Members blue2blue Posted December 23, 2015 Members Posted December 23, 2015 BBC: Beatles music joins streaming services Starting tonight at midnight (midnight where? -- we can't help but wonder), 224 songs from the original 13 studio albums released in the UK as well as "essential" collections including Past Masters will be available on 9 subscription services: Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Tidal, Amazon Prime Music, Deezer, Microsoft Groove, Napster and Slacker Radio. One expert suggested that the move would help their legacy endure. "In terms of digital the Beatles have always been quite late to the party - they came to iTunes in 2010, which was a good five years after the iTunes Music Store started gaining momentum," said Chris Cooke, co-founder of the music industry news site CMU. "We had expected they would probably do an exclusive deal to stream their music with one service, but it looks like instead they are going to be pretty much everywhere from day one. "So, I suppose that is them accepting that streaming is now a very serious, significant part of the record industry."
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 24, 2015 Members Posted December 24, 2015 Do you think this will help or hinder the stream subscriptions?
Members blue2blue Posted December 24, 2015 Author Members Posted December 24, 2015 Do you think this will help or hinder the stream subscriptions? If the Beatles are there -- it must be square? I don't think this will hurt the uptake in stream subscriptions at all. I'd glanced at this thread as I was getting out of bed (yes, I'm one of those sods who now picks up the tablet and scans the news before getting out of bed -- you never can tell when it's just gonna be a better idea to pull the covers up and bury your head under the pillow) but somehow reinterpreted it in memory as Do you think it will help or hinder sales? And, so, I had all these thoughts about that queued up in my head. I was going to write something like: Will it help revenue is probably the real question. Streams, of course, are treated as sales as far as artist mechanical royalties to artist/label rights holders but songwriting royalties from streams are (currently) apportioned on a variation of the radio broadcast songwriter/publisher royalty formula. (Radio performances in the United States, unlike many other nations, do not generate any royalties at all for artist/labels, since radio play has been traditionally seen as form of marketing -- a view reinforced, of course, by the record industries long history of paying -- legally and illegally -- for radio play.) Let me tell you my own Beatles collection story. I have, I think, all the American releases and a couple of Brit releases, on vinyl with the exception of Help! But... I only bought one new -- the first I bought, Sgt. Peppers (I was coming back to listening to rock and roll after a long hiatus from grades 7-10 when I disdained 'teeny bopper music' -- friends had finally begun convincing me I'd like the changes that blues rock and the psychedelic revolution had brought -- and they were right). Every other Beatles record in my collection was bought used or given to me used by someone. And, in the US, that means the artists, labels, songwriters, and publisher received exactly nothing for any of those used purchases -- or any of those thousands of plays so derived. The fundamental question, of course, is whether the artist will receive more from an outright sale or from ongoing stream revenue. In my experience with streaming, I have played some tracks thousands of times. (I only have a count of individual track plays for the last 2 years I've been on Google Play Music. But in just those two years, I've racked up enough plays of one album that the pay out to the rights holders (based on GPM's payouts on my own material) to put about $40 -- and counting -- in the artist/label rights holders' pockets -- for one, 13 song, mid-60s album. That's not the ROYALTIES on $40 -- that's FORTY DOLLARS for one album -- that cost about $3 when it was first out. And, as long as people keep playing it, it's going to keep making money for the rights holders. (Now, sadly, there's little chance that the original artists still have a stake, because, well, that's how it goes in the music biz. But the principle of ongoing revenue remains.) And, while that album is a longtime fave, it's not the only album I return to fairly frequently. I've become quite addicted to the Anonymous 4 (pre-Renaissance vocal music performed by [gasp] women) as well as the kora and chamber string concoctions of exoticist Jacques Burtin. Many tracks by A4 have racked up over a dollar's worth of plays (per track!) from me. That's not RETAIL price -- that's straight revenue -- and it's ongoing! So... in answer to that question you didn't ask -- if one's music has legs, if people keep listening, then streaming can work out very well for an artist who keeps control of his library. And, I'm thinking, the Beatles music has strong, ongoing appeal. That said, it had to weigh on their strategists that while Beatles tracks were well represented in the iTunes Top 100 (10 tracks), the very highest rank reached by any of those ten tracks was only #40. I suspect they may have worried that at some point further holding back of their work was going to significantly impact their ongoing uptake by young listeners.
Members onelife Posted December 24, 2015 Members Posted December 24, 2015 Years ago I began wondering how many times Sir Paul could repackage and re-market those songs. It seems to happen with every medium change and is supported by his seemingly unending ability to get out there and perform.
