- Beatles for Sale? Yes. On vinyl (single 45s, EPs, LPs), 8-track, cassette, CD, CD remaster and now iTunes - public domain
“It's going to replace CDs soon – Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again.” --Tommy Lee Jones, Men in Black
Jones' line from Men in Black found rampant Beatles' releases mockable even in the mid-90s. And why not? In 1996, the year of the movie's release, the Beatles had graced vinyl, eight-track, cassette, and, most recently at the time, compact disc releases.
If only Agent K knew that in 2009, yet another CD release would grace our presence.
In 2010, then, the Beatles were, seemingly, headed for the digital age – news to scores of people who lackadaisically assumed that the Fab Four's Magical Mystery Tour was already on iTunes.
“The Beatles arrive on iTunes, at last” and “How did iTunes Finally get the Beatles” were the sorts of headlines culled by this attempt at retooling Beatlemania.
Apple decided to hype it up the prior day, smugly stating, “Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget.”
Yes'm, there were a lot of warm fuzzies surrounding the Beatles when Apple finally snagged them for their ever-expanding iMusic catalog.
Until just a few months ago, you couldn't drive Highway 101 for 20 miles in either direction without being accosted by at least five billboards advertising the Beatles' new presence on iTunes.
According to Anthony Ha, of MediaBeat, the Beatles sold 2 million single songs and 450,000 albums. The article compared these sales to Led Zeppelin's iTunes launch, at 300,000 songs, and 47,000 albums in their first week.
Not the top of the charts, true, but pretty high for a catalog of music that hasn't had any new, original material for over 40 years.
That's a lot of excitement, considering the fact that listeners are merely being given a chance to buy the white album again.
The Beatles? Who Cares?
First, though, we must accept that not everyone wanted to meet the Beatles. I'm not even talking about all the web-hosted anti-Beatles stuff (which we'll get to in a few paragraphs) that first-generation Beatles fans probably don't even know how to access. I'm talking the first go-round, way back in the early '60s.
As early as 1963, newspapers in England were breaking out in upset reports that the Beatles had sold out by agreeing to play the Royal Command Variety Performance, according to Elizabeth Partridge's Lennon: All I Want is the Truth, pg. 93
Ringo responded, “I just want to play me drums for the Queen Mum,” according to Partridge.
Across the Atlantic, the next year, a law student, sporting a crew cut, started a “Stop the Beatles!” campaign. He was horrified by the moptops' mops.
Even Elvis saw fit to write to the F.B.I., concerned about the danger that the Beatles were encouraging American young to go “soft and effeminate.” Not to mention that whole madness about the “Bigger than Jesus” battle of context we saw in 1966 (Asayas, 30).
Right now, with a generation reasonably far from that of the early-to-mid-'60s Beatlemania one, you might expect any adolescent who has accidentally heard the music in Grandmum's car to find it objectionable. The Internet gives these little sops a voice.
On IsItNormal.com, for example, some hapless fool had the audacity to state, “I hate the Beatles,” elaborating that “I'm sorry but the beatles suck way too much for me. they were so pathetic and stupid all along and everyone fell for them because of mind control put out by the british government.” Grammar, punctuation and capitalization mistakes are preserved here, for effect.
Perhaps the coup de grace was the following line, in which the (thankfully) anonymous online writer followed up that the Jonas Brothers are “a million times more talented” – at least they're fresh, and American.
Mr. Anonymous shouldn't have been surprised when 125 online comments appeared, most of them admonishing his or her lack of sensibility, intelligence, class and competence.
On ViewAskew.com, an amusing witt who goes by Diff claimed to have, as of 2004, loved saying the Beatles suck “because it drives people insane!” While Diff admits their music is alright, he elaborates, “If you stand in a crowd and yell, 'The Beatles suck!' you'll probably get at least five bricks thrown at your head. If you really don't like the Beatles, congrats on being an individual. And watch your head.”
This anti-Beatles sentiment is not limited to crude one-liners from anonymous sources. Anyone with an internet connection and thumbs can find a list of list of “100 reasons the Beatles suck” at SuckMyBeatles.com, along with hordes of articles about the Beatles being rubbish, mostly creative, and perhaps most importantly, an unquantifiable, angry, pro-Beatles mob that is not afraid to comment.
Anti-Beatle Since 1996
But the real Queen Mamba of anti-Beatles pages – the one site that has pissed off more Lennon/McCartney fans than anyone else the world over – has to be the Beatles Suck homepage – officially titled “Help! The Beatles SUCK.”
Possibly the first-ever anti-Beatles site on the web, the Beatles Suck homepage has been going strong for over 15 years. Today, the site proudly proclaims, “Serving more pissed off fans than I care to count for 5510 days.” Below the figure is a note, “Since 3/24/96: Proud to be the longest (self-proclaimed) running anti-Beatle site on the internet.”
