I’ve been trying to figure out how to summarize my feelings on the hubbub around getting the Beatles stuff on iTunes.
So far I think Mark Pilgrim came closest:
I guess the part I don’t understand is the target audience. Who is so serious about [it] that they need [it], but so unserious that they don’t have [it] already?
Ok, I admit that if you replace the bracketed text with the original you’ll discover that Mark was talking about text editors, not the Beatles, but my feelings are the same as his:
Who is such a Beatles fan that they have been waiting lo these many years now for them to come out on iTunes?
Are people expecting some kind of new songs “just recently discovered” in Paul’s attic, behind some old shoes?
Back in the bad ol’ days you might expect a new two-CD “Greatest Hits” with 24 songs — 23 that you already had, and 1 “new” one — which either was new, and therefore wasn’t a hit, or was a slightly different version of the hit version you already had, perhaps with a new 23 minute drum solo which crystallized the real heart, soul, and meaning of the song in a way that you just couldn’t do when the heartless radio bastards made you cut it down to 3:05. Do we really need a 27 minute version of All You Need is Love?
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Beatles stuff, but I’ve also had it on CD since high school. Am I that out of touch?
Or maybe it’s something else.
Do some people see it as some sort of status symbol: “Wow, iTunes has the Beatles stuff” or a validation or a final end to the seemingly-endless-until-recently Apple v Apple bugaboo?
Who is the target audience for the Beatles on iTunes? Are there serious collectors out there who just have to have Abbey Road as 256kbps AAC files? Are there new fans who want to cherry pick obscure songs that haven’t made it onto one of the half-dozen “Greatest Hits” compilations? Or are they all just afraid that the RIAA is right and ripping CDs to MP3s isn’t fair use?