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The Beatles just 'LOVE' iTunes
The Beatles/Cirque du Soleil collaborative "LOVE" is available for pre-order through iTunes. The US$12.99 album will be released on February 8 with two bonus tracks, and based on the page for the album, none of the tracks will be available for individual sale. The documentary behind the show, "All Together Now," will also be sold for $9.99. As with the previous Beatles digital releases, this appears to be exclusive to iTunes. [via Business Insider]
The Beatles sell 5 million songs on iTunes
The Loop reports that The Beatles have sold 5 million songs and 1 million albums since going on sale in the iTunes Store last November. So far, the most popular Beatles song download is "Here Comes the Sun," while the band's top-selling album is "Abbey Road." Last week we reported that The Beatles' surviving band members (and the estates of John and George) got a special royalty deal from Apple in order to get The Beatles on the iTunes Store. As part of that deal, The Beatles will reportedly earn between 18 to 22.5 cents per track sold on iTunes. With 5 million individual tracks sold so far, that equates to a cool $900,000 to $1.125 million profit for The Beatles for just seven weeks of sales. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Beatles receiving direct royalties in iTunes deal
Citing "industry sources," Reuters claims that direct royalties may be part of the deal that finally got The Beatles on iTunes. According to Reuters, "superstar artists" (like The Beatles) typically get 20-25 percent of retail revenues, which would equate to between 18 to 22.5 cents per track sold on iTunes. Supposedly, The Beatles secured a deal with Apple that gives the surviving band members (and the estates of John and George) far higher royalties than that, though it's unclear just how much higher; Reuters's sources didn't put any firm numbers on the deal. Earlier reports indicated that it was primarily disputes between The Beatles and music label EMI that kept the band's music off iTunes for so long, and it's very likely that royalty distribution was at the heart of the matter. To be honest, I'm not sure why it's taken this long for artists to get a bigger cut of digital sales. Under the old brick-and-mortar sales model, it seems like music labels would have had to pay out a lot more to market and distribute music than under a purely digital sales model. If The Beatles are getting a bigger slice of the profits from sales of their music, I see that as a good thing, and frankly I hope that becomes the rule rather than the exception.
A video retrospective of Apple in 2010
This quick video retrospective of Apple's fares and fortunes in the past year is pretty good. From the introduction of the iPad to the new MacBook Air and the release of the Beatles on iTunes, this is a very nice little walk through 2010 from Apple's point of view. It's been one heck of a year for the company, too, and because of all the waves Apple sent out this year, it's been an interesting twelve months for the industries that surround it. Next year may be even more exciting, with the Mac App Store, likely a new iPad, and whatever else Steve Jobs and company dream up for us. Thanks, John W!
Beatles sell 2 million tracks via iTunes already
Has it really been only a week since the day we would never forget? In that short amount of time, Apple has sold 2 million Beatles tracks and generated 45,000 album downloads via iTunes, Billboard magazine said today. Not bad for a band that was pretty late to the digital music game -- and one that a good bit of commenters decried wouldn't do much for sales at all. The top-selling album was 1969's Abbey Road. The top-selling track is "Here Comes the Sun" from the same album. [Via MacStories]
The ballad of the Beatles and iTunes (and EMI, too)
After decades of bickering that's nearly as infamous as the Beatles' breakup, the actual deal that finally united Apple, Inc., Apple Corps and EMI was hammered out in July, the Wall Street Journal reported today. We touched lightly on this history yesterday, but the WSJ outlined the exact route that EMI and Apple Corps navigated since this summer to reach an agreement, which was then brought to Apple. In Cupertino, Apple began quietly reserving ad space in major publications with only the reassurance that they would deliver the ads to make press time. Meanwhile, Billboard magazine -- as reported via MacRumors -- revealed that much of the issue post-lawsuit wasn't between Apple Corps and Apple, Inc,, but rather Apple Corps and EMI. Apple and Google vied to be the first to host the Beatles, with rumors of Apple paying a "substantial advance" to EMI floating around. Regardless, Apple won the race and the Beatles now dominate the iTunes charts ... though none of the albums have yet to surpass the latest Glee album on the charts. The Beatles remain exclusive to Apple until at least January of 2011, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the digital tracks on Amazon shortly after it runs out.