Members blue2blue Posted December 24, 2015 Author Members Posted December 24, 2015 Sir Paul's in it for life. For the purposes of nothing special beyond obsessive completeness, here's my first official stream pass through the Magical Mystery land... [reverse play order] Maggie Mae Across The Universe I've Just Seen A Face Ticket To Ride You're Going To Lose That Girl I Need You You've Got To Hide Your Love Away Savoy Truffle Martha My Dear Yesterday Julia Blackbird The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill Act Naturally Dear Prudence Tomorrow Never Knows Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds She's Leaving Home Blue Jay Way Strawberry Fields Forever Your Mother Should Know When I'm Sixty Four Hello, Goodbye Good Morning Good Morning Lovely Rita If I Needed Someone Girl Nowhere Man I'm Looking Through You Fixing A Hole Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! I'm Only Sleeping To be honest, while I'm fond of almost all of those, I only put "Martha Mae" on because I couldn't remember what it was. But the fall-apart ending on that late-career tune seemed oddly fitting. [Thanks to Last.fm's scrobbling and some code editor tools, that list only took a couple minutes to compile and format. Still, it seems kind of a stoopid effort now that it's done. But it's done and I'm not gonna not post it.]
Members nat whilk II Posted December 24, 2015 Members Posted December 24, 2015 I predict this will result in (another) mini-revival of Beatles-style pop/rock material coming from the 20-somethings. It might be 2-3 years before it's a noticed thing, but I have spoken, therefore Let It Be nat whilk ii
Members davd_indigo Posted December 25, 2015 Members Posted December 25, 2015 I predict this will result in (another) mini-revival of Beatles-style pop/rock material coming from the 20-somethings. It might be 2-3 years before it's a noticed thing' date=' but [b']I have spoken[/b], therefore Not a bad thing. But my hope would be that the 20-somethings pick up on what I believe was the real magic. Besides all the skill and talent and range of material...that creative distillation process. They didn't just rehearse their songs, go into the studio and just lay down the tracks. I believe their working process created the great recordings. A good example - working out "I Want You" [video=youtube;JRpZNS2ALFw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRpZNS2ALFw
Members techristian Posted December 25, 2015 Members Posted December 25, 2015 My wife was playing Beatles for hours yesterday on our TV over Chromecast. I thought it was free. She just told me $10 a month. ARGGH ! Playing Yellow Submarine now REMASTERED. They are only playing the right or left side. My bad...wife messing with TV . Dan
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 25, 2015 Members Posted December 25, 2015 My wife was playing Beatles for hours yesterday. I thought it was free. She just told me $10 a month. ARGGH ! Dan which service?
Members UstadKhanAli Posted December 25, 2015 Members Posted December 25, 2015 Spotify is free. Or you can pay $10 for it to be commercial-free.
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 25, 2015 Posted December 25, 2015 I pay for the commercial free version and IMHO, it's definitely worth it. "We had expected they would probably do an exclusive deal to stream their music with one service, but it looks like instead they are going to be pretty much everywhere from day one. I thought the same thing, but on second thought, this probably makes more sense. Why stick with one revenue stream when you can be one of (if not THE) biggest players on all of them? I doubt any single streaming service could afford to pay them enough to make it worth their while to sign an exclusive deal. Years ago I began wondering how many times Sir Paul could repackage and re-market those songs. It seems to happen with every medium change and is supported by his seemingly unending ability to get out there and perform. Capitol / Parlophone / EMI know just what they have, and I think they've been pretty smart about how they've gone about things. The playback format changes were out of their hands, but they've certainly taken advantage of them. Projects like Love and the Beatles Anthology were pretty clever and obviously made a ton of money, but they wouldn't have had there not been a demand for them from the public. As far as live performance, Paul's the one former Beatle who I think really enjoys it. He certainly doesn't need the money. The impression he gave me the two times I've gone to see him live is that he just loves to play music, and he still can, so why not?
Members onelife Posted December 25, 2015 Members Posted December 25, 2015 As far as live performance' date=' Paul's the one former Beatle who I think really enjoys it. He certainly doesn't need the money. The impression he gave me the two times I've gone to him live is that he just loves to play music, and he still can, so why not?[/quote'] He certainly found his niche in life. The ability to write, sing and record catchy pop tunes coupled with Beatlemania provided him with the enviable position of having people eagerly awaiting his next work. The only thing he had to do was be good and that seemed to come naturally for him.
