Never Before Seen Beatles’ Prints Auctioned Off
Jul, 21 2011
Some things will never change, and that includes our love of and fascination with The Beatles. So it should come as little surprise that recently auctioned off photos of the Fab Four from their first concert in America fetched a staggering $361, 938. You can view the photos by clicking here.
The black and white collection, titled The Beatles Illuminated, was shot by Mike Mitchell at the group’s Washington Coliseum show in February, 1964, just two days after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. At the time, the broadcast garnered a huge 74M television viewers.
Mitchell was 18 years old at the time and recalls to Time, “to me, this concert was an opportunity to do portraits, and to get an up close look, to really see who these guys were! Many Americans emerging from the sleep-walking fifties saw the Beatles as very strange creatures indeed. Most of the establishment press treated them as mere novelty. My generation however felt an immediate connection with them and still do.”
Time reports that the Mitchell’s negatives were stored in box in his basement for 40 years, before several years ago, he digitized his archives. The original silver gelatin prints were individually auctioned off July 20 at Christie’s and had originally been estimated around $100,000.
-Court
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Beatles For Sale (On iTunes)
Nov, 16 2010
Tuesday marks the 46th anniversary of The Beatles’ first appearance on American television, and to celebrate iTunes has finally made their entire catalog available for a la carte digital purchase. Individual songs are available for $1.29 each, while albums cost $12.99 and there's a "digital box set" for $149. It's taken years of negotiation to seal the deal, but iTunes' timing can’t be beat for the holiday season.
On Monday, a teaser page on the Apple homepage displayed four clocks denoting the time on Tuesday that a "big announcement" would be made. The cover art for the Beatles’ Help album seemed to be referenced by the hands of the clocks. Above the clocks was the phrase “Tomorrow is just another day,” a suspected allusion to the Paul McCartney tune “Another Day.”
The Fab Four's arrival in the digital age comes late compared to most other major acts’ digital catalogs. The group was similarly a latecomer to the CD era, waiting until 1987 to issue their main body of work on the medium embraced in the early to mid part of the decade by others.
The solo catalogs of the members of the Beatles have been available on online music services for varying lengths of time, but it's taken til late 2010 for the group's catalog to arrive. It appears that 2010 will be a very Beatles Christmas.
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Revealed: How The Beatles Really Formed
May, 12 2010
The Beatles are about to become the subject of a brand new film; but beware, it’s quite different from the usual musical movie fare. The film will be based on Alan Goldsher’s comic novel Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion, which capitalizes on the public’s recent fascination with the undead including the Twilight franchise and hit novel, Pride And Prejudice And Zombies.
Goldsher sets the scene for the story: “In 1957, John [Lennon], now a burgeoning singer and guitarist, meets Paul McCartney, a Liverpudlian with musical dreams of his own. Sensing a kindred spirit, John bites off Paul's ear and sucks out his mate's grey matter, after which he spits a healthy amount of his own brain into Paul's carotid artery—and thus is born the greatest songwriting team in rock history. John and Paul zombify local guitarist George Harrison, then welcome seventh level Ninja Lord Ringo Starr into the fold.”
Although movie company Double Feature has bought the rights to the film, the book itself will not be published until next month, so it’ll be a while before anyone can see this interesting re-interpretation of the Fab Four's eternal life on-screen.
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The Beatles
Sep, 16 2009
Last week was supposed to be Beatles Week, with a much-hyped new video game and an entire back catalog of remastered albums fresh in the shops; but the expected landslide didn’t quite happen. In the video game stakes, the Fab Four were pipped at the post as The Beatles: Rock Band was beaten in sales terms by the fifth in the series of arch rival Guitar Hero. A similar fate befell them in the British music charts, where each album may have been expected to land in the Top 20, but only four did: the Beatles remasters occupied 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 21st, 24th, 29th, 31st, 33rd, 37th and 38th spots. Any suggestions that the public appetite might prefer more modern flavors were unfounded, because the No.1 spot was taken by Dame Vera Lynn’s compilation We’ll Meet Again. Dame Vera, aged 92, was dubbed the British “forces’ sweetheart” during World War II. Her most recent success makes her the oldest living artist ever to top the UK charts. The nearest the Beatles came to the top spot was with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band which just edged in to the Top 5. The impressively expensive Beatles box sets made it to No.24 (the stereo edition) and No.57 (the mono edition). The Beatles’ chart positions are likely to improve next week, as the current placings were based on a 3-day sales week.
