Photo: AFP
iPod Owners Who’ve Never Heard ‘Abbey Road,’ Rejoice! The Beatles Finally Coming to iTunes!
This weekend brought huge news for Beatles fans who’ve somehow managed to avoid owning the band’s albums on CD and refrained from pirating any of their songs on file-sharing networks this past decade — the Beatles are coming to iTunes! London’s Telegraph reports that Paul McCartney is finally close to a long-rumored deal that would allow the band’s entire catalog to finally be sold on all major digital services (and also close to an expensive divorce settlement, which likely spurred the thing with the digital services). This agreement would be the handshake at the end of years of acrimony between Apple and Apple Corps, the Beatles’ holding company, over a trademark dispute (the lawsuit was officially settled in court under confidential terms last February). It would also, hilariously, make those old-media stalwarts Radiohead the last major iTunes holdout.
The Telegraph says that all parties involved expect the Beatles’ albums to top the download charts for months after their digital release — but will that really happen? Does anyone on the planet not own every single one of these songs in multiple formats already? Call us insane, but we can’t really see this being the monumental success that would offset Paul’s alimony payments … unless this means “The White Album†will finally get remastered, in which case we’ll probably buy it twice. (Once for each ear.)
iTunes to strike deal over Beatles’ hits [Telegraph]