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McCartney blames EMI for lack of Beatles downloads
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 9 September 2009
Paul McCartney has again blamed EMI for the absence of any Beatles music on legal download sites, saying that allowing the band’s music to be used in the new Beatles ‘Rock Band’ videogame, which is released today of course, was the band’s way of getting round the EMI issues.
I still can’t quite get my head around continuing Apple Corps/EMI politics, especially as there are now different people representing both sides, and surely both the Beatles company and the major have so much to lose by depriving legit download stores from the Fab Four’s music, but whatever, I’m sure if Macca says all the fault is on EMI’s side of the table that has to be true.
Anyway, here’s what McCartney told the NME about all things digitally Beatles: “We were having problems with iTunes – well not iTunes, EMI was the problem – with downloading, which we’d like to do because that’s how a lot of people get their music. We’ve kind of bypassed that [download problems] because now you can do it in ‘Rock Band’. I always liked that, when you’re told you can’t do something and suddenly there’s a little route round the back”.
Asked for opinions on the gameplay aspect to ‘Rock Band’ he admitted: “I haven’t tried it. When you go to a demo they play it and I go, ‘God that looks hard!'”
By the way, everyone seems certain – and Macca’s comments presumably confirm this – that Apple’s big music announcement today won’t be anything to do with the Beatles and more to do with some new iPod developments and that enhanced album format thingy that everyone seems to insist on calling ‘Cocktail’. As previously reported, with so many Beatles-related launches today, some thought Apple’s decision to stage a music-related press conference too meant they had to have a Fab Four announcement.
