Beatles streaming, but with glitch

While the music of the Beatles has finally made it to streaming services at Christmas time 2015, which is indeed perfect news in the season of festivities, what I would like to comment on is not the obvious albums that are now being streamed but, rather, on the omissions.

For example, The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl, a live album released in May 1977 that was compiled from two performances by the band at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1964 and in August 1965. Although the album was a massive hit at the time of launch – peaking at no. 2 in the US, and no.1 in the UK — the album was never released on CD format and I had hoped that amendments would be made by permitting it to be streamed.

Then there are other omissions [although this lot have all been released on CD, and form part of my extensive Beatles collection]: The BBC sessions – Live At The BBC, released in 1994, and a companion album, On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2, released in 2013 – and the Anthology series, consisting of a three-volume set of double albums, the first volume being released in 1994, with the balance two in 1996. The Anthology series supported a documentary of first-person accounts by the Beatles themselves, and the entire series was gifted to me by EMI in 1996, while I represented the label’s interests in India [I have since substituted the format with DVDs at the time of its launch in 2003].

In the ongoing list of omissions is also Let It Be Naked, a remixed and remastered version released in 2003 of the band’s 1970 album, Let It Be. This project was initiated by Paul McCartney, who had always felt aggrieved that Phil Spector’s production did not accurately represent the group’s “stripped-down” intentions for the original album and, hence, reference to Naked in the title. In continuing with the list of omissions is Love, the genesis of which occurred in 2006 when Beatles producer George Martin and his son, Giles Martin, remixed 80 minutes of Beatles music for the Las Vegas stage performance called Love, a joint venture between Cirque du Soleil and the Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd. A soundtrack album from the show was released that same year.

Also on the ongoing list is one of the band’s best compilations that I had as a double-disc vinyl, Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, which was released in 1976 but, unfortunately, never on CD and, hence, there appeared hope that it would have been streamed when the Beatles opened their vaults. It was not to be.

The history of the Beatles’ discography remains complicated and for true followers of The Beatles, the UK album releases and those in the US had separate track listings. Although A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and Rubber Soul got US releases (albeit with altered tracks), Americans were receiving entirely different Beatles albums for the first few years. And even when Revolver was released – after which the release schedule of US/UK Beatles albums matched up – the tracklisting was different on that album.

Several US-only albums (Meet the Beatles!, Something New — of which I have a German vinyl pressing that contains I Want To Hold Your Hand sung in German, Beatles ‘65’, and more) finally made it onto CD only in the 21st century and, sure enough, none of these albums are available on any of the streaming services.

But The Beatles were not the only ones that were holding out from streaming services. The other gaps arrived via Led Zeppelin but then, in February 2015, their catalogue came up for streaming as also AC/DC, in June, which was another major holdout. The still resistant Garth Brooks, who started selling downloads just last year on his own website, still holds out but, besides him, others that have refused to have their songs streamed across major platforms are Neil Young, King Crimson, Bob Seger, Traveling Wilburys, Prince, Tool, and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. Although some of these artistes have provided one-off opportunities to single streaming services to utilise their content, their catalogue is mostly non-existent in the digital space.

Absent is also Taylor Swift’s catalogue and Adele’s 25 [although her hit single Hello was made available]. While subscription services should ride this momentum, will the appearance of The Beatles assist the balance global music artistes into taking a precedent setting streaming decision now

The writer has been part of the media and entertainment business for over 23 years. He still continues to pursue his hobby, and earns an income out of it.