The Beatles invade iTunes charts within 12 hours
It's been just over 24 hours since the release of The Beatles' complete back catalogue on iTunes and they are already dominating the album charts in a rather unusual way. In fact, as reported by MacObserver, within 12 hours of availability The Beatles had 15 albums placed in the Top 40 best-selling albums chart and 17 albums in the Top 100. That's a lot of albums to have in the Top 100 at any one time, let alone the Top 40. As of this writing, the numbers are even more impressive. The Beatles now have three of the top ten albums (Abbey Road is at number seven) and 16 of the top 50. Apple announced the release shortly before 10 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday morning, after a full-page takeover tease was displayed at Apple.com on Monday. Some have felt a tad let down by the announcement, following the hype and speculation that ensued after the tease appeared. However, ifoAppleStore.com notes that Apple is making the most of the announcement in its retail stores across the U.S. and Canada. Apple staff are being issued special name tag lanyards with the slogan "The Beatles. Now on iTunes" with the Abbey Road album cover just below it. The name of the staff member is printed just below that. Also, high-profile Apple Stores are replacing their current window displays with special Beatles promotional presentations. Other stores will replace the current FaceTime display with a picture of The Beatles looking out at shoppers.
Why you really shouldn't have expected more than Beatles on iTunes today
We here at TUAW, and those of you who read us and a dozen other Apple or tech blogs each day were certainly amped about a full-page takeover on Apple.com yesterday. We were subsequently a bit let down when the veil lifted to reveal... The Beatles on iTunes. Keep in mind Twitter + Ping happened via press release -- a Facebook + Ping update could also have happened inside iTunes without an update to iTunes itself, and likewise just merit a press release without so much hoopla. So why did we expect more? It's a classic case of what we do when we see a tease from Apple. We expect a unicorn to emerge, bathed in the light of the Apple logo, being led by Steve Jobs carrying a bucket of golden oats. Further, we expect this unicorn to fulfill our every whim, our every desire, be easy to use and be hated by a faction who just likes to hate anything Apple does. Oh, and we know they'll just trot out a new unicorn next year, one you can get in seven colors, but we don't care -- we want this new, shiny unicorn NOW and if we don't get what we expect, we are terribly let down. But guess what? If you do read TUAW and a dozen other tech sites every day, and you've been reading about Apple for at least the past 10 years, you should have known better. Here are the reasons why.
Today is just another day I will forget
When Apple teased "Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget" on their home page yesterday I hoped it was going to be something really cool -- like cloud-based iTunes or a subscription iTunes service. When the news began to leak out that the event was the Beatles coming to iTunes finally it was cool, but a day I'll never forget? Nope. Don't get me wrong, it's great to finally have the Beatles on iTunes, but Apple, lets keep this in check. For $149 and the click of a button it's nice to get all of the Beatles tracks from iTunes if I want them, but most Beatles fans had the band's entire discography ripped when MP3s started going mainstream back in 2001. Heck, hardcore fans probably had their tracks encoded at such high levels in Ogg Vorbis or FLAC that they needed a separate hard drive just to contain their Beatles tunes (and if they don't yet, Amazon will help them out -- today they lowered their Beatles Stereo Box Set to only $129). Seven years ago a Beatles/iTunes announcement might have earned the "never forget" slogan, but not today in 2010. And while it's only been three hours since the release, the iTunes Store music charts confirms that this isn't the earth-shattering news it was made out to be. Not one Beatles song has cracked the Top 10 list yet, while a new song from Katy Perry or the Black Eyed Peas usually shoots up the charts within minutes of being released -- and without taking up 40% of the real estate on the iTunes Music Store homepage or the front page of Apple.com like the Fab Four has. I also want to point out that for all the hoopla over today's "event" one thing that could have made it somewhat memorable is a Beatles-branded iPod touch. If a band-branded iPod is good enough for some guys from Dublin, surely a group of four lads from Liverpool deserve one too. Beatles: glad to have you on iTunes. Apple: I've already forgotten something you said I wouldn't. Wish I could remember what it was...