Members blue2blue Posted December 26, 2015 Author Members Posted December 26, 2015 My wife was playing Beatles for hours yesterday on our TV over Chromecast. I thought it was free. She just told me $10 a month. ARGGH ! Playing Yellow Submarine now REMASTERED. They are only playing the right or left side. My bad...wife messing with TV . Dan LOL! Hang in there, my brother! FWIW, I really, really enjoy the subscription streaming system (have I mentioned lately? ) I love being able to (mostly) hear anything I want to. And the service I use, Google Play Music has a 'personal upload locker' so I can upload my own obscure or otherwise unavailable tracks and mix them in with what I listen to -- and have access on my tablet -- and, potentially, my mobile, though GPM is a tough fit on my early Android.* [*That's Google doesn't believe in SD memory storage, so insists on putting all their apps in internal mem -- including the album graphics library for one's favorites. And I have a lot of favorites. Maybe if I cleared out the nearly 2400 albums I have 'favorited' I could get it to work on my phone -- but then I'd forget 90% of the stuff I like to listen to...] I'm an album flipper-through-er -- I have a much tighter connection between album graphic and music in my head than I have for album names -- or even artists. My favorites among the 7 services I've been on allowed me to do something akin to flipping through my favorite albums. ___________________________ TBH, I don't even know how Chromecast works, so I don't know how it fits in betwixt the desktop browser and mobile worlds. EDIT: Ah, OK, this vid covers that pretty well... [video=youtube;jPaaLmnx-k4] EDIT2: And I just noticed this new US$35 audio-centric Chromecast Audio wi fi device (with both analog and optical/digital outputs at up to 24/96kHz) -- sounds like a good way to get your subscription streaming into a conventional hi fi via your wi fi. (It also does bluetooth but why degrade your audio quality?) Of course, if you're using the analog output of the Chromecast Audio, you're 'stuck' with the onboard converters -- but if the stereo or other sound system you're going into has a digital input, it should theoretically be a hiqh quality path straight from your computer or phone/tablet to your classic, big iron stereo. http://www.whathifi.com/google/chromecast-audio/review http://www.cnet.com/products/chromecast-audio/
Members nat whilk II Posted December 26, 2015 Members Posted December 26, 2015 Chromecast is most definitely not compatible with all TVs or HDMI devices. I bought one hoping to get Google Play music on our living room TV system, but no go. I did all the research, tried all the tricks a dozen times over - fail. Google around - there's a list of verified-compatible TVs going around. Our TV is less than 2 years old, and I know people who have TVs much older that Chromecast does work on - so it's not just a new vs. old TV issue. nat whilk ii
Members blue2blue Posted December 26, 2015 Author Members Posted December 26, 2015 Chromecast is most definitely not compatible with all TVs or HDMI devices. I bought one hoping to get Google Play music on our living room TV system, but no go. I did all the research, tried all the tricks a dozen times over - fail. Google around - there's a list of verified-compatible TVs going around. Our TV is less than 2 years old, and I know people who have TVs much older that Chromecast does work on - so it's not just a new vs. old TV issue. nat whilk ii Important consumer info! Thanks Nat!
Members AlamoJoe Posted December 28, 2015 Members Posted December 28, 2015 I stream exactly JACK. Most of the music I love, I own copies of. Be it vinyl, Cd or Digital. I can't see spending a nickel to listen to stuff I've already paid for. I'm all for Artists getting paid for their product. That's why I never ripped when Napster was in it's heyday. I just don't like paying for anything twice. I figure I've already done it by replacing beloved vinyl recordings with CD's and Digital Copies. I ain't going there again. It's not that much trouble to juggle my playlists myself.
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2015 Posted December 28, 2015 He certainly found his niche in life. The ability to write, sing and record catchy pop tunes coupled with Beatlemania provided him with the enviable position of having people eagerly awaiting his next work. The only thing he had to do was be good and that seemed to come naturally for him. If only more people could find their niche and do it as well. I really believe people do best in life when they do what they were "made to do" - or, if you prefer, what they "love to do" and what comes naturally for them.
