I grew up listening to the Beatles and was such a Beatlesmaniac, I knew every lyric to every song they ever released. I would get my sister Courtney to quiz me with a book to be sure I got every word. I also knew everything about them and had a box full of Beatles memorabilia that was so special, one day when my school burned down, they found that the only thing in tact from the entire school was a small closet that had my Beatles collection in it.
As the world changed, and music changed, The Beatles’ music would continue to be remastered and even as a kid, I was amazed that their recordings sounded so good, on each new medium.
The Beatles are timeless and I am inclined to think that their music is so wonderful, it will make it’s way into future generations on it’s own, but I worry about the resistance it’s up against, and wonder if it will make it’s way with as much popularity as it has had in times past.
I suppose if you still listen to radio you will still have The Beatles as a part of your life, they get a lot of airplay, even today on classic rock stations for example. And they continue to sell ALOT of albums.
Yet as MG Siegler from Techcrunch pointed out, they have been missing from the digital age for a long time. iTunes has been around for 7 years and they have not been able to strike a deal. While it’s hard to see the impact of their absence now, I worry that they could be skipping a crucial generation where any gap could be enough to lead to a major a loss in cultural relevance.
The Beatles have done an immaculate job at keeping their music, photographs and other media away from the internet. If there is a gray area on legal use for media with The Beatles, they’ll probably pursue it and win. So yeah, unfortunately most of the young people I know these days are not very familiar with their music. It’s hard to imagine; I continue to be surprised everytime someone doesn’t know a popular Beatles song.
I wonder if the lack of existence in internet culture will harm their relevancy for future generations to come.
As you can see from the video, The Beatles are pretty famous still today.