The Beatles show up in iTunes
We're still holding out hope for a cloud-based subscription service to make that full-page teaser on Apple.com seem worthwhile, but it looks like today's unforgettable iTunes announcement will indeed just be the arrival of the Beatles to the store -- the Fab Four's page just went live, about 20 minutes before the official announcement. It looks like the entire catalog is available in a $149 box set complete with iTunes LP content, and there's also a few videos for your enjoyment. We're sure some of you are super-stoked about being able to buy this stuff in yet another format -- and we're glad Steve and Yoko worked it out -- but unless something else happens today we're feeling like we just witnessed a lot of empty hype. Update: Yep, it's official -- the Beatles are on iTunes. No streaming announcement, no subscription service. Apple's given its entire front page over to a full-size shot of the boys, and as a bonus the "Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964" video will stream for free for the rest of the year. Ringo, can you sum this up for us? "I am particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes," said Ringo Starr. You were always our favorite, Rings. PR after the break, along with a screencap of Apple.com for posterity.
You can't buy me love, but you can buy the Beatles on iTunes
It slipped out a bit early, but the Beatles complete back catalog is available through iTunes. The individual albums clock in at $12.99 (with the Past Masters and the White, Red and Blue albums are $19.99) while a boxset of the Beatles' entire work is available for $149. Individual tracks are $1.29 each. The boxset includes all 13 of the band's studio albums, Past Masters and an iTunes LP with mini-documentaries, photos, notes and more. The mini-documentaries were initially featured with last year's CD boxset and are also included on the individual albums. The band's mono collection does not appear to be available at this time. The iTunes page has a number of features, including ads, a highlight reel and the first-ever Beatles' concert on U.S. soil in 1964. Apple updated the iTunes Store's front page to officially announce the release shortly before 10 a.m. ET. This is the culmination of a long and sometimes bitter battle that has its roots in a 1978 lawsuit between Apple Corps and Apple Computer. After winning a lawsuit against Apple Corps in 2006, Apple began actively courting the surviving band members and their heirs. It was a long and winding road indeed as the Beatles spent the interim releasing both the remastered albums and Rock Band: The Beatles. As the years slipped by and iTunes continued to dominate the music industry, it became more of a "when" and not an "if" the Beatles were going to be on iTunes. Paul McCartney even starred in an iPod ad in 2007. The group's solo efforts have been available for a few years as well.
WSJ: Apple bringing Beatles to iTunes after a seven year wait
It's not like The Beatles are lacking in legacy and cultural saturation, but we have to lament the generation of kids that have yet to hear the Fab Four in album form -- at least, in legally-obtained album form -- thanks to the group's conspicuous absence from the largest music retailer in the US . Now, a mere seven and a half years after Apple launched the iTunes store, with countless hopeful rumors in-between, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that The Beatles catalog is a lock for tomorrow's iTunes announcement. This is according to WSJ's "people familiar with the matter," and matches with what Billboard calls "the best bet" from what it's managed to scrounge up. Even with such an imminent announcement, WSJ's sources warn that plans could change at the last minute, and that the talks between Apple, Beatles reps, and EMI were taking place as recently as last week. Still, we just have to believe this is going to happen, cross our fingers, and wear our lucky socks tomorrow -- because really, who wants to wait another seven years?
