They'll pick and choose their favourites, play the songs using the shuffle function, or make playlists to fit the exact length of their run at the health club.
But it's far more entertaining and enthralling as a full 35-minute experience, particularly when the emotional heft of Let It Be is sandwiched between Dig It (a slapdash three-chord jam) and a folk song about a Liverpool prostitute ( Maggie Mae).īut because the Beatles songs are now available to download as individual tracks, it's inevitable that people won't consume their music by listening to a time-consuming album anymore. The favourites are all there The Long and Winding Road, Across the Universe and, of course, Let It Be itself. Recently, I did just that for the remastered Let It Be, which, in 2003, Paul McCartney restored to something approaching its original sound.
It's become almost quaint to sit down and listen to a record in the order it was intended, from beginning to end. Yet.īut the death knell is certainly sounding for the whole concept of an album. The Beatles have been responsible for many things - but they haven't quite killed the CD as a format. That moment already happened way back in 2005, when sales of downloaded singles first outstripped those on CD. But when the dust settles, it doesn't really mark "the coming of age for digital music", as British Phonographic Industry chief executive Geoff Taylor proclaimed. "I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes," he quipped yesterday. So, presuming that there isn't, what does the news that the Beatles and Apple have finally Come Together actually mean? For Ringo Starr at least, it's nothing more than a relief. One wonders if there's actually anybody left in the world who wants their songs, but doesn't already have them. In a box by the television is The Beatles: Rock Band on Xbox360. I already own these songs many times over, on vinyl, CD and in the case of the Red Album, double cassette - even though I don't actually possess a cassette player anymore. Perhaps it should have been renamed A Hard Day's Byte.īut, with the cursor flickering over the purchase icon, I paused. At last.Īfter years of legal wrangling (once, the Apple name was rather more synonymous with The Beatles' own record label than iPhones and MacBooks) an mp3 of A Hard Day's Night was now available.
There was a frisson of excitement when I clicked on the iTunes store icon yesterday afternoon and realised - it's pretty difficult not to realise, to be honest - that there, to download, was the entire Beatles back catalogue.