The Beatles To The Rescue

The Beatles To The Rescue

Happy Beatle Day! The Fabs have quite a lot resting on their shoulders today. The music industry has high hopes on these reissues breathing some life into a business that's so stale that quite a few new artists are happy to remain unsigned by major labels.

But will they be able to do it? Will they be able to top the recently deceased Michael Jackson. Its hard to tell. Unlike Jackson the Fab Four don't have a whole lot of scandal attached to them.

What they do have is a large catalog of brilliant pop music. But everyone knows that, even the naysayers that feel the band is over-rated.

The question is, will the people who bought the band's CDs back in the 80s when they were first available want to part with their cash in this lousy economy just to see if the remastering job was a good one? The boxsets will set you back $200 + depending on whether you are buying the stereo or mono sets.

Paul McCartney isn't strange, nor is Ringo. They don't have they mystique of a possible murder surrounding them. John's murder is long forgotten in the grand scheme of generating album sales. Just as Harrison's untimely death as a result of cancer is.

These guys have to sell their old material based on its brilliance alone, a brilliance that's never been denied them.

Will they be able to do it? If any band out there can, it would be them. They are the greatest rock band ever.

I'm just not so sure.

I'm not even sure I want them to do it. One band shouldn't have to breathe life into an industry that would rather place blame on piracy than on themselves. In the last 20 years the quality of music has gone down. Fewer and fewer albums are listenable from start to finish. I would rather see the industry resuscitated as a result of quality new talent than by reissues of old albums, however spectacular those albums were.

That is a pipe dream though. It won't happen.

So I can only wish The Beatles luck in trying to give the music industry a little mouth to mouth. If it doesn't work, someone send Paul to give me a little mouth to mouth!