The Beatles<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 So I went to the site to listen to the tracks and…I HAD TO GIVE THEM PERMISSION TO SPAM ME IN PERPETUITY!<\/p>\nThe only organization more stupid than the major labels is Apple Corps.\u00c2\u00a0 These money-hungry denizens of the sixties are so out of touch I don’t expect the Beatle albums to be available online until the year 2525, when they embed a chip with every record ever recorded right into your brain.<\/p>\n
Money-hungry?\u00c2\u00a0 YOU explain the iTunes suit to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Is there ANYBODY in the world who confuses Apple Computer with Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company?\u00c2\u00a0 The only nexus is in their heyday they both released cutting edge products.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Beatles’ heyday is over.\u00c2\u00a0 Except for tripe like the Cirque du Soleil extravaganza in Vegas.<\/p>\n
I mean if you’re REALLY that interested in bread, don’t you want to offer your wares for sale?\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s see…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s been fully seven years since online music\/MP3s have taken hold.\u00c2\u00a0 This eclipses even the five years the Beatles took to release their music on CD.\u00c2\u00a0 But the MP3 isn’t even gonna have a two decade lifespan like the CD, and to give up almost HALF of your revenue because you can’t get it together or you think that you’ll make a big splash when you finally do make the material available is just plain stupid.\u00c2\u00a0 God, what’s that record business axiom?\u00c2\u00a0 If the album isn’t in the store the sale is lost FOREVER??\u00c2\u00a0 Why buy when you can easily steal, or certainly rip.<\/p>\n
But it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like the Beatles are functioning in the Net ’90s.\u00c2\u00a0 Before everybody read Seth Godin and realized it was an era of PERMISSION MARKETING!\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t FORCE people, you let them OPT IN!\u00c2\u00a0 You make them your friends, you don’t treat them like untrustworthy scum who’re gonna rip you off.<\/p>\n
They say they want my e-mail address to keep me informed of Beatle news.\u00c2\u00a0 What, is the band getting back together?\u00c2\u00a0 Going on tour?\u00c2\u00a0 Is there going to be a seance bringing John and George back?\u00c2\u00a0 WHAT news?\u00c2\u00a0 You’re gonna take my fucking e-mail address and sell it, THAT’S what you’re gonna do.\u00c2\u00a0 And even if you DON’T do this, that’s what I think you’re gonna do, that’s what EVERYBODY thinks you’re gonna do.<\/p>\n
But it gets even worse…<\/p>\n
They don’t only want my e-mail address, they want my PHYSICAL address and date of birth.\u00c2\u00a0 What, is Paul McCartney gonna show up at my door on April 22nd and serenade me with "Happy Birthday"?<\/p>\n
And the fucking idiots ask for "Town" and "County".\u00c2\u00a0 I bet half the people tempted to fill out this ridiculous form aren’t even sure what county they live in.\u00c2\u00a0 Or is this an ENGLISH reference?\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it just a typo and they mean COUNTRY??<\/p>\n
But what pissed me off the most, is they asked for my fucking telephone number.\u00c2\u00a0 The NERVE!\u00c2\u00a0 WHAT the fuck do you plan to do with my telephone number?\u00c2\u00a0 In this era of eroding privacy, when EVERYBODY is fearful of having his identity ripped off, WHY do you need this information?\u00c2\u00a0 Is Sean Lennon gonna call?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe Julian?\u00c2\u00a0 And what makes you think I want to get a canned message from ANYBODY??\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why I signed up for the Do Not Call list, so I don’t have to endure these inane interruptions, seemingly always during the dinner hour.<\/p>\n
But I didn’t give ’em the real info.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody with a brain does.\u00c2\u00a0 And probably the Beatle dudes were too stupid to realize this.\u00c2\u00a0 If a company REALLY wants to capture e-mail addresses (and why do you need more?) they send an E-MAIL that with a key to unlock the code.\u00c2\u00a0 So, unless you’ve given a VALID e-mail address, you have no access to the material.<\/p>\n
What kind of ignorant, scheming assholes CREATED this site?<\/p>\n
And I’ll go further.\u00c2\u00a0 Whose ridiculous idea was it to do a Cirque du Soleil show ANYWAY?\u00c2\u00a0 Am I the only fucking soul who doesn’t get it?\u00c2\u00a0 Who sits through Cirque du Soleil and can’t wait for the show to END?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, if I want to see acrobatics, I’ll turn on ESPN.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s a real circus I’ve got a hankering for, I’ll drop a dime on Ringling.\u00c2\u00a0 Cirque du Soleil is bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 The emperor’s new clothes.\u00c2\u00a0 All fake arty and highbrow so lowbrows will think it’s good.\u00c2\u00a0 Really, Cirque du Soleil is a scam.\u00c2\u00a0 And I have no desire to see this show.<\/p>\n
