they be around and popular in another 25 years?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf are you saying?

Mozart's new career in Vienna began very well. He performed often as a pianist, notably in a competition before the Emperor with Muzio Clementi, 24 December 1781, and according to the New Grove, he soon "had established himself as the finest keyboard player in Vienna." -- wikipedia

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, let me go one further. The Beatles are to Pink Floyd what Coldplay is to Radiohead: one writes catchier and perhaps more memorable songs than the other, but the other truly composes music rather than coming up with a good tune, and dares to create totally new musical concepts rather than tweaking and refining a reliable formula. I will admit the Beatles went through their creative phases, but your anti-Floyd attack is just stupid.

I merely point you at Tomorrow Never Knows and the song whose lyrics you quoted I Am A Walrus.

Which Floyd are we talking about the one with the mighty Syd "I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like" Barrett or the one with Roger "Us, us, us, us and them, them, them, cos after all we're only ordinary men" Waters?

Nothing wrong with a having a decent tune.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Lars T.]

Er. Uh. I mean. Because today's music is just crap, and kids don't know any better.

So how is that different from any other time in history?

Almost all things only change superficially, and the most constant thing is the belief that "everything was better then".

Re:Is this that important ?

[Timmmm]

"The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music."

Rubbish! The Beatles created a new genre of music. A good one too. Britney Spears just continued the manufactured pop popularised by The Spice Girls.

Re:Is this that important ?

[TheRaven64]

Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. My corollary states that this becomes less true the further in the past you look, since only the things someone judges worth preserving survive into the future.

Take a look at your parents LP collection from the 60s. Most of it isn't bad, but if it was good enough for them to consider buying on LP then it's already in the top percent according to your parents' taste (unless they have a really massive LP collection). Sure, now we can preserve everything, but the stuff that will still be being copied around, or referenced, in a hundred years will be the stuff that people have spent a hundred years telling other people that it's worth listening to.

Re:Is this that important ?

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

I've heard of two of the four, while they're not exactly mainstream and played on the radio, they're not super indie either.

Re:Is this that important ?

[TheRaven64]

Tune in to Radio Paradise (but not the 192Kb/s stream, because it's connection limited, and I'm listening to it). He plays a nice selection of music from the last few hundred years, biased towards recent stuff (i.e. most stuff from the last 10 years, a quite bit from the last fifty, and a the occasional thing from earlier). You might be surprised about how much good music has been produced recently. I was - I've actually started buying music again since listening to it.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it time, you'll like the Beatles. Everyone starts off disliking the Beatles and thinking they're over-rated until they reach the age of about 18-19 and start to discover proper music.

If you can't respect the Beatle's work then you're really out of touch with all they have done.

Re:Is this that important ?

[djfake]

The Beatles will fade into obscurity and/or will become an musicophiliac's thing.

This has to be the most preposterous thing ever posted on /. The Beatles will be the only band from the Rock-N-Roll era that doesn't fade into obscurity. To deny the Beatles, is to deny history.

Re:Is this that important ?

[TheRaven64]

The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music

First, if you can fit Beatles music into a single genre, then you probably haven't listened to much more than their most popular stuff. Secondly, was 'standard pop music' even a genre in 1960? Or is it one defined as 'stuff that sounds like the Beatles?'

I do agree that they're massively overrated. They have some really great songs, like Norwegian Wood, and a lot of trash. The same is true of most of the great composers, who jotted down a huge amount of trash to please various members of the nobility.

Re:Is this that important ?

[danhuby]

I would bet that they will be.

Fashion including music moves in circles, and Beatles-style music has already been back once in the form of Blur/Oasis etc in the 1990s. It's bound to be back again at which point the Beatles name will come up, probably sparking new interest.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Lars T.]

Well, go into any half-decent music shop and I'll bet you find more Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven recordings on the shelf than Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin. So it will be interesting to see how many Beatles CDs there are on the shelves (or whatever the 2038 equivalent is) in, say, 30 years time.

There are over 3000 recorded (cover) versions of "Yesterday". I doubt even "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" or Beethoven's 9th comes close.

Re:Is this that important ?

[u38cg]

In terms of sonic complexity, the Beatles are more interesting from a musical standpoint than Mozart. He was just an expert tunesmith with the ability to set melodies in symphonic structure. Some of the music the Beatles made, particularly around the Sergeant Pepper/White Album period, compares well with Mahler or Philip Glass. It still forms the basis of the popular music that most people listen to today, so just as blues fans will always tend to work their way back to Robert Johnson and his ilk, so most musicians today will acknowledge their debt to the Beatles. Certainly all of the working musicians I know, in various fields, are all Beatles fans and none are quite as ready to dismiss them as some people in this thread are.

Re:Is this that important ?

[mgkimsal2]

I can have a much more personal and ongoing relationship with recorded music than I can a concert experience, however 'religious' or 'moving' that performance may be. And usually, people are performing pieces from an album that many people have already listened to and built a relationship with outside of the concert, and they're bringing that mindset in with them to the performance.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Lars T.]

fair point, but Mozart would not have actually performed his own music so it is not quite the same thing.

Errm, what? Mozart was known as a performer at an age when Britney wasn't even in Mickey Mouse Club, also playing his own pieces.

Re:Is this that important ?

[remmelt]

Look at the rest of the top 10. Seems like a) baby boomers listen to the Beatles only, or b) baby boomers haven't found out about/can't be arsed with the internet/last.fm.

The correct answer is b).

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

... gave everybody in the world orgasms at the same time, they couldn't live up to the hype.

...I'd be willing to give that a try.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Snaller]

"Yeah. Kind of like Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, et al? Or do you hear the modern youth bumpin' those classics as they roll down the block? Yeah, man, music is dead all right. Might as well cut off our ears."

"And FWIW, at 35"

No way you could be 35 and write that rubbish paragraph, more like 16.

Re:Is this that important ?

[dave420]

I thought they were still human/x-female - have they been adopted as a standard yet? Has anyone actually seen one??

Re:Is this that important ?

[jellomizer]

The Beatles would offer a gigantic win for digital music. There are not to many people who hate the Beatles, their music is rather clean in language, you can play it in public without people getting annoyed, you can have it on your iPod and listen threw it without the need to skip it, as some songs you just don't want to hear at different times. Its comfort music to anyone over 30, as their parents played it, and for their parents it is popular music of their day. (The over 30 market is a good market to get, they have money to buy this stuff, and get the nice ones)

Elvis may be more popular, however the Beatles have more of a timeless quality to them.

That is why the fact that they are not going "digital" is bothersome.

Re:Is this that important ?

[commodore64_love]

I was born in 1972; started listening to music in 1987 or so.

I consider the Beatles no more "great" than any other pop music band. Calling the Beatles great, to my mind, is as silly as calling Duran Duran or N'sync great.

Re:Is this that important ?

[commodore64_love]

I'm listening now.

Why is it that the music people recommend as being "superior" to the Top40 stations always sounds like it was intended to hyponotize or put the listener to sleep? So dull.

I like upbeat dance or rock that increases the heartrate. I'd even rather listen to Baroque or Romantic music, which also tends toward a fast tempo. Your so-called "superior" music ranks as not much better than country to my ears.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easily; there are some very good ones out there. The Bootleg Beatles always give a fantastic show. Very authentic! A wonderful way to spend an evening.

Re:Is this that important ?

[LanMan04]

Pink Floyd as some amazingly deep lyrics. Just watch/listen to The Wall. Here's a line from "Goodbye Blue Sky":

"Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter,
When the promise of a brave new world,
Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky?"

Great stuff.

Re:Is this that important ?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Secondly, was 'standard pop music' even a genre in 1960?

Of course it was! Com'on. Have you never heard of Elvis or Buddy Holly from the 1950s? The Beatles just copied them, plus added their own personal twist, and they've admitted such in interviews.

Pop music wasn't born with the Beatles. It goes back quite a ways. Some say 1954 with the birth of rock, but I think it started in the 1920s with Big Band music.

Re:Is this that important ?

[mrscorpio]

You seem to be clouded by what has come SINCE the Beatles, because you cannot analyze the state of music at the time and come to the same conclusion that you did here. Sure, there was some interplay between them and the Beach Boys and Dylan

The simple fact of the matter is that The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix have done more for guitar-based music than anyone ever has, and probably ever will.

Re:Is this that important ?

[jonadab]

Meh. Beatles, Mozart, Britney Spears, ... a bunch of modern drivel. All the best music was written by 1750. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Re:Is this that important ?

[TheRaven64]

The mood depends on the time of day. And if you listen for long enough, you will find he occasionally plays some baroque pieces.

Re:Is this that important ?

[mrscorpio]

And guess who Ozzy says Sabbath owes the greatest debt to - The Beatles!

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they still more popular than Jesus?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So we can't listen to the Beatles' songs online?
http://www.deezer.com/#music/result/all/beatles

Re:Is this that important ?

[Huntr]

I thought the same thing when I bought a copy of the Dark Knight blu-ray. It came with another disk that has a "digital copy" which is intended for the user to put on his pc, ipod, etc. I wondered what I was watching on the blu-ray disk if the other had the "digital copy."

Re:Is this that important ?

[LordKronos]

I agree with you completely. I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out that Pythagoras was an idiot. After all, we currently have below average high school students doing more complex mathematics than he ever did.

The quote "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants" isn't only applicable to sciences.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

and have you asked the same under 30 group if they find Mozart "special"? What's your sample group? Music students, etc?

Not to be a troll, just pointing out the obvious errors in any sample. I know many people in the age range of 20-26 who still listen to the Beatles while studying, or in general, and would say they like quite a few Beatles songs, and the exact opposite for Mozart, etc.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ConceptJunkie]

It was on the edge of my tongue but I couldn't place the context until you finished the line. On one hand, I'm disappointed I didn't get the exact reference right away. On the other hand, it would have bugged me all day.

Thanks.

p.s. I've been listening to digital Beatles for 20 years. Dunno what all the fuss is about... now.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ivan256]

The vast majority of Poe's music was from the '90s.

There has been a ton of good music in this decade too. There just hasn't been very much good "popular" music. A good portion of the altrock/indie rock bands out there make great music, but their style is straight from the mid '90s.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

At my local college campus, I see t-shirts for things like Pink Floyd, Clapton, and the Beatles. I've seen a 12 year old girl with a Led Zeppelin bag a year ago.

I'm a pretty big music fan, and I don't know much about Frank Sinatra besides blue eyes, rat pack, and "I'll have it my way".

