Tag Archives: Beatles iTunes

New Beatles iTunes Promotional Video

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From the MacRumours site:

“Apple has posted a new TV ad on their YouTube page promoting the Beatles on iTunes. The ad is called “Covers” and shows off many of different album covers from The Beatles in an animated fashion. The ad ends with “The Beatles on iTunes”.

The Beatles first appeared on the iTunes store back in November 2010. The new TV ad seems part of another promotion announced earlier today of a free animated version of the band’s Yellow Submarine book as an exclusive on Apple’s iBookstore.”

Also, speaking of iTunes and the Beatles, Rolling Stone magazine has just released “Rolling Stone’s Beatles Album-by-Album Guide“, which is an interactive iPad app with the stories behind each LP, photos, statistics and reviews.  The iPad Insight blog has more. This title is also available in hard copy from news stands as a special edition of Rolling Stone magazine.

Beatles “Love” iTunes Exclusives

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Beatles Examiner reports that the two new iTunes exclusive “Love” tracks aren’t new – they date back to 2006 when George and Giles Martin originally mixed the music for the Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas theatrical production. To get the additional new tracks (“Fool on the Hill” and “Girl”) you have to download the whole Beatles “Love” album from the iTunes Store……that’s the only way they are officially available.

That got me thinking about how many more tracks might have been given the “Love” treatment back then and are just awaiting an opportune time for release.

And that reminded me of an interview Giles Martin gave on Australian radio when he was doing the worldwide publicity rounds for the “Love” CD back in 2006.

When explaining how they made “I Want To Hold Your Hand” he told The Music Show host Andrew Ford on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that there were quite a few more tracks sitting in the can ready to go:

Did you hear that? He said there’s a whole swag of Beatles rock songs that were prepared for Cirque du Soleil that were never used in the show and quote: “….maybe we’ll stick them out later on.”  Giles specifically mentions “Love” versions of “Twist and Shout”, “She Loves You”, “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “A Hard Day’s Night”. I think we can look forward to more releases in the future.

Beatles iTunes Gift Cards

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Not that it needed more advertising, but the marketing and commercial push around the Beatles becoming available for digital download on Apple’s iTunes continues.

In the lead-up to Christmas I noticed these point-of-sale display bins began appearing in some of the large record store chains here in Australia:

Seems that iTunes Beatles plastic gift cards of various denominations are being made available in the US,  Canada, Britain and Australia (and probably many more countries). These cards are also available for purchase via the official Apple iTunes site, which says the “special edition” cards with Beatle images on the design can go towards any purchase in the iTunes Store, not just Beatles songs.

As you can see in the image above the gift cards are available in $25 and $50 (US and AUS) amounts, and in the US there’s a $149 gift card variant specifically to purchase the entire catalogue as a so-called “box set”.  The same has been done for Canada, while in the UK there are gift cards for £25 pounds and £50 pounds.

On the Apple site there are also two “limited edition” cards of $100 and $50 US with different Beatle images:

"Limited Edition" $50 US iTunes Beatles Gift Card

"Limited Edition" $100 US iTunes Beatles Gift Card

Now I’ve noticed that the redeemed cards (i.e. they’ve been spent and are of no monetary value) have begun turning up on Ebay for sale as “collectable” items.

What do you reckon?  Would you like to have as set of US, British, Canadian and Australian iTunes cards in your Beatles collection? Take this quick poll and lets find out what people think:

 

Beatles Finally on iTunes

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Well, the cryptic iTunes advertisement yesterday certainly had people speculating again:

Forget the fact that the term “…just another day” isn’t actually a Beatles song (it’s a Paul McCartney solo song), it was more those clocks being side-by-side that triggered off the guesswork that it was Beatles-related.  Something about the position of the hands:

Thanks to the TechCrunch website for starting that one off. It was quickly followed up by the MacRumours site, too. Once that happened it was on for young and old.  The New York Times then got in on the act, stating they had spoken to an anonymous insider who’d told them everything:

Apple is expected on Tuesday to announce that it has finally struck a deal with the Beatles, the best-selling music group of all time, and the band’s record company, EMI, to sell the band’s music on iTunes, according to a person with knowledge of the private deal who requested anonymity because the agreement was still confidential.  (Read the full article)

Then today, finally, came confirmation. The Beatles entire catalogue is now available for digital download. The New York Times has updated its stories – this one in particular has some interesting history and background. And they’re also running an article with information about what we’ll pay for the Beatles back-catalogue digitally. Certainly from what I can see in the Australian iTunes Store its a premium price, thats for sure. (The outrage at the Aussie pricing by Apple is growing. See here and here).

There is one thing for free though if you are quick. On iTunes there’s a free download of the 1964 concert live at that Washington Colliseum, the Beatles first ever on US soil. Its quite fascinating to watch. Its the entire performance – complete with associated pandemonium, between-song banter, screaming, bad sound and a rawness thats revealing.

Thanks to Henry for sending me the MacRumours link.  iTunes have an Artist page here.