But since they’re the Beatles, I did have a desire to hear the music.<\/p>\n
Actually, I think it’s sacrilegious.\u00c2\u00a0 Leave well enough, leave SUPERIOR, alone.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s next, recutting "On The Waterfront"?\u00c2\u00a0 "Gone With The Wind"?\u00c2\u00a0 Do we really need classic tracks remixed?<\/p>\n
"Strawberry Fields Forever" has got none of the bizarre magic of the original.\u00c2\u00a0 "Octopus’ Garden"?\u00c2\u00a0 The shittiest track on "Abbey Road".\u00c2\u00a0 Couldn’t they have used "Act Naturally" if they needed a Ringo cut?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, no, then they’d have to pay royalties to someone ELSE, since it’s a cover and the writer isn’t in the band.<\/p>\n
I’m thinking nothing’s sacred.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only about dough.\u00c2\u00a0 And didn’t George Martin go on record he retired because he couldn’t hear anymore?<\/p>\n
Eventually you get to the legendary piano part in "Lady Madonna", but the intro…sounds like the babe lost her essence, it doesn’t work.\u00c2\u00a0 And the MIX!\u00c2\u00a0 Trash.<\/p>\n
But then I listened to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"…<\/p>\n
One of the great features of the Beatles was all the TONALITIES!\u00c2\u00a0 They could be both bombastic AND intimate.\u00c2\u00a0 John Lennon could record the raucous single version of "Revolution", yet cut "Julia".<\/p>\n
The original "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is an epic.\u00c2\u00a0 A big screen movie.\u00c2\u00a0 The version from "Love" is a DVD watched on a portable player alone in the dark.\u00c2\u00a0 It has an intimacy, a creepiness that immediately resonates.\u00c2\u00a0 With the magic of the Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, it loses some magic when the strings come in.\u00c2\u00a0 But the forgotten Beatle’s vocal…it’s haunting.\u00c2\u00a0 And the lyrics are different.<\/p>\n
Contrary to conventional wisdom, you weren’t either a Beatles or a Stones person, many of us liked both.\u00c2\u00a0 But as great as the Stones were (the band touring now is not the Stones, don’t be confused), they were mortal.\u00c2\u00a0 The Beatles were not mortal.\u00c2\u00a0 Every album was perfect.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no bum cuts.\u00c2\u00a0 The band was always TWO steps ahead of everybody else.\u00c2\u00a0 Changing the world with every release.<\/p>\n
This was not Madonna.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not a marketing exercise.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not about fashion.\u00c2\u00a0 This was about MUSIC!<\/p>\n
That music might be the only tuneage that survives a hundred or two years from now.\u00c2\u00a0 The songs were that good.\u00c2\u00a0 As were the renditions.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank god all the rip-off schemes perpetrated on the material and us, like this execrable Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, can’t eviscerate, can’t FUCK WITH, that original greatness.\u00c2\u00a0 Thank god those original records still exist.<\/p>\n
Don’t remix the classics.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t even rerecord them.\u00c2\u00a0 We know every nuance, we can hear the difference.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t improve on perfection.\u00c2\u00a0 You might want to hear the "Love" version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" once or twice, but really, you’d prefer to hear not only the original, but "If I Needed Someone".\u00c2\u00a0 Or "For You Blue".\u00c2\u00a0 Or "I Need You".<\/p>\n
Don’t Yoko and Paul have enough money?\u00c2\u00a0 Even if they authorize usage of their tunes do they have to employ a scorched earth marketing policy?\u00c2\u00a0 Making their fans victims?\u00c2\u00a0 Can’t THEY respect the music?\u00c2\u00a0 We do.<\/p>\n
\nFor future reference, for sites that require real e-mail addresses, go to BugMeNot<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and use one of those provided.\u00c2\u00a0 We must stand up to the corporations.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling them they’re not entitled to know our life histories.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe when they release their employees’ identical data, and their CEO’s expense reports, and how many times they used the private jet, and how much it cost and…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Don’t ask for my fucking E-MAIL ADDRESS! I read online (well, hitsdailydouble.com, they have a ban on mentioning me, but I don’t have\u00c2\u00a0 one on them!) that they were streaming four tracks from the Beatles "Love" album on The Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 So I went to the site to listen to the tracks and…I HAD TO GIVE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-9o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}