Moral of the story, people will always like good music to get stoned to :)

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, Marlene Dietrich was "timeless", now most people don't even know who she was, same goes for people like von Braun, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Marlon Brando etc. etc. All very well known, all very timeless, all almost unknown of amongst the modern youth.

That is because their artwork is not public domain, and is hardly published anymore. They are destined for obscurity.

And I would say the Beatles are far beyond Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. They all had a defining effect on the music of their period (and following periods), but unlike the others, the Beatles were capable of playing the music they wrote (yes I know, unfair comparison. Bite me). However, in my opinion none of them are near the musicality displayed by Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, Clare Fischer or Bill Evans.

Moral of the story: defining artists in popular culture will always remain popular, even if their musical skills are not among the best of their time.

[/flamebait]

Re:Is this that important ?

[ConceptJunkie]

Also, strangely enough, I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?

If you're referring to popular music, no question: It sucks.

However, as someone who is 43, if I were to rate my Top N favorite albums of all time, probably 40% of them would be from the 2000s... but not anything you'd ever hear on the radio (except maybe occasionally on some odd channels on satellite). There's just as much "good" music being made as there always was, if not more, but the media hegemony has almost completely walled it off from the traditional outlets (radio, etc).

Despite my broad interests in music (rock, progressive, blues, jazz, electronic), the only radio that I care to listen to is talk, classical and the occasional program on public radio.

I've heard that average radio station has a playlist of some 400 songs. My Neuros II has about 13000 songs (all legally acquired, mind you). What would _you_ choose?

Re:Is this that important ?

[andrewirwin]

You had a CD in 1979?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Critical Facilities]

There are over 3000 recorded (cover) versions of "Yesterday". I doubt even "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" or Beethoven's 9th comes close.

Yeah, you're probably right.

*Disclaimer: I'm a big Beatles fan, but I had to take issue with that statement.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right about people over-exaggerating the "digital" concept, but there's another thing everyone has ignored: I don't know about now, the bootleg "Dr Ebbet's" CDs are noticeably superior to the Beatles Anthology CDs. The anthology ones used tape sources, while Dr Ebbets used vinyl sources.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ConceptJunkie]

The irony of the Beatles' music was that while so much of it sounded simple, it was much more complex that it seemed. In fact, I've found it's an incredible and rare talent to make complex music, but it's even more incredible and rare to make complex music that doesn't sound complex. It works on more levels for more people, and I think that's one of the reasons why people (including me) revere the music of the Beatles as much as they do:

They broadened the boundaries of "pop" music incredibly, helping to lay much of the groundwork for music of the next decade, and at the same time were sowing the seeds for the "art rock" progressive music movement that also thrived in the 70s.

Plus they had neat haircuts.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Remus Shepherd]

I *almost* agree with you. I know of two reasons to put the Beatles on a pedestal above most pop music.

One is their level of skill. You may not be impressed with their guitar work, but it has to be said that the Beatles were, at the time, the top of the game in songwriting, concert performance, and coordination between the band members.

Two is the innovation of the 'Wall of sound'. The Beatles were one of the groups that pioneered this technique and they showcased it brilliantly. But that had little to do with the band, it was the work of their producer.

So yes, the Beatles deserve to be highlighted in the annals of music history. Not as much as some people do, but they deserve more recognition than the average pop group.

Re:Is this that important ?

[omeomi]

Okay, so I over-exaggerated...

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of bullshit. The Beatles sucked. They made simplistic music aimed at teenage girls.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... don't even hint at the possibility that [The Beatles] might be timeless ....

Hell, Marlene Dietrich was "timeless", now most people don't even know who she was, same goes for people like von Braun, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Marlon Brando etc. etc. All very well known, all very timeless, all almost unknown of amongst the modern youth.

What a specious argument. Timelessness is not defined by the appreciation/knowledge of unwashed masses but rather by selection and appreciation of those in the field. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Thoreau, Dickenson, etc are timeless not because generation X/Y/Z are running out to purchase their works, but rather because scholars recognize that their works provide a substantial shift or influence in the culture. We call these popular milestones "classics" or more specifically "timeless classics" if their message is as applicable today as it was when it was written. There will always be a group which includes these historical landmarks in their canon - like Beethoven, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, Sid Vicious, Lou Reed, Madonna etc; The Beatles contribution and popularization of Pop Rock and experimentation with musical styles is indeed "timeless." A failure to recognize the significance of their contribution and the foundation it provides for todays music does not point to a lack of timelessness on its part but rather a lack of perspective on the part of the listener.

I think you will find that in todays hard economic times, an appreciation of "the Tramp" (Chaplin) and the Marx brothers will experience a resurgence as their depression era message is as important today as it was ~70 years ago. The fact that the mass of future generations may not know about Keaton, Dietrich, Einstein, Oswald the rabbit, etc does not make their contributions any less significant... especially when those in the know can see their influence in the works of Jim Carrey, Mickey mouse, Oppenheimer, etc.

Finally, I doubt the Beatles will ever completely fall out of the collective memory, since kids still learn and love to sing them: Octopus's Garden, I wanna hold your hand, yellow submarine, all you need is love, etc.

Re:Is this that important ?

[jddj]

Britney Spears has something in common with Mozart and Beethoven: No one has heard any of them perform live music.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Shimmer]

Yes! Radio Paradise is a great source of new music.

Re:Is this that important ?

[secretcurse]

You've obviously never listened to Sgt Pepper's. The Beatles were special musically. They were the first band to make a concept album. That's an issue of fact, not of taste. I'll go ahead and argue that Paul is just about the most melodic bass player of the last 50 years, and the Beatles wrote some of the catchiest tunes ever. Why do you think most people know something by Mozart and fewer people know music by Haydn? They worked about the same time, Haydn was probably more famous during his life, and he lived longer. But, Mozart wrote catchier melodies. Haydn was probably a "better" composer because he developed his ideas better and it's amazing to see the way he could turn a single musical idea into an interesting symphony. But everyone remembers Mozart because he wrote catchy melody after catchy melody.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Frank Sinatra is pussy-fag music and the later Beatles stuff is where it's at.

Lies, slander and calumny!

Sinatra in his prime could have drunk all four Beatles under the table (sequentially), then sung his 3 sets, picked up the hottest woman in the club and taken her home!

Re:Is this that important ?

[HBI]

Robert Plant's LYRICS were pompous and self-indulgent perhaps. 26 minutes of "Dazed and Confused" perhaps also. Jimmy Page's heroin habit was rather self-indulgent too.

But leave the music alone, in general. Page and Jones (Baldwin), between them, were responsible for many of the non-Beatles hits of the 1960s while playing sessions/arranging during that timeframe. What they did with Zeppelin was much, much better.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

My friends and I like to call 'em

"Flock of Hairdos"

Re:Is this that important ?

[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

Most of the time, real timelessness correlates inversely with awareness "amongst the modern youth".

Sounds a little insulting at first, but it's only logical if you bother to think about it.

Young people are better with fads. Again sounds insulting at first, but is only logical.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Dripdry]

What are you getting at precisely? I can see a couple of things you might be trying to say:
Are you implying that a personal experience is the only worthwhile one? Do group experiences somehow not count as building up an experience surrounding something?

Is it a problem that when people come together they all have pre-built relationships with something? Does it someone make one's own experience less genuine? I don't want to put words in your mouth, though.

The same could be said of ANYTHING in the world that people come together in any group to enjoy, ever. People find something they like and develop a personal relationship (interest) with it, then they come together to enjoy it. That's what friendships are based on (though perhaps the relationships are formed around ideas or values that each person finds agreable instead of just music, for instance).

Or are you saying that I already went into that concert preconditioned to see it as a moving experience? I posit that I was rather underwhelmed by the people around us, by our seats, and was rather wary of the whole thing once we got there and things got started, so I'm not sure I was totally primed to have some sort of high-minded experience. I think it hit me when around the 3nd song in the concert some kid got up in the middle of the floor of the opera house seats and just started dancing. He finally walked out into the aisle and just went nuts. None of the perfectly dressed ushers stopped him. Soon he had a group around him, then it became the whole front of the stage that was filled, and suddenly the entire floor seemed to get up and start grooving and shaking and dancing. I'd never seen anything like it at any concert.

Maybe it was just one person that was primed to have that kind of experience and it spread to others?
Were there more people who went in with a prec-conceived notion and, being white and stuffy, they only needed a catalyst like a line of dominoes?

I'd like to understand what you're getting at.

Re:Is this that important ?

[EugeneK]

Sir Lawrence Olivier! Who could forget his timeless Hamlet? (Well I hear it was pretty good anyway.)

Re:Is this that important ?

[nesstopher]

Snot and bogey pie. Dead dogs giblets. Green cats eye. Spread it on bread. Spread it on thick. Wash it all down with a cold cup of sick.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, go into any half-decent music shop and I'll bet you find more Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven recordings on the shelf than Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin. So it will be interesting to see how many Beatles CDs there are on the shelves (or whatever the 2038 equivalent is) in, say, 30 years time. I'd bet that many 'kids' will perhaps listen to a best of, a few will delve deeper, and most will have heard 1 or 2 songs, mostly those that the band and rights holders seem to kindly license to advertisers.

This is akin to saying more people vote for American Idol than vote for the President of the US.

Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven are all in the public domain so no corporate entity can suppress these recordings.

However the work of the Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin all have corporate ties, be it the RIAA member corporations, or even the songwriter's own publishing corporation. Which can work in concert to suppress any new recording of their work.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

And it was dripping, not drinking.

Still, to this day I've never heard any musician utter the words "prison reform" since John Lennon.

(Have you? I hope to be corrected by young people or anyone more aware than I am.)

The whole social revolution of the 60's is tremendously tied together with the Beatles. It was actually
considered much cooler to be idealistic then, than to be cynical and ironic! Growing up today, I can understand
how some might see the Beatles in the same light as, say, Barney the Dinasaur, producing a similar knee-jerk
rejection.

One of those multi-decade-long pendulum things. Hope it's started back the other way!

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if they gave everyone unlimited bong hits 4 Jesus at the same time? Would that push it over the top?

Re:Is this that important ?

[morcego]

Please raise your hand if you failed to notice the point of this article (being on slashdot) is to point another example of flawed copyright law and our inability to get music for free (a reasonable time after release).

Re:Is this that important ?

[Threni]

Hey, it beats under-exaggerating!

Re:Is this that important ?

