Beatles on iTunes: Will They Sell?

The “Beatles Box Set” is priced at $149 and features “all of the band’s studio albums as well as the Past Masters collection.” Single albums are also available for download at between $13 and $20 each.

I’d be very interested to see how well these albums sell. I can’t imagine too many people have been holding out for the Beatles to become available on iTunes instead of buying the CDs and converting them to MP3 files or pirating the albums illegally.

Beatles music may have taken until 2010 to hit iTunes, but it’s been available digitally for what seems like forever. If ever there was an example of how slow the music industry’s been to embrace digital downloads, this is it. You can’t fault Apple for promoting the tracks, but nobody involved in the negotiations should be patting themselves on the back over this whole deal.

As for a web-based version of iTunes and/or unlimited music subscriptions, it didn’t happen. Today is a Beatles-only affair.

More on Techland:

At Long Last: The Beatles Catalog Will Be Available On iTunes

Will Apple Announce Web Based iTunes Tomorrow?

earwigy1990

Yeah this IS a day i wont forget, all because ive never been tech blue ballsed this bad before, thanks APPLE!
bucketdvr

I cannot immediately recall a better representation of “Anti-Climatic”.
Lame.
beelkay

Yeah, I’m a big Beatles fan, but I’ve just bought CDs and copied them onto my computer. So…whatever.
1mmk

Yawn. Give me a break. Apple may be cutting edge (most of the time) re devices / gadgetry, but clearly they are CLUELESS about music. THIS is their earthshaking announcement? The NEWEST Beatles music is 40 years old! Everyone who wants the Beatles catalog already has it, has had it for years, possibly already in multiple forms; do they really expect people to buy this stuff AGAIN? Most young people won’t give a damn about this. CLUELESS!!!
charlieromeobravo

I will admit that it’s goofy that the Beatles haven’t made their music available digitally yet, especially considering how many times they’ve resold it to us in the past. That said, who care? CDs are still being pressed and Beatles CDs are still available all over the place. They haven’t suffered the as much as stores like Best Buy have kept pruning their CD selection back to the latest Taylor Swift release because they’re the Beatles. I have to scratch my head when I hear people say they’ve been waiting for the Beatles to go digital. It’s not like their CDs don’t rip and at $13 to $20 for a digital download, you’re not saving anything by skipping the CD and buying digital…
gminnj

I’ll be the dissenter. These will sell. Immediately. In numbers big enough to move the needle.

I doubt if one album will be top 10, but cumulatively, iTunes Beatles sales will be right up there between now and Christmas.

Not that it’s hard to break the top 10 these days…
http://crichton007.wordpress.com crichton007

Why do I feel like I’m in high school again? Beatles albums are selling for a premium over what other albums cost and everyone is asking if I’ve heard this cool band called The Beatles. Yes, I’ve heard of them, they’re good but they’re not THAT good.

I’m sure the novelty of actually buying them digitally will generate sales especially from people who never ended up upgrading their copies from vinyl and/or cassette to CD like Agent K. But I think that most people already own The Beatles on CD and should have already figured out how to use iTunes to copy them to the hard drive.

I’m sure there will be plenty of crowing about how much better the vinyl sounds than what iTunes offers. I’m sure there are also people who don’t know how to or realize how to change the quality that iTunes rips to.

Its not that these will fail or succeed because they will sell but not in the same way they did in the 60s. I doubt they will even top sales of Glee music (sadly enough).
pks29733steel

Apple let’s see, umm…I have a computer, I have Beatle’s cd’s, I have a MP3/4 player that allows me to download anything into it, thus not paying a ‘rIpoff-Tunes’ store money. Apple, why do you consider this news? News would be like ‘Job’s’ kicking off or ‘I-Phones recalled for more problems’. This isn’t news, it’s cApple getting advertisment they don’t have to pay for!!!