After years of cajoling, iTunes is now allowed to sell songs by The Beatles, finally allowing people who can’t figure out how to rip a CD to listen to the band’s music on an iPod. The group had been the service’s most famous holdout, a standoff that wasn’t helped by a trademark dispute between The Beatles’ Apple Corps and Apple Inc. That situation was finally resolved in 2007, which is when the “Beatles are coming to iTunes” talk began in earnest, but as Steve Jobs said today in a press release, “It’s been a long and winding road to get here.” (Like the song!)
The group’s surviving members and various widows also chimed in, with Ringo Starr saying he was “particularly glad to no longer be asked when the Beatles are coming to iTunes,” and adding, “If you want it, you can get it now.” (Like the song!) Also, Yoko Ono seems to believe it’s “so appropriate that we are doing this on John’s 70th birthday year” and that the licensing of the band’s songs for sale through the No. 1 digital music marketplace is “in the joyful spirit of Give Peace A Chance.” It took a lot of tears and bloodshed, but war is over, since you wanted it.
Anyway, all 13 of the Beatles’ remastered albums are now available through iTunes, each of which come with a mini-documentary about their creation, in addition to the Past Masters and Red and Blue collections. You can also download everything in one giant Beatles Box Set for $149, which includes all of the above plus Live At The Washington Coliseum, 1964, a film of the group’s first U.S. concert. Buy it all again. BUY IT AGAIN.