Wall Street Journal confirms Beatles on iTunes
Ethan Smith of the Wall Street Journal writes that iTunes will soon be carrying the Beatles catalog, according to "people familiar with the situation." According to Smith, this deal was finalized recently -- as late as last week -- between Apple and EMI group. If so, this plays into the Beatles-style hints of today's teaser announcement on the Apple home page and supports the notion that iTunes will begin selling the Beatles music as early as tomorrow. %Poll-55792% Thanks, badtzmaru
Yoko Ono regarding Beatles on iTunes: 'Don't hold your breath'
There are two great mysteries of the digital age: how did a Welshman become the most powerful man in Japan and when will the Beatles be available for download on iTunes? While the former will forever remain a mystery, speculation picked up on the latter in 2006 after Apple and Apple Corps -- the record label owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and the estate of George Harrison -- settled a long running dispute. In September of last year, Yoko Ono apparently went so far as to whisper its imminent arrival only to be rebuffed by EMI which licenses the Beatles' recordings. Unfortunately, things don't look any closer to being settled today. Reuters is reporting an impasse, quoting Ono as saying, "Steve Jobs has his own idea and he's a brilliant guy. There's just an element that we're not very happy about, as people. We are holding out." She then added, "Don't hold your breath ... for anything," presumably while cracking a whip and laughing maniacally. Fitting don't you think, as legend has it that Lennon's first encounter with Ono involved her passing him a card that read "Breathe."
MP3 Shocker! Apple Records makes Billy Preston and James Taylor available for download, the Beatles not so much
EMI and Apple Records have announced that a number of artists from the back catalog (and it's all back catalog at this point), including James Taylor, Badfinger, Mary Hopkins, and Billy Preston (pictured above, shooting time traveling lightning bolts from his fingers) will see their work remastered and re-released on CD and digital download on October 26. Authorized downloads are a first for the company, although the plans do exclude the one group that really matters. How about the four lads from Liverpool, then? Looks like for the time being you're either stuck with pre-loaded novelty USB drives or you're ripping all your legally purchased CDs (for personal archival use only). Billy Preston shows us how it's done after the break.
The Daily Quest: Me tanks
Here at WoW.com we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites. It's Monday, which means I'll be plunking around on a troll warrior this evening thanks to the Choose My Adventure program. Shamefully, while I've done plenty of questing, I haven't really done much in the way of instances or tanking. This is due to some deep-seated fear that I'm going to be the horrible tank that gets the healer killed by a runaway add, the obnoxious tank that lives by the philosophy "Continuously pull threat off of me and I will let your cloth-wearing hiney tank that mob" or just simple fear of complete and utter incompetence in general. Thankfully there's plenty out there in the WoW blogosphere regarding tanking: The Wayward Initiative likes to stand in front of things that mean them harm. Righteous Defense serves up three impenetrable facts about armor as well as introducing the cooldown you can chug. Tankingtips reflects on 6 or 7 tanking mistakes you'll consistently make, as well as discussing the Dungeon Tool and how it is ruining your chances of Raid Tanking. This is doing little to ease my fears. Let's go to The Stoppable Force for a reassuring and cheery musical number instead.
