Get Back

In my travels this weekend, I managed to, at long last, bring home the latest issue of Rolling Stone(www.rollingstone.com) magazine. Bill Simmons (www.sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index) had twittered (www.twitter.com/sportsguy33)(OK, I will stop) that the issue contained an excellent article about the breakup of the Beatles. After making multiple stops, I finally found the issue, and it was indeed, as the Sports Guy said, excellent.

As is usual with me, this has put me into a Beatles sort of mood. The article also mentioned that the Beatles are releasing yet another remastering of their recordings on CD, which is a downright interesting course of action in 2009. The Beatles, of course, notoriously sued Apple Computer when the IPod and ITunes came out. (The computer company, when they applied to patent their name, made it abundantly clear at the time that there was, of course, no way they would ever get into the music business. That would be silly.) The Beatles, to date, are not available in digital format, at least not legally, which makes them approximately the only group that is not.

So it is interesting that the Beatles are not only taking a step forward, with the release of Beatles Rock Band on September 9, but also taking a step backward, with the release of CDs. (There was a Dennis Miller joke around the time of the first CD releases, where he imagined Charles Manson admitting that the sound quality was so excellent, he now realized they were NOT, in fact, giving him coded messages after all.) (Of course, as it turns out, the releases actually weren't that good, which is at least one of the reasons why they are releasing them again.)

Because I'm stupid, I will be out looking for them, of course. (It makes me wonder, of course, where I will look, CD stores being a vanishing breed. The only one deserving of the title is FYE, a small chain which also sells movies and posters and such like things.) Assuming this blog isn't sold to Hollywood between now and then (HA!), I will not be able to afford them all.

I think I would have to have Revolver and Rubber Soul, of course. Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road, I think, are mandatory. That would leave The White Album, which might cost double. That would be about all my wallet could handle, methinks.