New on iTunes: The Beatles

So a day or two ago Apple started dropping hints that they were releasing something big on iTunes today. The Blogosphere went nuts thinking it was iOS 4.2, the return of lala.com style music streaming, a Zune pass like subscription service, 1080p formatted video. You name it, someone said that was the mystery item.

Instead, it was the inclusion of The Beatles on iTunes. Now on the one hand I'm utterly underwhelmed. But on the other I have to agree that this is a rather big moment. Not because of that whole Apple Inc v Apple Records legal stuff. Whatever is my call on that.

No this moment is big because The Beatles are historically one of the biggest bands ever. They are one of the groups that made Rock and Roll. Without The Beatles, current music would likely look a lot different. And for a long time they have held out against going digital. The remaining members have taken an almost philosophical stance against digital music. For the group to finally say yes is a validation of the whole form,  the purchasing style. Perhaps it isn't 'the best' way to listen to their music (purists would say that is still vinyl) but for the upcoming generation, iTunes etc is THE most common choice for buying music and it is better for them to hear the songs even in a 'lesser' format than to be totally unaware of who The Beatles are.

And hey, apparently the release has places like Amazon worried about selling their CDs so they are dropping prices so that's also a win.

Go ahead, you know you wanna take a look.