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The Beatles
Sep, 5 2009
The wait is almost over: the long-awaited digital remasters of the entire Beatles catalog, and the awesome-looking The Beatles: Rock Band game, are set to be released on Wednesday, 09/09/09. The original Beatles CDs have often been criticized for their sound quality, but early reviews of the reissues have given breathless praise to the renewed fidelity and warmth. There's also been much debate about the two box-sets on offer: a thirteen disc mono box-set which is more faithful to the original recordings but misses three albums completely; and a seventeen disc stereo box-set which is more comprehensive but also involves brand new stereo mixes of the first four albums, which were never originally released in stereo. Some Beatles fans have said they're planning to buy both sets, and pre-orders have already exceeded all expectations; initial plans for the mono set to be limited to 10,000 for the US market have been shelved. Meanwhile, trailers promoting the Rock Band game have been circulating for weeks, meaning Wednesday is set to be a busy day for video game retailers too. Whatever the platform, Wednesday can't come fast enough for millions of Fab Four fans.
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The Beatles
Apr, 8 2009
If you've ever been puzzled by the sound quality of Beatles CDs compared to CDs of other bands from the 60s, it's probably because The Beatles have never allowed their music to be digitally remastered -- until now. All 12 studio albums, plus the Past Masters Vol 1 and 2 compilations (on one disc) and the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, have been painstakingly remastered over a four year period by engineers at Abbey Road Studios in London. They'll all be released in their new, enhanced form on September 9, the same day The Beatles' Rock Band game will be released. Each CD wil come with expanded booklets with original and new liner notes, and rare photos. All fourteen discs will also be available as a complete box-set with DVD documentaries, so you've got five months to save for that. Those hoping for news on a possible Fab Four appearance on digital retail sites will have to wait a little longer: EMI and Apple say on the matter "Discussions... will continue."
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The Beatles
Mar, 13 2009
The impact of video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band on modern music consumption has been the subject of much worthy head scratching, but there certainly seems to be a healthy symbiosis between the two. Now it seems that millions of young fans, whose first exposure to the great tunes of their forefathers was via a plastic guitar, will finally get the chance to experience The Beatles via a modern medium. Harmonix has been working with both surviving Beatles and Apple Corps – who have retained a steely grip on the rights to the Beatles catalog throughout the years -- to create Rock Band: The Beatles. As Harmonix said "We, of course, are colossal fans of the Beatles so there's not too much to think about why it's a great deal… this is the happiest day of our lives,” which is a sentiment many will be able to agree with when the game is finally released in September.
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The Beatles
Feb, 28 2009
As the most listened to, loved and talked about musical act in history, you might think there was little left to listen to, love or talk about when it comes to The Beatles. Despite splitting nearly 30 years ago, a previously unheard Beatles recording has made its way mysteriously onto the internet, in the form of "Revolution 1 (Take 20)." Described as the missing link between The White Album's classic woozy singalong "Revolution 1" and the highly experimental "Revolution 9," the 11 minute studio off-cut is said to demonstrate how the first, more conventional song evolved into the latter abstract sound collage. The Beatles aren't the only long-expired musical act to be inadvertently debuting new material this week: a 12 minute piece arranged by Beethoven over 200 years ago is set to be performed for the first time ever in Chicago on Sunday.
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The Beatles
Oct, 31 2008
The makers of the video game Rock Band have announced their intention to produce a similar game based on the music of The Beatles. Although it won't be called Rock Band and few other details have been given so far, Harmonix did say that it would be "an unprecedented, experiential progression through and celebration of the music and artistry of The Beatles". The project has the blessing of surviving Beatles Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, and George Harrison's widow Olivia. As The Beatles' music has yet to be made available on any legal download site, and has never been remastered for reissued CD release, some fans are predicting that the process of digitizing the music for release in video game form might also precede other digitizing. Until we find out, all we can do is guess which Beatles songs might make the game playlist: we're looking forward to thrashing away at "A Hard Day's Night," but "Revolution 9" could be quite a challenge.
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