“They remind me of Saturday Night Live: They just won't go away,” quoted the anonymous site originator on the home page. “Of course,” he continues, “The difference is SNL was good at one time.”
If SuckMyBeatles.com had a lot of angry comments, “Help! The Beatles SUCK” has the site beat, with an accumulation of more than a decade of moptop fanatics giving their two cents about how the Beatles do not suck.
On the homepage, the anonymous anti-Beatle webmaster declares that the hypocrisy of the average Beatles fan is demonstrated in much of the hate mail he gets – fans declare the Beatles to be about love and peace, and then “in the next sentence threaten me with death. Incredible.”
Indeed, the real meat of the site has much to do with this hate mail. The site's “hate mail” section is divided into five categories: Support, Funny, Stupid, Death Threats and Miscellaneous.
The individual bits of mail are well-placed into their categories. The support has people writing things like “your Site is imply brilliant,” “You're my hero,” “The Beatles were the most over-rated band EVER” that the page is “hilarious and refreshing,” etc. etc., generally agreeing with the principles upheld by the Beatles Suck homepage.
Under the heading of "Stupid" come halfwits who make death threats that would be horrifying if they weren't either horrendously misspelled or logically impossible. Others barely make sense. One angry fan wrote in calling the webmaster a confusing hodgepodge of just about every racial slur known to man -- perhaps in an attempt to cover all his/her/its bases.
Another message from another user, in a rare moment of non-caps-locked glory, wished significant bodily harm upon the "Beatles SUCK" site author. Suite101 guidelines protect readers from the brutality of the comment, which is signed as “From someone who's IQ level must be higher than yours,” accentuating the statement with an all-caps “...OBVIOUSLY.” Another message proclaims that the writer of the site has “GOT TO BE A COMPLETE MORAN.”
Under the “Funny” heading, someone suggested “YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY FROM ARKANSAS.”
The real stuff, though, the horrifying, all-caps extravaganza that makes mincemeat out of all that stuff you just read, is filed under “The death threats.”
There is little here I can print for worry of censorship. Suffice to say, the page is 90 percent, if not more, written in all caps. E-mailers have threatened to cut off sensitive areas of the author, including both heads. One writer claimed to “have alist on my computer that tells me the adresses of all site I go on. So now I'm going to go to your place and" ... ah, well, suffice to say that the author of the comment, with the utmost eloquence, suggested some manner of physical harm involving a cutting device and a shotgun.
Elsewhere, messages are as subtle as opening with “YOU SUCK, YOU SUCK, YOU SUCK.” Suite101 guidelines prevent the remainder of the quote from being printed here, but to understand the insanity of the comment, suffice to say it goes on to suggest substantial violence against the site's author, by use of a gun. All-caps to the end, the wit goes on to explain horrendous crimes he/she/it is "CAPPABLE" of committing.
One rare, non-all-caps message starts, “You are a bad person and it is wrong to mock the dead,” in reference to the Beatles Suck homepage's stance that the dead Lennon (and now, Harrison) were not good musicians. The message ironically concludes, “DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!,” leading the webmaster to quip, “It's wrong to mock the dead, but just fine if you wish death upon them.”
Back to Reality
Clearly, the aforementioned demographic is not what Apple had in mind when it promised media sources an unforgettable day, which would be a direct result of some development or release by them.
Even outside the Land of the Loony, some felt that Apple had overplayed their hand by hyping so heavily what is essentially an online reissue.
Yahoo News' Ben Patterson wrote that media outlets were excited about the possibility of other i-innovations on this unforgettable day.
“But,” wrote Patterson, “dreams of iTunes in the sky or a subscription-based music service began to fade as Monday wore on, with All Things Digital's Peter Kafka pointing out that if Apple had indeed struck deals to stream tunes from the major music labels to iTunes users, his (well-placed) sources in the music industry certainly hadn't heard about it.”
If Patterson, and other rational journalists, were simply disappointed by Apple's big reveal, the Online Anti must have been scowling at their monitors.
As anonymous online writers, though, the anti-Beatles online entities could be anyone, even your neighbor, father, or aunt. Keep it in mind next time you mention the Beatles over cocktails – depending on who you're really talking to, it just might be tantamount to bringing up abortion as casual conversation.
Sources*
- Partridge, Elizabeth(2005). All I Want is the Truth. Viking.
- Assayas, Michka; Meurier, Claude (1996). The Beatles and the Sixties. Herry Holt.
- Anonymous. IsitNormal website.
- Ogg, Erica (2010). “The Beatles Come to iTunes at last”. Cnet news.
- Patterson, Ben (2010). “The Beatles arrive on iTunes, at last”. Yahoo! News.
- Ha, Anthony (2010). “Here come the sales.” MediaBeat.
- Diff(2004). View Askew website.
- Anonymous. “The Beatles SUCK Homepage”.
- Anonymous. "100 Reasons the Beatles Suck". SuckMyBeatles website
*All websites accessed May 17, 2011