Spiritual Guidance: Priest gems for raid roles
Every Sunday, Spiritual Guidance takes a step into the light to reflect on the subtleties of healing for discipline and holy priests. Your guide, Dawn Moore, enjoys bubble wrap, bubble milk tea, Bubble Bobble, watermelon bubble gum, water bubbles in space, and dolphins blowing bubble rings. She is lukewarm toward bubble spamming. I have a 6140 gear score. Don't get excited though; I just said that to rile some of you up. I loathe the concept of the gear score addon, and I actually had to look it up just to know what mine was. The real reason I bring up my gear score is to give you, my fair readers, an idea of what kind of gear I typically work with as a player. If you have no idea what that number translates to, it is full 264 item level gear with a few 277 level items sprinkled in. So for the most part I have a fantastic set of gear. If I walk into a PUG 5-man, most players will glance me over and immediately feel at ease about their fate for the next 15 to 20 minutes. This is ironic though, because despite the quality of my gear being well above average, I am currently rocking a gear set far worse for healing heroic dungeons than I was 3 tiers ago. Why, pray tell, is that? Because my guild and I have spent the last three weeks working on the heroic Lich King encounter and I've been slowly optimizing my gear for the past month in preparation for this one, single fight. How's my mana regeneration? Pathetic: I get all of my mana return not from trinkets, flasks or mustache-twirling meta gems, but from carefully timed Power Word: Shields and the Rapture trick. What about haste? Awful: my GCD isn't even close to 1 second if I cast two spells back to back. My sole purpose in the Lich King fight is to cast one spell, on as many people as possible, for about 10 minutes straight. As such, all my gear, gems, enchants, and glyphs are selected to work in this fight alone, even if it cripples me in every other aspect of the game. And it is quite crippling. I used to love spoiling myself with haste. I loved the 1 second GCD; but now, because of my gear, I find myself having to smash my buttons frantically and repeatedly in the easiest of 5-man dungeons, because my inner sense of timing is all thrown off to what I'm accustomed to. I have trouble healing Halls of Reflection! (If you could hear me, there was a cry of shame in that last sentence.) So, what are we going to talk about today? Gems. That was obvious before now, right?
Amazon Deal of the Day: Beatles: Rock Band for under $30
If you've yet to play one of those rhythm games that exclusively features the work of a single band, but you're dying to temper your expectations for Green Day: Rock Band, you should probably consider picking up the similarly-titled Harmonix opus that focuses on the career of the Beatles. In fact, you should do it right now -- Amazon's offering Beatles: Rock Band for $28.49 on all three major platforms as its Deal of the Day. As an added bonus, the retailer is also selling the Premium Edition bundle, which includes all those sexy instruments, for just $139 (down from MSRP $200). We recognize that The Beatles are no Green Day, but you should be able to emulate playing the upcoming Billie Jo Armstrong simulator by muting your television while playing Beatles, and just crankin' up the Dookie.
Win a limited edition set of Beatles MusicSkins from TUAW
Although you still can't get your Beatles fix through the iTunes Store, Apple Corps has made a license agreement with MusicSkins, the maker of music-related vinyl skin products for electronic devices. As a result, you can now purchase Beatles personal device skins featuring the Beatles logo and cover art from "Abbey Road," "Yellow Submarine," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Rubber Soul," "Let It Be," "With the Beatles," and "Hard Day's Night." We have something completely different we'd like to give away to one lucky TUAW reader -- a limited edition (one of only 250) Beatles Album Jacket set with MusicSkins for the iPhone (2G, 3G, 3GS), iPod touch (1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation), iPod nano (5th Generation), and iPod Classic (80GB, 160GB). This features the full set of album cover art from the Beatles, and there are two MusicSkins for each of the iPod / iPhone types noted. If you don't have all of the devices, you can give some away to your friends as gifts! To enter this special giveaway, just leave a comment below with the name of your favorite Beatle (and no, Pete Best, Stu Sutcliffe, and Brian Epstein don't count). Here are the details of the giveaway: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. To enter, leave a comment with the name of your favorite Beatle -- John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, or Ringo Starr The comment must be left before Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time. You may enter only once. One winner will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: One Limited Edition set of MusicSkins featuring The Beatles (Value: US$120.00) Click Here for complete Official Rules. Good luck!
The Beatles: Rock Band DLC 'All You Need is Love' coming to PS3, Wii
The Beatles: Rock Band single "All You Need is Love" will bounce on trampolines over to Wii and PS3 on February 16 and March 4, respectively. The song was initially released exclusively on Xbox 360, with proceeds from purchases going to Doctors Without Borders. The track raised approximately $218,000 for the international relief agency before the promotion ended on January 31. All you need to download the track and start singing along is $2, or 200 Wii Points. %Gallery-75971%
