A Big Steaming Pile of BeatleDung

And they wonder why people download music illegally?

The Beatles get ready to drop another big one on their fans. Michael Jackson will get his cut, too.

Apple Corp and EMI announced Tuesday that boxed-set remasters of the Beatles albums would go on sale September 9 in conjunction with the release of Rock Band: Beatles Edition. The news came with the usual breathless announcements that, as a favor to the rest of us, after all these years, we will finally be able to hear the Beatles as they were originally intended.

New York Times writer Allan Kozinn bought right into the hype: “Beatles fans are finally getting something they’ve been demanding for at least the last decade: sonically upgraded reissues of the group’s original British albums, in stereo and mono.”

As Jon Stewart might say as the spin begins to take hold: “Please continue.”

“The main reason collectors have been so intent on reissues of music they already own is that the 1987 CDs, like many discs released in the early years of the format, sound comparatively harsh and brittle by today’s standards,” Kozinn writes. “Since then, improvements in digital sound technology and remastering equipment have yielded a richer, smoother sound, and most of the major groups and artists from the 1960s have had their catalogs refurbished at least once since their first appearance on CD.”

Finally, farther down in the story, the writer concedes that remastering is a tricky business, but Apple Corps told him the engineers finally got it right this time.

OK. So the sound will be better. Maybe. We’ll take your word for it, just as we did in 1987, when you told us that a compact disc was the equivalent of a master recording.

But if you wish to purchase this farcical nonsense, you will pay, and pay, and pay. The Beatles albums all run about 25 or 30 minutes, and there are different versions of songs on the mono and stereo versions. But get this. EMI, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and the estates of George Harrison and John Lennon, greedy bastards that they all are, have decided that instead of putting the mono and stereo versions of the albums on one disc in one boxed set, the mono version will be offered in a boxed set, and the stereo version in a second boxed set. Both offer different “extras” like “never before heard studio chatter” to entice dopey consumers to buy both boxes.

And need we be reminded that both mono and stereo versions of each album would fit on a single CD?

I could go on, but why bother? EMI, McCartney and Starr should be ashamed of themselves. They should give this product away to thank Beatles fans for the immense wealth bestowed upon all of them; instead, they heap more abuse on their fans and hope for another big payday.

And really, they wonder why people download music illegally?

I’ll wait for the bit torrents.