The original 13 albums released by The Beatles and a few post-1970 compilations is now available on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Deezer, Rhapsody, and several other music subscription services in the UK, United States and around the world.
"The Beatles needed to be on all streaming services if they were to reach out to a new generation of music fans," says Giles Martin, son of original Beatles producer Sir George Martin, who oversees the remastering of the Beatles' catalog for new formats. "Music streaming is the way most music lovers now enjoy their favorite songs."
The news is great for music-service subscribers who double as Beatles fans, it's going to be much more convenient to listen to Sgt. Pepper and The White Album alongside all the other albums and playlists they've been digitally hoarding over the last few years.
For more casual streamers (especially the younger ones), the move ensures that one of history's most beloved bands isn't lost in the shuffle as music consumption shifts more toward the on-demand streaming model.
The news is much more exciting for the streaming companies themselves. The Beatles, who have earned a reputation for stubbornness when it comes to new technology and digital distribution, are obviously a massive part of modern popular culture, and their missing catalog is a glaring omission from any service designed to deliver the world's music to its subscribers.
"I agreed with Jeff Jones, the CEO of Apple Corps, and Lucien Grange at Universal that The Beatles needed to be on all streaming services if they were to reach out to a new generation of music fans," says Martin, who also works as the Sound Experience Leader at Sonos. "They are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago."
For companies like Spotify, Deezer, Apple, and the rest, the arrival of The Beatles means two important things: First, listening hours are likely about to increase as people around the world start to binge on Beatles classics. The band's catalog also makes these services more attractive to consumers and can only help drive subscriber numbers.
But perhaps more importantly, getting The Beatles on board gives the streaming model a renewed sense of legitimacy. With album sales dwindling, downloads tanking, and revenue from music subscriptions slowly (but steadily) growing, few doubt that streaming is the future, especially now that Apple—the company that effectively launched the market for paid downloads when it created iTunes—has jumped into the streaming game with Apple Music. But that hasn't stopped some from questioning the underlying economics of the streaming model. In a few cases, high-profile artists have pulled their catalogs from services like Spotify entirely.
After seven years of delay, The Beatles finally brought their music to the iTunes Store in 2010, reportedly after protracted legal, financial, and creative negotiations. Most notably, a longstanding trademark dispute between Apple (of Cupertino fame) and Apple Corps (founded by The Beatles in 1968) was finally settled in 2007, helping to thaw relations between the two companies.
The year before their iTunes debut, The Beatles released their entire remastered catalog on compact disc (and eventually vinyl) and even agreed to license their music for a special Beatles-branded edition of the then popular Rock Band video game. Just a few years earlier, some of the band's best-known songs were mashed up and remixed by Giles Martin for the Cirque du Soleil show and soundtrack titled Love. Clearly the Beatles empire was warming up to the idea of the band's music being heard—and even manipulated—in entirely new ways.
So what took so long for The Beatles to stream their music? Undoubtedly, one of the major stumbling blocks was coming up with the proper licensing deals for The Beatles catalog. This is always a crucial part of new digital distribution deals, and it tends to be especially contentious in the streaming space. The ins and outs of those deals are virtually never made public (on purpose). But it's safe to assume that each streaming service is forking over a significant sum of money to the rights holders of The Beatles songs.
"The Beatles needed to be on all streaming services if they were to reach out to a new generation of music fans," says Giles Martin, son of original Beatles producer Sir George Martin, who oversees the remastering of the Beatles' catalog for new formats. "Music streaming is the way most music lovers now enjoy their favorite songs."
The news is great for music-service subscribers who double as Beatles fans, it's going to be much more convenient to listen to Sgt. Pepper and The White Album alongside all the other albums and playlists they've been digitally hoarding over the last few years.
For more casual streamers (especially the younger ones), the move ensures that one of history's most beloved bands isn't lost in the shuffle as music consumption shifts more toward the on-demand streaming model.
The news is much more exciting for the streaming companies themselves. The Beatles, who have earned a reputation for stubbornness when it comes to new technology and digital distribution, are obviously a massive part of modern popular culture, and their missing catalog is a glaring omission from any service designed to deliver the world's music to its subscribers.
"I agreed with Jeff Jones, the CEO of Apple Corps, and Lucien Grange at Universal that The Beatles needed to be on all streaming services if they were to reach out to a new generation of music fans," says Martin, who also works as the Sound Experience Leader at Sonos. "They are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago."
