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  2. Wow. They have finally conceded that they can’t wring any more cash out of the physical stuff. Good to see a ray of golden holy light will shine down upon us as we become privileged enough to stream Please Please Me.

  3. Surely anyone who likes them and streams will have the CDs ripped to their computers exactly for that purpose. May attract casual listeners who need to hear Hey Jude etc again …

  4. I’d argue that the group could have wrung far more money out of me.

    2009 reissues – No bonus tracks, no mono and stereo versions on the same release a la The Kinks, number of pounds spent by myself…..diddley and squat.

    Christmas LP – Never been made officially available…..nil.
    Original ‘Get Back’ album with staircase sleeve……nil.
    Star Club 1962…..nil.
    Esther demos…..nil.
    MMT with incidental music…..nil.

    There is no group, apart from the 60s Stones, who have least exploited the physical format.

    The only releases in the whole catalogue that I regard as totally satisfactory are the (still fantastically incomplete) BBC stuff and the deluxe release by Polydor, not Apple, of the Tony Sheridan recordings.

  5. Yep, just to clarify, I didn’t mean artistically, I meant in terms of being complete in one purchase…..see ‘The Kinks’ catalogue from the debut to ‘Arthur’…..mono and stereo versions where applicable, plus As and Bs and EPs, BBC, unreleased tracks and great booklets.

    That’s my template for how to reissue 60s material, and the Beatles and (especially) the Stones reissues have never cut it, alas.

  6. Well The Kinks would require 8 purchases. The first 7 albums plus the BBC sessions box set. You can get pretty much all The Beatles you need in 2 purchases, the mono and stereo box sets. Then if you really need the BBC stuff that’s another couple of double CDs, anything else would be duplication.

    As for The Stones as it is all Abko stuff it’s out of their hands, but the CD/SACD resissue program of 2003 was pretty thorough except the UK versions of the first 2 albums were missing.

    • I’m wedded to arcane physical formats but for anyone who has ditched that world for streaming audio and has been bereft of Beatles band all this time it’s a big deal – (meanwhile I am worrying about how much more weight of CDs and Vinyl my floorboards can take)

      the flipside of that is younger folk for whom streaming is the norm – it starts to become a bit counter productive to deny them Beatles particularly when Apple and Spotify are pushing for paying customers – and Fab Macca, Peace&Love, Olivia and Ono and their offspring probably have more to lose in the long term by not being there now.

      No mention of what will actually be available to stream – presumably Mono remasters, BBC sessions and maybe Anthology etc won’t be there but we’ll see.

      Whatever next ? Let it Be DVD? 12″ Vinyl of Carnival of Light? Proper stereo mixes of all the albums like with the 1+ compilation?

    • In very poor quality and without the original intention of how the thing should be packaged and listened to – and with the immediate diversion down other roads should they get distracted for a millisecond – I’ve mixed feelings about Streaming but at least with that there is some attempt to present the listener with the album as a thing to be enjoyed and experienced whereas within the YouTube randomised soup it’s drowned out by all that other crap.

  13. Case in point. If you go to the official Beatle site they don’t even know that the fabs wished everyone Happy Chrimbo. Apparently now it’s Chrimble! What does that tell you?

  14. Yes, because in the 1960s peqple only listened records on top notch systems and without any distractions☺

    Anyway, my poit was that this news has been presented as if people could now hear the music demand for the first time without having bought it. That is nonsense.

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