[ultranova]

Pop music is like chocolate: it may taste really good, but in the back of your mind, you know it's bad for you.

Chocolate, coffee and wine are all good for you, as long as they're used within reason. The voice in your head telling you' they're bad is actually trying to kill you ;).

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are quite wrong. The difference between the Beatles and Smashing Pumpkins is that the Beatles did a wide variety of music. First. A long time ago. That makes it original. The reason the music from the early rock era is venerated isn't because it's better (there is a lot of great sounding music today) but because it was original and new.

Edison made this light bulb thing, it pretty much sucked compared to my LED flashlight though.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's: Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye. Which makes perfect sense as an image.

Re:Is this that important ?

[SoupGuru]

You're one of those people that can break down music into its components and pick over them critically... you can explain the technique involved... you could explain music theory till dawn... but you sometimes forget that music is about emotion, feeling, and soul. "Cobain was a hack and could barely play guitar!" Yeah, but his music *meant* something to a lot of people and that's what matters. Same with the Beatles.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Codger]

In terms of sonic complexity, the Beatles are more interesting from a musical standpoint than Mozart. He was just an expert tunesmith with the ability to set melodies in symphonic structure.

My god, this is wrong on so many levels that I can't even begin to respond. I love the Beatles - they were among the most creative and sophisticated artists of modern times - but the sophistication and depth of their music does not compare with Mozart.

Tunesmith? Philistine!

Re:Is this that important ?

[vic-traill]

The Beatles wrote straight-up, standard pop music. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about them, ... [ snip ] ..., but they aren't really any more skilled or special than, say, Smashing Pumpkins.

I'm being constructive here ... take the time, read one of Alan Pollack's Notes On ... Series, say 'Strawberry Fields Forever' at http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/sff.shtml, listen to the song, and then point me at one of Billy's songs that is 'particularly noteworty' in comparison.

Or maybe you just dig S.P.'s more that the Beatles ... if so, that's fine. Then let's talk about it in that context.

But there is nothing 'straight-up' or 'standard' about SFF. It's a fucking cool song and it is innovative, sophisticated and was ground-breaking in many different ways.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's not like we're talking Aerosmith here..."

And Aerosmith's first big hit was "Come Together"... a Beatles cover.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, oh dear, I cannot begin to tell you how unutterably wrong you are.

Beatles more interesting than Mozart? Cmopares well to Mahler or Philip Glass?

The fact that you think Glass is fit to be mentioned in the same phrase as Mahler undermines your entire argument.

Don't misunderstand: I think the Beatles were fabulous.

Buit let's keep things in proportion.

Re:Is this that important ?

[ojustgiveitup]

Funny, I've been reading this thread thinking that I would have to post about Bob Dylan if nobody else did. He's the first artist who should have been discussed, as he is the only one in any of the (many) comparison posts in this thread who was both a contemporary of the Beatles and substantially better than them, both musically and music-historically. Having said that, just because there are people who were/are better/more important doesn't mean that the Beatles aren't also those things. It's analog, not binary, like everything in real life outside the shiny metal magic-boxes on our desks.

Re:Is this that important ?

[cynical kane]

Uh? The Wall of Sound was used, without their apparent consent, on their very last album which is dwarfed by the shadow of Abbey Road.

Wikipedia on Get Back:

The album is presented in a form which is purported to be closer to The Beatles' original artistic vision: to "get back" to the rock 'n' roll sound of their early years[1] rather than the orchestral overdubs and embellishments which were added by Phil Spector in the production of the final Let It Be album. Paul McCartney in particular was always dissatisfied with the "Wall of Sound" production techniques that had been employed on the Phil Spector remixes, especially for his song "The Long and Winding Road," which he believed was ruined by the process.[1] George Harrison gave his approval for the ...Naked project before he died.[2] McCartney's attitude contrasted with Lennon's from over two decades earlier. In his September 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon had defended Spector's work, saying "He was given the shittiest load of badly-recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something of it."

In other words, didn't come from any Beatle.

(Side note: the combination of misinformation, lies, and musical ignorance in this thread makes me want to cry. I majored in composition, and am extensively familiar with the Beatles, music history, and classical music, and it seems that half the "+5 Insightful" comments here are not only dead wrong but arrogant ranting trash... Your random musical tastes do not constitute music-historical inquiry, sorry, guys.)

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Hell, my Body Odor is calling the Secret Service on me now? All I did was threaten to shower. I know it's against the slashdot credo to bathe, but I didn't think my own BO would turn against me.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Chosen Reject]

Last night on my way home work, I was hearing nothing but commercials on all the stations I normally listen to. I got fed up with it and thought I would rather listen to just about anything else than to listen to commercials so I started hitting the seek button. After hearing a few top 40 songs, I switched back to the commercials.

I'm no music aficionado, but when commercials sound better than the music, then you know there are some serious issues with the music.

Re:Is this that important ?

[IMightB]

Yeah,

I went to see the Fray at the Gothic Theater in Denver the other night. I had never really been exposed to any of their stuff other than the 3-4 songs that I heard on the radio. I must say this. If you have them on the radio, then you've pretty much heard what every song they have sounds like. They may know how to play music, they sounded good, but they definately could not go out of the 3-4 chords and key they already know.

There was one exception that was refreshing in an odd, hey this sounds different, kind of way, and I don't know the name of the song. They (Fray) self-described it as "the bumping song".

By halfway through the show I was definately getting tired of the lead singers Whiney voice.

Whether this is the Labels influence or not, I don't know.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Chosen Reject]

That actually was the exact opposite for me. I was born in the late 70s but grew up on 50s and 60s music cause that's all my parents liked. I grew up on the Beatles. Then there was that whole anthology thing which allowed me to hear even more of their stuff. That was when I realized that they had maybe 2-3 decent songs each album, and the rest was filler. Later, I learned that was what almost all bands were/are like. First album that I liked every song on was Nevermind. In fact, I can't think of one song from Nirvana that I didn't like, and that includes Endless, Nameless . Before anyone brings it up, I realize Cobain was very influenced by the Beatles.

Re:Is this that important ?

[IMightB]

I love the Eels, they're the band I turn to to wallow in sorrow and self-pity. Really a very good band after you've been dumped or something bad happens. Plus they sound *great* Live.

Re:Is this that important ?

[yo_tuco]

Time will tell.

Re:Is this that important ?

[real gumby]

Look I'm sorry but The Beatles are nowhere NEAR Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and the likes.

I agree with the "Beethoven and the like" part, but Mozart really was the Lennon & Mccartney of his time, or as I actually think of him, the Christina Aguilera of his time. Largely pop and incidental music. Yes, he did write a significant requiem but it's not much compared with much of the work of Bach and Beethoven (who, to be fair, also wrote incidental music).

Re:Is this that important ?

[bluefoxlucid]

One big stupid family.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Just Some Guy]

Also, strangely enough, I can't find a single person above 15 who likes 2000's music. Why is that?

Maybe because you hang around with a bunch of fossils who aren't aware that people are still making music? I'm 37 but like My Chemical Romance, Dropkick Murphys, The Fratellis, and some others. Sure, 99% of stuff on the local Top 40 station totally sucks, just as it always has (I'll see your "White Album" and raise you a "Purple People Eater"). That doesn't mean it's all bad.

Re:Is this that important ?

[aldwin]

The Beatles will still be popular in the 26th century ...

Cry baby cry, make your mother sigh ....

Re:Is this that important ?

[gknoy]

the first new music that was really compelling to me in my teenage years was Suicidal Tendencies, GBH, the Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat. Then I discovered Metallica and Slayer, and I ran in that direction. Then one day somebody played me a Black Sabbath record from the 1970s. My reaction? It's crap. It sounds like crap, it's too slow, it's not "heavy," the singing is weak and silly. Well, look -- I was wrong. And really not a single one of those bands I mentioned would have come around had it not been for Black Sabbath.

So... initially, you'd experienced works by artists who were heavily influenced (and may never have existed without) Black Sabbath. When you heard Black Sabbath, you were unimpressed. What were you wrong about? Do you like Sabbath now, and if so, what made your opinion change? Is it merely respect for their ground-breaking actions, or do you actually enjoy the music now?

I ask this because I have no experience with the bands. (Well, I enjoy Metallica and some more recent metal bands.) It sounds remarkably similar to this hypothetical situation: "I'd been programming all my life in Java and Python, and then someone showed me Assembler. It sucked - it was too detail-oriented, and didn't let me abstract enough... I was wrong." I'll admit that I don't enjoy coding in assembler (and wouldn't consider myself skilled), but I can respect it on its merits, and understand its role in the evolution of programming languages. But, does that make an initial dislike of it wrong? (A little, I think... but it's not like it's completely unfounded.)

Back to music. If someone comes up with radical new ideas, which others build upon to build awesome stuff, does that make their work inherently awesome? I don't think it does. It might be that their ideas were excellent, but the execution was flawed, or the technology wasn't around to leverage it fully. I'm not trying to claim that Black Sabbath's work is crap. :) Just trying to understand if your present appreciation is due to intellectual recognition of their formative role, or due to actual enjoyment of the music (... though, I'm not sure if one can really separate those). (As a counterexample, I recognize the Beatles' formative role in musical history and culture, but haven't really heard anything that I would want to actively listen to.)

Re:Is this that important ?

[blueZ3]

But when those people whom it "meant something to" are all gone, will their music still be considered worth listening to? When all the 60-70 YO Beatles fans die off, will there be lots of people saying that they made amazing music?

I don't have a strong sense of this one way or the other. After all, the cult of Elvis seems to have lived on, and that started 10 years before the cult of the Beatles.

My point is merely that the idealistic people who were listening to the Beatles while stoned probably have a different view of them than people who grew up since (or who will come well after the dew is off the rose).

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half of them are near Mozart, and Bach, etc. The other half will be much closer one they're laid to rest as well. You see, the famous dead musician argument is an elaborate ruse cooked up by the government to keep hippies and geeks so embroiled in discussion that they seldom remember the bands they're defending are usually from different genre's.By the time they figure out they're arguing about apples and oranges, they pass out from the high levels of THC in the air. After words, they find themselves eating the apples and oranges. The sad, cruel reality is that no work got done that day. The trash didn't get taken out. The laundry didn't get done. No one fed the baby... THE BABY! OH NO! THE BABY!