For companies like Spotify, Deezer, Apple, and the rest, the arrival of The Beatles means two important things: First, listening hours are likely about to increase as people around the world start to binge on Beatles classics. The band's catalog also makes these services more attractive to consumers and can only help drive subscriber numbers.
But perhaps more importantly, getting The Beatles on board gives the streaming model a renewed sense of legitimacy. With album sales dwindling, downloads tanking, and revenue from music subscriptions slowly (but steadily) growing, few doubt that streaming is the future, especially now that Apple—the company that effectively launched the market for paid downloads when it created iTunes—has jumped into the streaming game with Apple Music. But that hasn't stopped some from questioning the underlying economics of the streaming model. In a few cases, high-profile artists have pulled their catalogs from services like Spotify entirely.
After seven years of delay, The Beatles finally brought their music to the iTunes Store in 2010, reportedly after protracted legal, financial, and creative negotiations. Most notably, a longstanding trademark dispute between Apple (of Cupertino fame) and Apple Corps (founded by The Beatles in 1968) was finally settled in 2007, helping to thaw relations between the two companies.
The year before their iTunes debut, The Beatles released their entire remastered catalog on compact disc (and eventually vinyl) and even agreed to license their music for a special Beatles-branded edition of the then popular Rock Band video game. Just a few years earlier, some of the band's best-known songs were mashed up and remixed by Giles Martin for the Cirque du Soleil show and soundtrack titled Love. Clearly the Beatles empire was warming up to the idea of the band's music being heard—and even manipulated—in entirely new ways.
So what took so long for The Beatles to stream their music? Undoubtedly, one of the major stumbling blocks was coming up with the proper licensing deals for The Beatles catalog. This is always a crucial part of new digital distribution deals, and it tends to be especially contentious in the streaming space. The ins and outs of those deals are virtually never made public (on purpose). But it's safe to assume that each streaming service is forking over a significant sum of money to the rights holders of The Beatles songs.
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| George Martin and Giles |
There's also the issue of sound quality. The Beatles and their surviving family members and stakeholders are known to be extremely protective of the band's legacy and how their music is presented to the world. Only in recent years have the streaming services begun to embrace high-resolution audio (Deezer and Tidal especially) and move beyond the crunchiness of the MP3 era.
"Sound quality is everything we work for at Abbey Road," says Martin. "One of the reasons that it has taken this long for the Beatles to stream is that the quality is now there." Giles Martin says he worked with the teams at the major streaming services to ensure that the band's music would be presented as true to the artists' intent as possible. The sound quality will obviously vary from service to service (and in some cases, from subscription tier to subscription tier), but the overall fidelity of streaming music libraries has come a long way since Rhapsody first arrived on the scene 14 years ago.
Tomorrow's release encompasses all of the original Beatles albums, from 1963's Please Please Me through 1970's Let It Be, the last record released before the band officially dissolved (although Abbey Road was technically recorded last). It will also include compilations like Past Masters volumes one and two, the red and blue greatest hits collections, and 1, the collection of number one hits released in 2000. Absent from the list are other post-1970 releases like The Beatles Anthology series or the Live at the BBC collection.
The albums now available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Microsoft Groove, Napster/Rhapsody, Slacker Radio, and Amazon Prime Music.
"Sound quality is everything we work for at Abbey Road," says Martin. "One of the reasons that it has taken this long for the Beatles to stream is that the quality is now there." Giles Martin says he worked with the teams at the major streaming services to ensure that the band's music would be presented as true to the artists' intent as possible. The sound quality will obviously vary from service to service (and in some cases, from subscription tier to subscription tier), but the overall fidelity of streaming music libraries has come a long way since Rhapsody first arrived on the scene 14 years ago.
Tomorrow's release encompasses all of the original Beatles albums, from 1963's Please Please Me through 1970's Let It Be, the last record released before the band officially dissolved (although Abbey Road was technically recorded last). It will also include compilations like Past Masters volumes one and two, the red and blue greatest hits collections, and 1, the collection of number one hits released in 2000. Absent from the list are other post-1970 releases like The Beatles Anthology series or the Live at the BBC collection.
The albums now available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, Microsoft Groove, Napster/Rhapsody, Slacker Radio, and Amazon Prime Music.
Thanks for this Christmas'streaming, and a happy new year ! best regards, Pierre Senecal.
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