Apples To Apples

The news out of London today was a surprise. The idea of it happening was written off earlier, and no one thought they had the intestinal fortitude to go through with it, but the union of the century was in fact announced.

The Beatles are on Apple Computer's ITunes!

Oh yeah, and Prince William got engaged. But I'll save that for later. As for Beatles songs now available on ITunes, this is a big story because until now, it's never been possible to buy their songs off a computer and download them onto your own PC or your IPod, thanks to an agreement between Apple Corps and Apple Computer. Whole albums from the group are already being downloaded in droves.

It should be understood that die-hard Beatles fans normally don't buy bits and pieces of the group's recorded work. They buy the whole thing. And they buy it in the form of the long play recordings the Beatles issued in the sixties, when the album became the primary medium of expression for rock and rollers. The Beatles were a big reason for that, crafting collections of songs that fit a thematic whole and sounded like they belonged together. Contrary to what John Lennon once said, every song on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band could not have been on any other album; the special effects, the complex arrangements, and the poetic lyricism of that LP mark those songs as a common, shared vision of the group that has nothing to do with personal folk rock of Rubber Soul or the introspective mind games of Revolver. Most fans probably couldn't conceive of a collection of random Beatles songs played in no particular order on a PC or an IPod. Baby Boomers might be able to, if only because the Beatles's pre-Sgt. Pepper work was diced up and repackaged in that manner. But for ninety-nine cents each, some casual fans will be happy to buy only the songs they like.

The Beatles themselves have long been technophobes, and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still very much old-school, so that explains why they were so reluctant to do this. It also explains why they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to appreciate stereo when they were together, and it explains why they were the last artists from the vinyl age to re-release their long players on compact disc. Ironically, the CD format and the technology applied to it have allowed them to reintroduce themselves to new audiences since; the Anthology collections, the Yellow Submarine Songtrack album, the 1 album, and Let It Be . . . Naked were all made possible by digital audio. Most of these posthumous releases benefited from enhanced remixing. As for the 1 album, which did not, its twenty-seven tracks, running seventy-nine minutes, could never have fit on one vinyl long player. (And on vinyl, on which they were released in a limited edition, the Anthology collections were triple albums.)

The Beatles's music has entered yet another era, so soon after the CD re-issues of last year, and the early success on ITunes tracks (especially the whole album downloads) insures that, four decades after they broke up, their music will continue to be heard and to inspire.