Now the baby's dead because someone got high and argued about classic rock vs. classical music on the internet all day with people he'll never meet, and has no interest in meeting now that he's forgotten about all that and is currently passed out in a barca lounger in the hotel lobby of some run down, South American brothel/mojito stand. What he doesn't see, is the real danger in the air. As he dozes off... he thinks he sees an old girlfriend, and casually, he attempts to follow her into her upstairs suite. They get to the room. She makes him a mojito. Slowly, and sensually, they finish their drinks. He takes off his clothes... follows her into the bathroom. The passion is in the air. Ah, but he's high, and tired from whining about shit that doesn't matter on the internet. Before he knows what hit him, he wakes up in a bathtub full of ice, in what can now be labled, "the sleaziest Tijuana whorehouse that ever stood." "Where are my kidneys," he asks, before passing out again, from a mix of pain, and blood loss.

Amen.

Someone please submit this Xkcd. It'd be funny.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

All that shows are the group of people who listen to the Beatles ONLY listen to the Beatles. The other Last.fm people have more diverse and cultured tastes.

If I set my music player to constantly loop, say, Paul van Dyk then of course it will show more plays for him even though I am only one person listening to one musician.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, sorry for showing my age too much, but... Who will still be popular in the 26th century? Are we talking about one of those old bands?

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

it has. hell dank prices dropped to 120/ounce today. It's the market's biggest fall since the Berlin Wall.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, go into any half-decent music shop and I'll bet you find more Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven recordings on the shelf than Beatles, Floyd and Zeppelin." -

Not exactly true - what you will find are hundreds of recordings of the same 50 most well known works by those composers.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Alarindris]

I'd ask my friends to come and see An octopus' garden with me I'd like to be under the sea In an octopus' garden in the shade.

Yeah quote The Beatles worst song. Here's one from Floyd.

Doctor doctor!
I'm in bed
Achin' head
Gold is lead
Choke on bread
Underfed
Gold is lead
Jesus bled
Pain is red
Are goon
Grow go
Greasy spoon
You swoon
June bloom

What a gem!

Semolina Pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower. Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna. Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe. I am the eggman, they are the eggmen, I am the walrus, goo goo gajoob ga goo goo gajoob (rhythmical speaking along with juba's). Juba juba juba, juba, juba, juba, juba, juba, juba juba. Juba juba..... (speaking)

This was SPECIFICALLY written to be nonsense. John heard that kids in English classes were analyzing Beatles songs. Analyze that, he said.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org./article.pl

Nothing to see on slashdotdotorgdotslash. Please move along.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

shouldn't it be human/xx-female?

Re:Is this that important ?

[toddestan]

Dunno, they just don't seem all that special and most other people under 30 that I ask also seem to agree.

One thing about being young is that you get to hear The Beatles alongside all those other bands that emulated The Beatles. In that sense, they don't seem all that special, because they sound just like a lot of other bands from that era. What you're missing is first-hand experience how they broke new ground and changed music. I was the same way about The Dead Kennedys - to me they were just another punk band so I didn't really get why they were so special until I read up and found out that they were one of the pioneers of the whole scene. A movie example would be Star Wars (the 1977 one) - to some it's another Sci Fi movie with a somewhat tried-and-true formula, but they are missing out on how completely different it was than everything else prior to it.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah yeah... Britney Spears is the greatest. We get it!

Re:Is this that important ?

[hairyfeet]

Maybe that should be an Article on Slashdot: Music we wish would just go away already. Allow me to give mine to start. The Beatles(played to death),Lynyrd Skynyrd (those of you like me in the south can relate),Led Zep(please take your mystic crap and go away), Pink Floyd(stoners ruined them), Patsy Cline(waitresses in C&W bars thinking they can hit that damned note in "I fall to pieces" NO YOU CAN'T!).

I'm sure there are some I missed, so please feel free to fill in the gaps. Notice this does NOT include those damned "one hit wonders" that always get played until you want to hunt down the morons that wrote them and choke them to death, those would probably fill a book the size of War & Peace.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he meant that they were punks (by the old definition) who happened to be in a rock band, not punk rock.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That might have been kinda funny if he hadn't already moved to Washington, and it would have helped to spell his name correctly.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 28 and recently watched the Led Zeppelin video of their live shows, and it has a 1970 interview where they are asked about the Beatles. Jimmy Page, Plant both have nothing but praise and respect for them, which is cool.

Pink Floyd members have spoken out numerous times over the years about their debt and their fondness for the Beatles... they learned how to play by listening to and learning to play Beatles songs.

No matter what you think of any of these bands, or their music, it's just my two cents worth of factual info into the mix... process it as you wish.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Lord Flipper]

So in order for something to be timeless, it has to be under the genre of classical and predate the 20th century?

No. His "idea" was even more absurd: That "timeless" has something to do with "youth" being familiar with it.

I hate to break it to people, but the only music that "matters" wasn't necessarily performed, originally, for the entertainment of the ruling class. The Beatles, whether one loves them or not, completely turned the notion of the Pop music "model", being written by one group (the Brill Building songwriting partnerships) and recorded by "for hire" singers, on its head, forever.

The Sixties also saw new styles and whatnot in Jazz and the interpretation of "Classical" pieces (Pierre Boulez's recordings of Stravinsky, being one beautiful example).

Predicting, today, what will be "timeless" in a century or two from now is a fool's errand.

I love Mozart and Bach (and hundreds of others) also. But the idea that Lennon/McCartney's reworkings of Pop and expansion of the music will perish with the passing of the Baby Boomers?

Please.

Speaking of "timeless," the original poster reminded me that "Ignorance can be dealt with, but "stupid" is forever." There's his "timeless" after all. :)

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eckkk!!!!!!!! Dude!!!!! STFU already. I started to read your complaint about fanboy dreck that you wrote... after a few sentences, I stopped, clicked reply and all I have to tell you is: Quit whining! I think you don't know much and you're too emo about what you do know... stop whining over spilled milk.

Re:Is this that important ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And P.S. my last girlfriend's favorite band was the Beatles, and she was 21.

Dude! That's like over a *decade* since you've been laid.

Re:Is this that important ?

[dn15]

Give it time, you'll like the Beatles. Everyone starts off disliking the Beatles and thinking they're over-rated until they reach the age of about 18-19 and start to discover proper music.

If you can't respect the Beatle's work then you're really out of touch with all they have done.

I respectfully disagree. I liked the Beatles when I was in high school, but as I moved through my twenties I changed my mind. I can still enjoy Sergeant Pepper from time to time, but I can't stand listening to much else the Beatles or its members did. To me it sounds just as contrived saccharine as today's pop music, just a different style so people get away with being nostalgic about it.

Re:Is this that important ?

[dov_0]

Fashion including music moves in circles, and Beatles-style music has already been back

Not a bad point. IMHO however, Beatles style music will be far more impacting on the general public rather than specific Beatles songs, which will stay more and more with enthusiasts.

In the end, like many "timeless" artists, the Beatles will mostly be known for one or at the most, two or three songs. Like Vivaldi (Four Seasons) and Pachelbel (Canon). They wrote heaps more music, but the general public would only really recognize the one piece from each.

Re:Is this that important ?

[bigredpaul]

Frank Sinatra was a narcissist and ridiculous. He never took the time to understand what the songs were about. A truly great singer, like Tony Bennett or k.d. lang, for instance, is one who sings in service to the song. Sinatra sang a song in service to himself. And while the sound of his voice is lovely, his singing is wretched. I can't stand to listen to him.

The Old-Fashioned Way

[MightyMait]

Recently, Paul McCartney said negotiations to get the Fab Four onto iTunes had âoestalled,â leaving some fans more than a little ticked that they still have to listen to the band the old-fashioned way.

What's "the old-fashioned way"? Bit-Torrent?

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[RuBLed]

Recently, Paul McCartney said negotiations to get the Fab Four onto iTunes had Ãoestalled,Ã leaving some fans more than a little ticked that they still have to listen to the band the old-fashioned way.

I interpreted that as an official statement from the fake Paul McCartney saying that the fans should listen to the band the old-fashioned way as a tribute to the late real Paul McCartney.

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[MichaelSmith]

Standing on the street outside apple studios.

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[ceebee]

Recently, Paul McCartney said negotiations to get the Fab Four onto iTunes had âoestalled,â leaving some fans more than a little ticked that they still have to listen to the band the old-fashioned way.

What's "the old-fashioned way"? Bit-Torrent?

at a concert you dolt.

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[Fallingcow]

Seriously.

I guess my complete discography in MP3 form is "old-fashioned".

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[davebarnes]

BitTorrent works for me. It comes in FLAC.

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[ColdWetDog]

I guess my complete discography in MP3 form is "old-fashioned".

It certainly is. If you were up on things it would be in OGG or FLACC.

Face it, you're a Neanderthal.

Re:The Old-Fashioned Way

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, good old Bill Shears. Still going strong is he?

Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Anonymous Coward]

For a group closely associated with peace, love and everything good about 60s and 70s counterculture, the Beatles (and their heirs/hangers on/rights holders) certainly seem to behave like craven corporate shills.

Personally I find them to be tremendously overrated too, and not a patch on many of their contemporaries (Pink Floyd, Dylan, Hendrix, The Animals, etc etc etc). Sgt Peppers was rather good though.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Tuidjy]

I do not see how the above is flamebait. Wrong, may be, but flamebait?

I also like most of Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix better than almost all of the Beatles' songs. There's no accounting for taste. Pink Floyd are not really contemporaries, though. They were just getting going when the Beatles broke up.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the group that forced the Beatles to rethink how to make an album (everyone else as well)...

The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson specifically.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Lysdestic]

Mod parent insightful... Geez, flamebait?

I've wondered the same thing. The sixties were all about being against "The Man", yet, as the parent said, the people in charge of the music are being corporate shills.

You mods would do well to note that some of the best insight comes from people that disagree with you.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Anonymous Coward]

They were just getting going when the Beatles broke up.

On the contrary, the Beatles per se only existed from 1960, and Pink Floyd was formed in 1965.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[bluefoxlucid]

Since when are artists in charge of their music?

