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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Let's Talk About... Beatles, iTunes, etc.

Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 1:02 PM

So the Beatles have embraced technology with Rock Band, or so they say. Still though, the Fab Five (I'm including George Martin here, and you'll see why) don't have a damn thing on iTunes. I found myself wondering about it this morning and had to check... Now, one could argue, that with all the audiophiles jumping at the newly remastered mono and stereo versions, it'd be time to get these suckers online. But these same audiophiles, I bet, would be shit-pissed about all the time and precise work being spent to re-master these bastards would be burned off when they're truncated back down to MP3 format.

I thought about trying to get a hold of the new mono-masters myself, to see what all the fuss was about—especially since the release of the CD re-masters of 1987 that we've been stuck with are supposedly so awful. (For a great breakdown on the new masters, and mono/stereo differences, see this NY Times review by Allan Kozinn.)

But then I realized the whole point here is to hear these Beatles tracks in their full, intended glory. So unless digital copies are delivered in loss-less formats—and iTunes tracks are far from it—I'm holding out. And even though Yoko says the Beatles' catalog will be on iTunes soon, I say hold out for something like a FLAC file distribution. You would make George Martin proud.