Members blue2blue Posted December 28, 2015 Author Members Posted December 28, 2015 I stream exactly JACK. Most of the music I love, I own copies of. Be it vinyl, Cd or Digital. I can't see spending a nickel to listen to stuff I've already paid for. I'm all for Artists getting paid for their product. That's why I never ripped when Napster was in it's heyday. I just don't like paying for anything twice. I figure I've already done it by replacing beloved vinyl recordings with CD's and Digital Copies. I ain't going there again. It's not that much trouble to juggle my playlists myself. Certainly nothing wrong with that! Outright sales are still coveted -- there's no uncertainty about how long the product's 'legs' will be, all the money's up front. And though I suspect you probably bought all or most of your library new, there's certainly nothing illegal (in the US) about buying used product, even if the rights holders don't get anything from the resale (and in many other national jurisdictions, rights holders do get a resale royalty, though it's unlikely that would happen any time soon in the US, as the right of resale is long established). I pay for streaming because, even though I have about 1900 albums and another 200 or so singles and 78's, my tastes are broad and somewhat voracious. While I love a lot of the music in my collection, I've heard a lot of it a lot. I have a hunger for both variety in old faves (there are a lot of personal faves from across the years I never owned for one reason or another, typically having already busted my music budget a couple times over) -- and a hunger for the (to me) undiscovered, as well. Add to that that a lot of my vinyl is not exactly pristine. Stuff I bought new is mostly in pretty good shape -- though there are a few good scratches from my drinking days. But a lot of the used records in my collection are well worn. And then, well, I'm sorry, I get it that a lot of people like the peculiar sounds of vinyl -- but I'm not one of them. I may own something like 1400 grooved records -- but that's mainly because that was what we had. And my indulgences in both prerecorded reel and -- ugh -- prerecorded cassette ranged from slightly disappointing (prerecorded reel tape) to utter disgust (high speed bin-looped cassette). I once bought a bootleg cassette in Mexico (I already owned the album on vinyl) that sounded better than most of the prerecorded cassettes I heard back in the day -- except that side 2 started about 10 minutes in, because they just flipped the tape in between sides, not letting it wind out to the end. And then, ultimately, I love the ad hoc music programming experience. I do listen to some albums straight through, or sometimes a 'side' from a pre-CD release that fits together nicely -- but one of the things that drew me to tape recorders in the first place was being able to sequence my own favored listening. (And I parlayed that into doing background music for a number of adult parties in my early-mid teens, including a couple of golden anniversaries. (Did not include much challenging pop on those. A little Tijuana Brass and maybe some Brazil '66 and Swingle Singers. It was the early-mid 60's.) I can't say I get into the level of 'curation' on my ad hoc stream playlists I did when you'd commit to a couple sides of tape -- my 'party mixes' used to get quite involved at times. And then, while I used to throw a lot of parties, I don't think I've had more than 10 or 15 people at my house at once in 20 years. (I used to drink, and when I used to drink, I was quite the bon vivant/host/culture provocateur -- it was a rare party that didn't hear a fair brace of outsider stuff mixed in with legit-if-off-beat party music.)
Phil O'Keefe Posted December 28, 2015 Posted December 28, 2015 I stream exactly JACK. Most of the music I love, I own copies of. Be it vinyl, Cd or Digital. I can't see spending a nickel to listen to stuff I've already paid for. I'm all for Artists getting paid for their product. That's why I never ripped when Napster was in it's heyday. I just don't like paying for anything twice. I figure I've already done it by replacing beloved vinyl recordings with CD's and Digital Copies. I ain't going there again. It's not that much trouble to juggle my playlists myself. I've probably paid for some of my favorite music three or four times due to things like the various format changes (cassette, 8-track, vinyl, CD and MP3), wearing copies out from playing them to death, loaning them to friends, etc. etc. Just like you, I don't particularly like paying for the same music over and over, and I do still own hard copies of most of my favorites, but I still pay for a streaming service. Why? It's convenient for me. I don't have to load and rotate stuff into and out of my iPad or my iPhone, I can just play what I want to play without having to think it out in advance or waste any time fiddling with it. I used to have to manually put the few things I might want to hear but that weren't available through the streaming service on to those devices, but now that the Beatles are on Spotify, that will reduce the need to do so even further. That, plus access to all the stuff I don't own is well worth the ten bucks a month to me. YMMV
Members blue2blue Posted December 28, 2015 Author Members Posted December 28, 2015 I just got back from a post-holiday lunch with my 80-something mom. Even SHE had heard the Beatles were in stream syndication now. (The only reason she probably knows much of anything about subscription streaming is because of my decade or so of use. She's more a live concert person, herself, still going out to see music and plays at least a few times each month. I used to go out 4 or 5 nights a week, myself. When I drank. Drinking made it possible -- enjoyable, even -- being around other humans. Sometimes I miss that. In principle.) One thing I've noticed, the Beatles stereo remaster series seems mostly very well done. I'm human enough that I have a soft spot for the original mixes I became accustomed to on the records I bought (some stereo, some mono; as I think I noted, I bought almost all my Beatles records used at yard sales and swap meets and used record stores). And it would strike me as perverse when I'd like some of those goofy stereo mixes -- because I was used to them -- but then, with records I had in mono, those 60s afterthought mixes would seem just ridiculously wack when I heard them. So I was really pleasantly surprised when a buddy gave me a remastered stereo CD of "Help" (he has the 40 gram vinyl or something and got the CD as a freebie with some boxed set or such) and I found that the stereo on it didn't grab my attention in any negative way. Someone (I'm not one much for reading the back room stories on this stuff) did a real nice job on that series.
Members AlamoJoe Posted December 29, 2015 Members Posted December 29, 2015 blue2blue and Phil both make excellent points. They usually do. It's a matter of convenience, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. I eat fast food three or four times a week. It's convenient, if a bit unhealthy. But I still mow my own yard, change my own oil in my vehicles. There are simply limits to what I'm willing to pay for convenience.Guess I'm just stubborn. And own a lot of vinyl...But I never listen to it. The pops and crackles make me nuts anymore. .
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