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering Michael Jackson owns the Beatles, I'd place the blame on him.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[mgkimsal2]

Yet it was the bastardized US Rubber Soul that Wilson credits with blowing his mind as to how all the tracks 'themed' together, and that spurred him on to Pet Sounds.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[pintpusher]

Pink Floyd was really two bands though. one with Syd Barrett and one without. The Pink Floyd most people are familiar with (post Syd) didn't really get going until the very late 60's and really hit their stride in the early-mid 70's. The point is that it's a common mistake for people to think Floyd didn't really exist much before about '70.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[east coast]

Just because others didn't know about Floyd pre-Gilmour is no reason to dismiss that era of their history. This was the foundation of the band and I'm sure it made one hell of a difference to them.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[east coast]

I'd like to point out that Pink Floyd pre-dates Hendrix. I know it's a common misconception (we discussed it a bit down thread) but it's still important to note.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[kimvette]

Three bands. Don't forget the post-Waters era. Good stuff, they captured the Pink Floyd sound - and dare I say it - "feel" but that is mostly due to the chemistry between Gilmour and the late Wright. the final cut is an oddity, as it was basically a solo Waters album released under the Pink Floyd name, and Waters intended for it to be Pink Floyd's "final cut" - the album name was a pun on the album's theme and his desire to end the band over petty disputes.

Now as far as the early days go (pre-Saucerful, and pre-piper when they were still looking for a permanent band name) they got into progressive music (in fact they pioneered it) they were looking to replicate what they thought bands here were doing. They really did not know they were pioneering new sounds.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[pintpusher]

Absolutely! *I'm* certainly not dismissing any part of their history.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[thetoadwarrior]

You're right that the remain people are complete tools but the Beatles music was beyond exceptional.

There's no reason to hate on Lennon's talent just because he married a greedy woman or because Paul is being the tit he always was.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[thetoadwarrior]

The Beach Boys got their talent out of a cereal box.

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[gknoy]

Personally I find them to be tremendously overrated too, and not a patch on many of their contemporaries

While I am not really a fan of their music (nor do I know a lot about it), I will share that my father -- who has always loved playing guitar -- told me that the chord progressions they used were much more complex (perhaps novel? I don't know/remember) than many others that preceded them. He felt they innovated, musically speaking.

He might be wrong, but he's my dad, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt there. ;)

Re:Peace and love and the most overrated band ever

[Anonymous Coward]

The Beatles would have been nothing without George Martin in the control room, as much as the Pink Floyd without Alan Parsons.
There are often a lot of invisible and unknown people involved in the success of otherwise completely normal bands.

Paul and Ringo loose out

[grapeape]

The only ones hurt by the Beatles not being on iTunes and other services are the remaining members. Those that want the Beatles either rip their own cd's or just snag them from torrents. Led Zeppelin finally relented, Pink Floyd gave in, I just find it amazing that a band that embraced technology in its heyday is now completely terrified by it.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Threni]

I don't think the surviving Beatles own the rights to the music any more anyway. Paul McCartney pays Michael Jackson whenever he plays a Beatles song live. It's odd, though.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. Have you noticed how Beatles albums have always been marked up $3-4 over new CD's, never mind the $8 or so you expect to pay for back catalogues?

I'm sure they want to protect their premium, but I'm not sure any digital retailer (particularly iTunes) wants to mark up each tune by 25%, just for the Beatles.

I've never been sure how they've got away with this for so long. The day they come down to parity with other albums I swear I'll by the entire back catalog.

http://tinyurl.com/72qy75

vs.

http://tinyurl.com/7kmthh

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[AttillaTheNun]

It's the label, not the band that is holding things up. The Beatles (only 2 of which are still living) have nothing to do with it.

Given Paul McCartney has left his major label, explicitly calling them out as out-of-touch with the current digital reality, I'd say he's less than terrified by technology.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

The only ones hurt by the Beatles not being on iTunes and other services are the remaining members.

I don't think they're going to be hurt.

The Beatles have the biggest selling back catalogue in the world. The #2 seller AC DC are also not on iTunes.

Both bands think they make more money selling Albums than singles & selling singles on iTunes would cannibalise their album sales.

Not sure if I agree or not, but they've certainly got numbers (huge album sales) on their side.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Lifyre]

You do realize that while Jackson owns the rights to publish most of the Beatles songs (all but 4) this in no way shape or form effects Paul McCartney when he performs.

No artist pays another artist for performing their song live. So Paul McCartney doesn't pay MJ a penny. The only people who do are those that publish the songs (most commercials, tv shows, movies, etc...). So please don't spout blatant lies people may believe you. Or hell just check snopes before you type.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[mattack2]

To be specific, this is the article that the GP should check out and thoroughly understand before he starts spouting off like that again
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/jackson.asp

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[rob1980]

Given Paul McCartney has left his major label, explicitly calling them out as out-of-touch with the current digital reality, I'd say he's less than terrified by technology.

Especially considering you can buy something like 40 albums with his name on them on iTunes. It's not him, it's the ownership of the music from his previous band.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[fishbowl]

>It's the label, not the band that is holding things up.

Isn't it whoever attached Michael Jackson's estate?

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[AmberBlackCat]

So what does ASCAP do?

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[rundgren]

And also considering Paul McC's new project is sold without DRM in a choice between mp3, FLAC and Apple Lossless from his own site: http://www.thefiremanmusic.com/purchase

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[zrq]

Wow !! I had no idea. This is an excellent album, thank you for that.

One problem - I tried to buy a copy, and that part of the site didn't seem to work in FireFox :-(

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Threni]

> So please don't spout blatant lies people may believe you. Or hell just check snopes before you type.

Why the fuck would I want to check Snopes? I was referring to a quote attributed to Paul McCartney in a UK newspaper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/4043946/BBC-pulls-Paul-McCartneys-Michael-Jackson-impersonation.html

---
Sir Paul later said: "You know what doesn't feel very good, is going on tour and paying to sing all my songs. Every time I sing Hey Jude, I've got to pay someone."
---

Of course, it's entirely possible that Paul McCartney doesn't understand the music business, or was misquoted.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

The only ones hurt by the Beatles not being on iTunes and other services are the remaining members.

I don't think they're going to be hurt.

The Beatles have the biggest selling back catalogue in the world. The #2 seller AC DC are also not on iTunes.

Both bands think they make more money selling Albums than singles & selling singles on iTunes would cannibalise their album sales.

Not sure if I agree or not, but they've certainly got numbers (huge album sales) on their side.

Hmm... Whether your statement is correct for AC/DC, I have no idea. It might be. To be honest with you, I really could not care less. It's wrong about the Beatles though. This is all about money. Basically their label, EMI, wants a bigger piece of the pie than the Beatles+widows will give them. EMI sees this as their last chance to milk the Beatles' catalog and the Beatles+widows realize that EMI is a dinosaur fighting extinction and if they hold firm, EMI will eventually have to give in as a smaller piece of the pie is better than no pie at all. But this is 100% about money.

AC/DC are computerphobes to an extreme and their decision is because they don't understand the technology and they fear it. The solo Beatles recordings are almost all available via iTunes or similar services and there is no resistance at all from the surviving members and widows to digital downloads.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[nurb432]

We sure its the band and not the label that is having issues here?

Im pretty sure you can find Paul's solo stuff on iTunes.

Re:Paul and Ringo loose out

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to take in consideration, the Beatles as rock band pioneers, did not always own the rights to all of their music... That's what happens in the infancy of a new thing. In the end they hardly owned anything, other people and companies own bits and pieces of various Beatles creations. At one point in the '70s, John Lennon was broke and living out of a car for a week because of all the legal hassles - things are still not completely resolved today in 2009, but they do have a little more say in things than before the '90s.

Digital?

[Prikolist]

Why use the word "digitalize", they have CD's, pretty sure those aren't recorded in analog.
Oh, and I'm sure all the die-hard Beatles fans have complete discographies in "digital" as it is and wouldn't really care about a new way of downloading it.

Re:Digital?

[AttillaTheNun]

The only thing die-hard Beatles fans are waiting for are decent remasters to replace the 87-era releases currently available.

Most of those have digital rips of superior vinyl masters, but Apple did provide a teaser of some tracks from a remastered White Album last September to raise expectations once again.

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of coarse they were recorded in analog. Digital recording didn't exist back then.

Re:Digital?

[cyphercell]

yea, kind of odd though that my kids will not be exposed to nearly as many beatles songs as I was.

Re:Digital?

[Idiomatick]

Its not even digitalize... its digitize. The is the fist time i've been a spelling nazi on /. because seriously people.... Firefox comes with a built in spell checker :/ and its a nerd word and its /. .... its sad

Re:Digital?

[Hatta]

they have CD's, pretty sure those aren't recorded in analog.

I'm pretty sure any beatles recording was made in analog, mixed in analog, and transferred to digital. AAD.

Re:Digital?

[bluefoxlucid]

You mean, remastered to push all the volume levels to max, eliminate the subtle instruments in the background, soft-clip weaker frequencies, and overall reduce the actual audio quality? I'd rather we ditch CDs and go to 96000Hz 24-bit DVD audio with freaking 120dB noise floor. Yes, I went there. No, vacuum tubes won't help. Neither will Monsterscam Cables.

Re:Digital?

[dark12222000]

Yes, I'm sure you're right, but the remaining beetles aren't making any money from the make shift digitals.

Besides, most die hard beetle fans would probably be happy to pony up for a lossless discography of the beetles.

It's easy money, it just needs to be seized.

Re:Digital?

[timeOday]

yea, kind of odd though that my kids will not be exposed to nearly as many beatles songs as I was.

Well, you weren't exposed to as many Big Band ditties as your grandpa, either. At some point in the next 30 years all the people who ever loved the beatles will die. Then their publisher can keep their stupid back catalog.

Re:Digital?

[grub]

Its not even digitalize... its digitize.

You're both wrong, it's digimotize!

Re:Digital?

[tigerbody1]

I like the 87-era digilizations.
And I am hoping that the newer digitizations are even better!

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

They will do a good job with the remasters--they know that people will be hearing them for the rest of eternity. You'd have to be pretty evil to soft-clip the beatles.

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they can push the vol to the max on those too...

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

The dynamic range of CDs is fine - better than anything that came before it, and well beyond good enough for most people, under most conditions. Assuming it's mastered correctly, which it never is.

Not that 96KHz 24-bit doesn't sound better, but a lot of that is to do with the mastering process.

Assuming DVD-Audio ever took off (it won't), the same idiots that currently master CDs would move over to DVD-Audio, and apply the same techniques there, making it sound just as bad as current, badly mastered CDs do.

Re:Digital?

[rs79]

What's wrong with the ones that were remastered in 2003-2005 allegedly from tapes stolen from Apple (records) ?

Re:Digital?

[ciderVisor]

The mastering and remixing on the 'Love' album is jaw-droppingly good. There are still people out there who care about such things and treat them with respect.

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got all of the Beatles catalog from Japanese mastering in one torrent.

