It’s become a standard method of irritating all the members on your average music forums and a way of getting April Fools’ Day in early: Mentioning, announcing or just bringing up new Beatles remasters in a subclause is guaranteed to illicit a reaction, be it mild or venomous.

The problem is simple. Aside from a compilation of #1 hits and a bunch of single remasters and the odd boxed set, the Beatles back catalog has been lying dormant far too long. What is completely missing is a concerted effort of remastering some of the best music of the 20th century (actually, any century).

Your mileage may vary considerably, but for music collectors, the Beatles’ recordings would be a cornerstone of their collection, were they available. I’m not even going to get into the (old/new) rumours that Michael Jackson is going to sell the rights to the Beatles catalogue to Sony (I guess he must really be broke) or that, actually, the whole catalog has already been remastered (yeah, right), awaiting release in 2006. I’ll leave that discussion to others.

What is sad though, and what is unfortunately not an infrequent occurence when having a closer look at other major artists, the avid fans have been left out in the cold too long to really take anything anybody says or announces seriously anymore. It seems to be another addition to the endless tale of corporate business idiocy, music mismanagement and musician’s infighting, to not give the audience what it would like most. The fans are simply ignored and the myriad of pleading posts on forums and websites are merely shrugged off.

I’m really tired of being made to feel like an idiot by the music industry, by the lawyers and sometimes by the musicians themselves. It cannot be that difficult to get some decent-sounding reissues of all the Beatles albums out, no matter what the legal difficulties are. It’s enough to become paranoid, thinking that the reissue trickles the fans are offered here and there are just thrown on the market to keep them happy, to keep the memory of what they can’t have alive.

Making the fans scurry all across the globe, hunting for those elusive single reissues that might sound a tad better than what was released at the dawn of the CD age, having them hunt around for second-hand vinyl with prices beyond the reach of mere mortals and terrorizing them with ever more (in)frequent rumors as to a product which might possibly be available in their lifetime, is just another way of telling them to take a flying leap at the moon.

And we’re supposed to stay legal, paying for every half-assed remaster which might then be bettered by another one down the line? I’m done doing the rabbit dance, thank you. With all the trouble one has nowadays in regard to non-standard non-CDs, irritating copy protection mechanisms, insulting campaigns calling us thieves, criminals and terrorists, this is just another brick in the wall, cementing a clear dividing line between the people supplying a product and those supposed to buy it. Let’s see who needs to do the leaping down the line.

‘Nuff said.

Categories: (01) Collecting
Tags: CD, collector's nightmare, mastering