The Beatles Love You
In a Christmas present of sorts the entire Beatles catalogue of music will be available for streaming globally as of one minute past midnight on Thursday, Dec. 24. The announcement came Wednesday morning on their website with the words “Happy Crimble, with love from us to you.” Crimble is British slang for Christmas.
The Beatles are now represented by the two surviving members of the iconic British band, Paul McCartney, 73, and Ringo Starr, 75, and wives of deceased members John Lennon and George Harrison, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison respectively.
Some industry insiders expressed surprise to see the Beatles come around to streaming, criticized by many artists because it does not offer as much remuneration to musicians as does the sale of albums.
Streaming the Beatles
Represented by Apple Corps Ltd., the band had been holdouts to releasing any of their music on digital services overall but in 2010 signed a deal with iTunes that saw their catalogue go online with that service. Now they join streaming, which has become the most popular method of downloading music on the internet.
The Beatles catalogue consists of 13 studio albums, each of which as been remastered, and four compilation albums. So now the early albums such as ‘With the Beatles’ and ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ along with later gems like ‘The White Album,’ ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘Let it Be’ will be available for streaming.
Beatle albums will be available on 9 streaming sites including Apple Music, Google Play, Rhapsody and Spotify.