Oh, and the Love album is excellent. The sound quality is absolutely amazing.

Re:Digital?

[maxume]

Of the installed base of amps, what percentage are clean enough that better-than-cd is worth it?

I would bet that it is pretty small.

Re:Digital?

[bluefoxlucid]

You'd be surprised how linear solid state is up to high, high frequencies. The amps themselves hit 100,000Hz easy. And I mean 100,000Hz analog; you DAC first, then amplify the line level signal. Analog circuitry with analog equalization btw (not digitally applied soft equalizers) is wonderful, and you can build the circuit for like $10.

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is time to remaster the Beatles catalog to the new digital standards. The 80s digital remasters were fine and in some cases a huge improvement over the vinyl, but all in all, they could do it and make the music sound much better, more as intended. The Beatles used the highest technology there was (which was CD quality in the '60s) to produce their music... now in 2009 I hope we finally can hear the music in the same quality as they heard it in their headphones while they were making it!

Re:Digital?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this marked insightful, +5?

Firstly, the recordings are 40+ years old. Digital didn't exist then. The recording process *is* analogue. The conversion and output processes might be digital [on CDs], but the recording is analogue.

Oh, and learn to spell right. If you're talking about at British band at least use *proper* British English to refer to them - digitise has no 'z'. Analog has a 'ue' on the end.

I don't see what all the fuss is about - you can get their albums on CD, that's a digital (mostly) medium. Who cares if it's on iTunes? Hell, Apple is even too lazy to get off their ass and make an Australianised version of iTunes.

Given the type of bastard company that Apple isn't I wouldn't piss on their products anyways.

Dave

Re:Digital?

[dpastern]

It's digitise. Learn the correct English spelling.

Dave

Re:Digital?

[dpastern]

How is this marked insightful, +5?

Firstly, the recordings are 40+ years old. Digital didn't exist then. The recording process *is* analogue. The conversion and output processes might be digital [on CDs], but the recording is analogue.

Oh, and learn to spell right. If you're talking about at British band at least use *proper* British English to refer to them - digitise has no 'z'. Analog has a 'ue' on the end.

I don't see what all the fuss is about - you can get their albums on CD, that's a digital (mostly) medium. Who cares if it's on iTunes? Hell, Apple is even too lazy to get off their ass and make an Australianised version of iTunes.

Given the type of bastard company that Apple isn't I wouldn't piss on their products anyways.

Dave

grr @ slashdot signing me out, didn't realise the first post was as AC...

broadcasted

[Anonymous Coward]

the broadcaster can only post podcasts from shows broadcasted in the previous four weeks

Beatles incredibly restrictive

[NinthAgendaDotCom]

They're notoriously restrictive, so much so that I was surprised when I heard them while scanning through FM radio stations on my iAudio, because it had been so long since I'd heard a Beatles song.

MP3s

[Enderandrew]

The Beatles aren't on iTunes because Apple is pissed at Apple. I was also under the impression that under British law, early Beatles recordings are about to become public domain so there is this sudden urgency to create and sell Beatles music online in some format.

And if I'm not mistaken, there is a Beatles Rock Band game coming out next Christmas.

Re:MP3s

[sukotto]

Don't worry. The Music industry will get copyright extended. :-(

Re:MP3s

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The Beatles aren't on iTunes because Apple is pissed at Apple.

But Apple gave Apple money and settled all that animosity.

Re:MP3s

[nine-times]

The Beatles aren't on iTunes because Apple is pissed at Apple.

I thought that was all settled. At least, it's settled enough that Apple (the computer company) can now be officially just known as "Apple, Inc" instead of "Apple Computer, Inc". I think the deal was the computer company bought the rights to the name, and is now licensing it back to the record label-- something like that.

Anyway, that wouldn't explain why the Beatles don't have their catalog on Amazon's MP3 store. I assume they're not just stupidly dragging their feet, either, but that their marketing people think they'll make less money if they do online distribution.

Re:MP3s

[IamGarageGuy 2]

On the early Mac OS versions was a sound effect that was labeled sosumi (so sue me) - a reference to Apple(music) that prohibited the Apple computer from making any sound. Trivia for the day

Re:MP3s

[theantipode]

It's not a Rock Band game. It's its own game. Also, it won't have the entire catalog - the rumor going around is that it's only 45 songs.

Re:MP3s

[Anonymous Coward]

Since at least one of the composers is still living, no Beatles song is going to enter public domain for a long time.

Performer's rights may be about to expire, but that matters only to the label and the performers / their heirs.

Re:MP3s

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. I missed that little tidbit in every other story that mentions the Beatles on Slashdot.

Phew!

[Anonymous Coward]

They got that digital Beatles genie back in the bottle just in a nick of time. No Fab-Four electrons will cross the intertubes tonight!

Er ... this news from 1997, right?

So basically...

[Aurisor]

You're telling us all that you have no interest in people talking about their lack of interest?

Do you..ah...see the problem there?

Re:So basically...

[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

Yes, I do.

You are completely stupid.

Re:So basically...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're telling us all that you have no interest in people talking about their lack of interest?

Do you..ah...see the problem there?

So wondering why people post on topics they profess to find uninteresting is the same as being uninterested in those kinds of people? You are putting words in his/her mouth. Perhaps the problem here is your reading comprehension.

I used my last mods points in this discussion but didn't see this post. If I had, I would have modded it down.

Re:So basically...

[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

To be clearer, I said the very opposite.

I find it quite interesting that so many people who claim they are uninterested in the Beatles feel compelled
to post about their lack of interest. Obviously, there's something they ARE finding interesting.

And you're not completely stupid (the way these self-contradicting posters are). Your lust to post something
clever just overtook your logic. It happens in software programming sometimes too.

You'll outgrow it.

Norwegian would...

[ITEric]

(this bird has flown?)

If they wanted to push it, they could always rebroadcast the program. I don't blame them for not doing so in light of Apple corp. objections, however.

Not all Beatles fans were around when the music was new (myself included), but it seems to me that if the rights-holders don't get with the program, the next generation could very well be Beatles free.

Wouldn't that be the real tragedy in all this?

Re:Norwegian would...

[Repossessed]

Doesn't all the Beatles music copyright expire over the next ten years (at least in Europe) anyway?

Copyright and jurisdiction question. . .

[JSBiff]

"I was also under the impression that under British law, early Beatles recordings are about to become public domain. . ."

How does that work internationally? Can those same recordings still be under copyright in other nations (like the US)? Or, since the UK is the 'home' country of the Beatles, does their copyright term prevail internationally? Even if the recordings are still under copyright, in the US, but are public domain in the UK, can people in the US receive legal copies from someone in the UK, even though it would be illegal for them to further copy those works? I believe a fundamental principle of copyright law is that those receiving works don't need the right to make the copy, but rather the person/company that gives them the copy - leading to, I would think, an ability for someone in the US to be able to *receive* the legal copy from the UK?

Re:Copyright and jurisdiction question. . .

[Enderandrew]

I am no lawyer, but I assume US retailers operate by US copyright law, and so on. I would like to see proper clarification however.

Re:Copyright and jurisdiction question. . .

[Fallingcow]

It'll be like anything else digital that's illegal in one country but legal in another.

There'll be a server with the files in the country where it's legal with a little banner at the top of its web page saying "These files are legal to distribute in this country but not in some others. Please do not download them if it is illegal for you to do so." There will be no actual checks of any kind, of course.

Just like that Australian branch of Project Gutenberg.

Re:Copyright and jurisdiction question. . .

[agrippa_cash]

IANAL. The copyright is granted by each country on its own terms (generally adhering to the Bern Convention). I vaguely recall that the RIAA was going after uploaders rather than downloaders, but I don't know when or why. When you fix a recording in a nontransitory form (on your HD) you have made a copy, I don't see why the legal status of the file in its country of origin would be relevant, but that doesn't meant is isn't.

Re:Copyright and jurisdiction question. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I vaguely recall that the RIAA was going after uploaders rather than downloaders, but I don't know when or why.

Vaguely? Ever single article about the RIAA suing someone is about an uploader not a downloader. Why do people find this so f-ing hard to understand?

Love The Beatles; sick of their whining.

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire Beatles discography is up for grabs on torrent networks in lossless FLAC or high bitrate mp3s. And it's absolutely ethical to download them for free and save yourself the time of ripping LPs or CDs into your computer.

I'm sort of glad that The Beatles isn't on iTunes. Those clowns at Apple Corps don't deserve the free money for selling the same shit to nostalgic folks who have already purchased all that stuff many times before.

Re:I don't listen to the Beatles, but

[bluefoxlucid]

I'm challenging you to justify penii as a real word.

counterculture? The Beatles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lennon was counterculture for a few years in the 70's. Paul? Only his veganism. He was a pop king through and through. Ringo wandered off and George was a nice guy who did his own thing quietly.

Their big counterculture album read more like some wankers take on what the media perceived was happening in San Francisco in the 1967 which those in the counterculture denounced with Death of the Hippie march which signified the end and then it became a caricature of itself.
The Beatles followed the fads of the time, spoke of vague meaningless efforts without ever denouncing anything in a system which made them rich. Sure, Lennon tried but the trappings of his life of luxury made him just another spouter of cliches mantras.

Im not defending them since I think ther work is overrated. popular does not equal good.
Sly Stallone is a popular actor.
He is not a very good one.
Britney Spear is a popular 'singer'.
She is not a very good one.
I dont want to compare them to the two above but it helps get the point across.

But 'counterculture' is pushing it with this bunch of fashionable poseurs. About as counterculture as The Mamas and Papas and Sonny and Cher. Both those acts had the lingo, clothes of the era down pat too.

Not comparable to Britney - progression is key

[mgkimsal2]

Watch and listen to the progression they made in just a few short years. Yes, arguably some of the earlier stuff might be dismissed as "teeny bopper" stuff, but even a lot of it had much higher production quality and songwriting quality compared to everything else out at the time. So the quality was head and shoulders above much of their 'competition' at the time.

But watch the artistic progression between
1963 - I Saw Her Standing There / All My Loving
1964 - Can't Buy Me Love / Eight Days a Week
1965 - Drive My Car / Day Tripper / Yesterday
1966 - Taxman / Tomorrow Never Knows / Eleanor Rigby / Rain
1967 - I Am the Walrus / Fool on the Hill
1968 - Revolution / Lady Madonna / The Inner Light
1969 - Something / Because / Get Back

Just in the span of a few years the songwriting quality exploded, and brought with it new production techniques and set new standards for what was considered 'art'.

Most of those songs above can hardly be considered 'teeny bop' music, or comparable with Britney Spears. For one thing, the Beatles were 4 people who increasingly expressed their individuality, yet managed to retain a 'Beatlesque' quality to most of their recordings. Britney is one person, and while she probably expresses herself in her music, it's limited by the perspective of her being one person, not bringing the perspective and talents of multiple people (well, multiple 'named stars') to the equation.

Few artists have displayed such remarkable growth and boundary pushing, while still retaining and growing a fan base, as the Beatles have. Arguably U2 might fit that bill, or perhaps REM. They didn't start off as primarily targeting teenage girls, then progress in to more adult themes later - they simply started targetting college age kids from the get go, so the artistic progression is harder to graph, in my mind.

"Had good marketers"? They had radio DJs, and a manager who dressed them in suits. That was about it. They had no massive PR team, or a marketing department. They had a roadie, and later a press agent, but hardly the stuff of mega-acts today (the Stones' organization comes to mind).

Another angle that captivates people about the Beatles is the 'rags to riches' story. 4 kids coming from essentially an outcast area of England London would have cared to forget, conquered the music world and changed pop culture. Simply the fact that they had such an impact is in itself part of the attraction for many people to discover and listen to their music (to see what the fuss is about).

Something about the music (quality of production, songwriting wit, energy of early performances, sophistication of imagery in later song) continues to entrance a large number of new people every year. You're apparently not one of them. Too bad - it's your loss.

Re:Not comparable to Britney - progression is key

[commodore64_love]

No offense but I'd rather listen to Alanis Morisette.

Also - you could listen to which Beatle you liked

[mgkimsal2]

Replying to my own post, another part of the attraction to the Beatles' music is that they were 4 people (said above) *and* 3 of them sang regularly. You didn't care for Paul's voice or songs? Fine - listen to George or John tunes. Hate George? Play the Ringo songs and Paul songs. And so on.

Don't like Britney Spears? You don't listen to anything of hers then. Didn't care for Elvis' voice? Then you didn't buy any Elvis.

There was always something on a Beatles album that someone liked, even if they didn't care for all of it. And the competition for song space on albums kept the quality pretty high. No solo Beatles album has more than 2-4 *good* songs on it. Wow - that's pretty much the number of good songs each Beatle had on each Beatles album when they were together. So having 4 good or great songs from 3 talented songwriters (and 4 good performers) was a *very* winning combination.

We *rarely* see that in almost any band since. Everyone adopts the Rolling Stones model of "front man singer and backing band members". There might be exceptions to that, but they are exceptions, and most likely not notable.

Digitalised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the verb of digital digitise?

Digitalize?

[ScrewMaster]

It's DIGITIZE.

Re:Digitalize?

[Zcar]

Digitalize[2], a synonym for digitize.

"Digitalize" has been a transitive verb meaning to convert an analog signal to digital since 1962.

Re:Digitalize?

[Spatial]

Now you're just being pedantical.

Re:Digitalize?

[bill_mcgonigle]

The Beetles' music was digitized a couple decades ago, when they released it on CD. AAD, if you remember that.

The Beetles as a group haven't 'gone digital', though. I think that's what they're getting at.

Re:Digitalize?

[ScrewMaster]

The Beetles' music was digitized a couple decades ago, when they released it on CD. AAD, if you remember that.

The Beetles as a group haven't 'gone digital', though. I think that's what they're getting at.

I know ... but to me "digitalize" is a lot like "interger".

Re:Digitalize?

[ScrewMaster]

Now you're just being pedantical.

No, just expressing minor irritation.

Re:Digitalize?

[Spatial]

That was a joke, silly. The word is pedantic, not pedantical.

Re:Digitalize?

[ScrewMaster]

That was a joke, silly. The word is pedantic, not pedantical.

Damn, I been pedanticalized!

Beatles Catalog

[camelphace]

Doesn't Michael Jackson own like half of the Beatles catalog? I thought that was where the large portion of his wealth came from...

digital music failure

[Vandil X]

I cannot believe how some bands/artist can so "fail" at digital music as much as the Beatles (Apple Corps. or whoever owns the rights) have.

Podcast shmodcast, release your stupid songs on iTunes already and make some money.

Take a look at the modern youth.

[SanityInAnarchy]

At least the ones I know do like some Beatles. And some Hendrix.

Try back in a couple hundred years, then we might have some idea of whether or not they're timeless. Right now, no one has a clue -- Shakespeare himself was seen as a pop artist in his day.

Counterpoint

[SuperKendall]

Their now elderly original fan base is dying off, and their work is not the sort that will excite many new fans.

So unexciting in fact that they aren't about to create a custom version of Rock Band around the Beetles.

Oh wait, they are.

your last 'ever' girlfriend?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but bring up your ex girlfriend's opinion just shows how ultra pussy whipped you are. ... Personally I think Mozart &Beethoven are overrated. I enjoy Chopin or Mahler far more. The beatles are easy listening music, very little depth and if you learn how to play it on guitar you might even get laid one day.

Yes, The Beatles ARE that good

[Maestro485]

I'm sorry, but everyone replying to this thread saying the beatles are a fad are kidding themselves. They were easily the most influential and popular band of the 20th century. If you're basing your opinion on the couple of hits they had in the 60s you really need to listen to the rest of their work. Also, read your music history. Much of what the beatles did was in fact the first time anyone did it.

There's a reason the Beatles are still as popular as they are, and it's not some corporate conspiracy.

Re:Yes, The Beatles ARE that good

[Cid Highwind]

There's a reason the Beatles are still as popular as they are, and it's not some corporate conspiracy.

No, it's not a corporate conspiracy, it's zillions of baby boomers people clinging to the glory days of their youth because they can't deal with old age and cultural irrelevance. The Beatles were a great band, but in the end they were a band; not bigger than Jesus, not the best thing to ever happen in music, not the 20th century's Bach, a fucking pop-rock band.

/Why don't you all just fade away?

Re:Yes, The Beatles ARE that good

[Maestro485]

I'm not a baby boomer, I'm 24. Like I said, actually listen to the full works of the Beatles. My personal favorites are Abbey Road, Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Magical Mystery Tour. Also, keep in mind the years they were released and try to listen to them in that context.

The Beatles, culturally, were much more than a pop-rock band.

Head a splodes!

[rts008]

"The is the fist time i've been a spelling nazi on..."

Oh, the irony!!!

Perhaps you meant:
'This is the first time I've...'
Or not.

P.S. How did you get "i've" past the spell checker? Firefox flags it for me for having a lower case "i".(using version 3.0.5)

Re:Head a splodes!

[Idiomatick]

Proving that i'm not a spelling nazi and showing how bad saying digitalize really is. I think you've proved my point :P

They've been "available" digitally for years!

[The Faywood Assassin]

I am not advocating piracy, but the more the two sides drag their feet on this issue, the more their dedicated "willing to pay for the music" fans will tire and just turn to bittorrent to get the whole album at a much more attractive price... free!

The suits are either stupid or don't care about this rapidly shrinking pool of purchasers of Beatles music.

Ben

Re:They've been "available" digitally for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not advocating piracy, but the more the two sides drag their feet on this issue, the more their dedicated "willing to pay for the music" fans will tire and just turn to bittorrent to get the whole album at a much more attractive price... free!

The dedicated Beatles fans (like me) have all their output on CD (and Vinyl!) and ripped it losslessly years ago. So bittorrent doesn't come into it.

Re:I don't listen to the Beatles, but

[TheoMurpse]

He used "penii." You understood "penii." Thus, it's a real word.

I wouldn't be too sure about that.

[westlake]

Their now elderly original fan base is dying off, and their work is not the sort that will excite many new fans.

There is a century of recorded music out there - and in each new generation, artists who look back to what has gone before and audiences whose tastes are no longer adolescent.

Why even bother?

[freedom_india]

I don't know why this is a huge fuss?
Bush The Great has Beatles on his iPod, so if the president does it, it is legal.
Just rip off the Beatles CDs and put to iPod and if RIAA sends a notice, forward it to Bush's texas ranch where the idiot will be putting up his tired feet on cow dung to cool off while sipping Fosters Beer.

my two pence:

[Anonymous Coward]

i'd just like to say that i'm 21, my parents weren't even of the beatles generation, but me and a lot of my friends are huge beatles fans.

i have no interest in these 'my music is better than yours' debates, but in my mind the beatles were definitely great 'folk' musicians inasmuch as they sang about human experiences and emotions, and reflected the society in which they lived. and i think that anyone who's tried picking up a guitar and expressing themselves should be able to find something they can relate to in the beatles' work.

and as far as 'timeless' music goes, i couldn't give a hoot about what's timeless, i just know what i like to listen to

Re:my two pence:

[franki.macha]

why does it call me anonymous coward?? i'm logged in ffs

and, no, i didn't tick 'post anonymously'... *checks sanity*

Ah yeah The Beatles

[Orion Blastar]

I remember my 14 year-old niece. She was wearing a t-shirt that said "The Beatles" as everyone in her school wore them.

I asked her if she ever listened to "The Beatles" and she replied "Who?" and I said "The Beatles, you know like your T-Shirt says." and then she said "What kind of music do they play? Are they rappers or techno or heavy metal?" I said "No, they were Rock and Roll, classic Rock and Roll, like from the 1960's." and she said "What kind of songs did they play?" and I said "Yellow Submarine, Yesterday, A Hard Day's Night, and a few others." she said "They sound silly, are they still alive?" I said "No, two of them are dead." and she said "Then how do they play their music, did they replace the two dead guys yet?" I said "They had like over 200 songs and they are trying to digitze them into new formats." and she said "How can they digitize them when half the band is dead?" and I asked "How could you wear a Beatles logo T-shirt and not know who they are?" and she said "It is a fashion trend at our school, everyone is wearing them because our grandparents used to wear them. You know, Hippies and stuff like that. Retrofashion is so in now."

Ironic that at one time The Beatles claimed they were bigger than Jesus. Now the youth of today hardly even know who they were other than some t-shirt sold in the mall as Retrofashion your grandparents used to wear.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[jay-be-em]

"Ironic that at one time The Beatles claimed they were bigger than Jesus."

Ehm. Quite out of context, 'ron.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Anonymous Coward]

cool story bro

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Candid88]

I'm sorry but your daughter doesn't sound like the sharpest knife in the draw.

Also, making widespread assumptions ("the youth of today" is a pretty big group) based on the response of one individual is extremely naive.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Corporate Troll]

Any you seem to have a bad reading comprehension. He said "niece". That said, yes, she most likely isn't the brightest mind around.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Vornzog]

It's all about what you've been exposed to. The t-shirt was cool because she had been exposed to retro rags at school. The music wasn't, because everyone at school had been listening to homogenized top-40 crap.

I remember my friend's 11 year old son. While we were over for an after-Christmas party, he was showing off his new electric guitar, iPod, and playing guitar hero.

His dad points out that the first stuff he loaded onto his iPod were a few recent songs, and a bunch of classic rock that he got exposed to by guitar hero. I asked him what his favorite was, and he shot back with 'Back in Black' by AC/DC. All he needed was exposure - he decided for himself that AC/DC was cool.

For all those little dudes who are about to rock - WE SALUTE YOU!

You want your niece to like something other than top-40? She's got to be exposed to it first!

I grew up on classical music and 1960's classic rock, because that was what my parents listened to. I listened to top-40 in high school, because everyone else did.

When I got to college, I was exposed to much deeper cuts from the 60's and 70's, a much wider range of modern rock and alternative, and a bunch of indie stuff after I had the morning DJ from the university radio station for a lab partner.

In grad school, I went out of my way to expand my indie horizons, including picking up a taste for rap. Not the 'pop a cap and bang a ho' stuff, but more of the intelligent, political, and *musical* stuff.

Today, I listen to a *much* wider range of music than almost anyone else I know - even people who claim to like a lot of different genres. I certainly don't like everything, but I've been exposed to more than most.

Just like retro fashion is cool, retro music can be, too. The RIAA is slowly killing itself and the top-40 format, and kids music tastes are starting to expand due to exposure to video games, iTunes, and *much* larger peer groups thanks to social networking sites.

Today's newest music isn't all that different than what's been available in the past. But there is much, much more total music available to the casual listener today than ever before. This is what today's youth will figure out. Not that their new thing is bigger than Jesus, but that their music tastes are much broader and more individualized than their parents. Pay attention to them, and you just might learn something.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[MariusBoo]

Now the youth of today hardly even know who they were

he, just like jesus

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ask her if she knew who Jesus was? I'd be willing to bet that she wouldn't get that right either. There are so many people who get it so very wrong.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[secretcurse]

I'm sorry but your daughter doesn't sound like the sharpest knife in the draw.

Well, you look pretty dumb by obviously not understanding the phrase you tried to use. I believe you meant "the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Anonymous Coward]

So they're the new Che?

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Anonymous Coward]

Exposure is the key. My kids grew up listening to a lot of my (random) music. Some they like (UFO, Lizzy, the Clash) and some they don't (the Dead Boys, COF, Al Stewart). The important thing is that they both like music obsessively and they both are willing to listen to a variety of stuff, and not just the latest so called R&B (where's Al Green?)top 40. They are both finding their own music now, some old (the Who, Doors, Led Zep) and some new (Arctic Monkeys, TurboNegro, Jack Johnson). "The kids are alright" and so is their music.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[aegl]

"Let's all get up and dance to a song
That was a hit before your mother was born.
Though she was born a long, long time ago"

Released in November 1967.

My wife was born in September 1967 ... so the "before your mother was born" is off, but only by a couple of months.

My daughter is 11 ... she knows who The Beatles are, and tolerates their music.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Joe Jay Bee]

I have this overwhelming urge to punch a 14 year old girl in the face.

Re:Ah yeah The Beatles

[Anonymous Coward]

EXACTLY. And people might not now about them anyway, but people don't have record players any more. Computers might have a CD player but I don't know anyone who buys many CDs. They might have a shot at a younger audience if they sold tracks and/or albums as downloads, because everyone I know seems to listen to music exclusively on the computer. Oh, the Beatles aren't online? yes, that is a great reason why younger people do not know about them.

Were or was?

[DigitalReverend]

Isn't band a single entity? It seems to me that the correct way would have been to say the band was going digital. Not the band were. Right?

Re:Were or was?

[haggais]

Yes. And no.

This is the story behind the podcasts:

[sunny256]

"Vår daglige Beatles" (Our daily Beatles) was a daily radio program presenting all 212 recordings by The Beatles in chronological order, presented by Bård Ose and Finn Tokvam. Every presentation lasted about five minutes and contained interesting facts about the song -- what the inspiration for the song was, how it was recorded, some trivia about the period it was recorded, and so on. A very well-produced and informative work. The radio show started January 2007, and every Beatles song was played in its full length. It's believed this is the only time Revolution 9 was played in its entirety on Norwegian radio.

The last episode was aired 2007-12-13, and when christmas 2007 arrived, all 212 podcasts were put out for download at nrk.no as a christmas present for all Beatles fans, with the music removed. A real treasure, even though I had this cron job running every day to download each episode. Still, it was nice to get the complete collection.

This January NRK was planning to release every episode with the music. They got a deal with TONO (the Norwegian RIAA) and everything was OK, but it turned out that the agreement with IFPI and FONO only allowed publishing shows aired the last four weeks, and as mentioned, these programs were aired in 2007, so the podcasts had to be pulled.

as V.L-S said,

[zmollusc]

'The beatles are dying in the wrong order'

I have them digitally

[Askmum]

What's the fuss? I bought all CD's and ripped then to ogg. I can listen to them on my favourite music player. Maybe the iPod does not support ogg, I don't know, but that's a limitation of the iPod.
I listen to the Beatles regularly via my mp3 player. It's not that hard. Why "finally going digital" if sane people have had them digitally for a long time?

The beetles where $hit and all about the money.

[davro]

Joke : What would it take to reunite the beetles ? one bullet !

Re:The Beatles suck balls

[aquatone282]

And another thing. The Rolling Stones fucking rock harder than anyone ever, especially The Beatles. Question: Did The Beatles ever write a song about the Devil? No? Then shut the fuck up.

Exactly. The Beatles - darlings of Time, Life, Newsweek, and the big three networks. The Rolling Stones and The Who put the rock into the roll - the Beatles wrote fucking show tunes.

Rasist: Get Back

[Anonymous Coward]

Written whilst they were working class not musicians and all their friends were working class.

"Get back you packkie bastards" were the lyrics.

Now, if they'd admitted this, it would be acceptable: they WERE in danger of losing their livlihoods to the immigrants at the time and this song was about how they felt. They didn't (as far as I know) beat up immigrants.

But when they were upper middle class musicians they rewrote it and "forgot" the original.

They were no longer at risk of losing their jobs since immigrants weren't taking "pop band" jobs and all their friends were high mucky-mucks whose jobs weren't on the line either.

They could have apologised and recognised how their values changed, but instead they tried to cover it up and forget all about how they USED to think.

And that's where their original work became racist. Because they didn't recognise what caused it. And how can you fix a problem like racism when you try to hide where it comes from?

Re:Rasist: Get Back

[mgkimsal2]

Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Back

Read the 'alternate versions' area. It explains the 'pakistani' version in more detail. It was a protest song - a dig at current political views on immmigration, and I highly doubt reflected personal views of any Beatle individually.

And that version was never released, simply something bandied about in rehearsals a bit.

When those in '62 are dead

[Anonymous Coward]

then that generation is gone.

Not before.

Only One Timeless Band

[Webcommando]

Only the Wyld Sallions will become timeless. Since their music will become the basis of our Utopian world to come.

Wyld Sallions can and will live up to the hype. Party on an be excellent to each other!

Yeah, right

[Von Rex]

Anytime someone disses the Beatles all they're doing is revealing they have no sensitivity whatsoever to what makes music great.

I'd bet my life that people will still be listening to the Beatles in a 100 years. They'll be listening to very little of the mass-marketed crap that passes for music today.

And there will always be new Beatles fans, just because the music is that good. I have a nine year old son and half a dozen teenage cousins. Every one of them thinks the Beatles rock, because they hear their music for the first time and think "Oh my god, these are good songs compared to what I'm hearing on the radio".

I think the generation coming up is going to be a lot more sophisticated about music and they won't be as taken in by hip hop poseurs, American Idol wannabes, and pretty teenage dancers masquerading as musicians. They seem to be a lot more resistant to advertising bullshit than the current crop of young adults.

Must be because of better parenting :)

Re:I don't listen to the Beatles, but

[Anonymous Coward]

He used "penii." You understood "penii." Thus, it's a real word.

Correct. "Peni" is obviously a type of pasta.
That's what *you* mean, right?

Rip your CDs!

[MarkLR]

What this the big deal about the Beatles' music being online or not. Just rip your CDs!

Goddamn! commie pirates ruin it for the rest of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't the fuckin commie pirates just plunder some where else, like to hell from where they came!!

Re:Goddamn! commie pirates ruin it for the rest of

[multisync]

Why don't the fuckin commie pirates just plunder some where else, like to hell from where they came!!

Unfortunately, the US Congress keeps passing legislation that enables these fuckin commie pirates to continue to plunder out culture and destroy anyone who threatens their outdated business model.

Cant go Digital?

[nurb432]

last i heard my CD was digital.

Don't you mean 'attempt to compress in a lossy format with even less quality then a CD' ?

Ancient Copyrights

[CopaceticOpus]

Here is a perfect example of why copyrights should only extend for something like 14 or 28 years. The purpose of copyright is supposed to be to inspire the creation of new works. However, in this case copyright is instead stifling creativity.

The Beatles have had more than enough opportunity to profit from their music. Now that music should be released so that everyone can access it freely, and build off it to create new things.

How hard could this be?

[Anonymous Coward]

At any given time, there were 4 Beatles.
There, I did it!

Any other way to acquire these podcasts?

[thetoadwarrior]

I've tried searching for some torrents and nothing is coming up. I'd like to get this podcast set so if anyone can hook me up I give blow jobs like a hooker with no teeth. :P

It must be the marihuana

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird, I thought I have the whole Beatles discography available with couple of clicks in couple of hours in 356kbit/s without ripping any of the LP:s. But then again I'm only 24 years old so what do I know.

They already are 'digital'

[Ed Avis]

The Beatles' music has been available on compact disc for many years. That's a digital format.

Re:Yeah, completely agree

[anitamoriz]

Yeah, there are a lot of ways to digitalize masterpieces of this band. Even now my friend is digitalizing his collection of old gramophone discs, the only problem is to find a good and expensive needle for that antique equipment. And the other trick to make songs sound better is to use some sound-editing software and cool and expensive soundsystem.