It's going to the dogs...

Whilst sitting watching the television last night I realised that we have now moved a generation up and away from the 2nd Generation Beatle Aware. We have now stepped over the line to a point where Beatle music is being used to advertise. It can only be a matter of time until it is being used to sell toilet roll. I hasten to add though that it wasn’t the original recordings, so that’s at least something. It was a fairly ethereal version of From Me To You which was being used to hook the viewers into the John Lewis stores over the Chrimble period. According to this link the track is sung by members of the John Lewis Music Society! It’s actually not a bad version and if it captures the public imagination it may well end up charting because of course it’s a brilliant song. Annoyingly and against my grain, it’s easy to see why the advertisers are desperate to use the boys’ tunes. If you look at the video it fits perfectly and indeed the tune takes on a different and more tender feel. However, all of that aside, in my view these songs should be protected from such interference. It is not like the writers need the money! The only reason they are being used is just raw commercialism. This new route of Beatle-lising the world with rock star games and now TV ads is going to undo all of the good work done thus far to keep it away from such nonsense. This is the slippery slope and it’s all downhill from here in my view. It is a matter of time now before we hear an actual Beatle recording up there. Nothing will be off limits soon. The Beatles are a commercial product in and of themselves so I have no argument with them doing whatever they need to do in order that they sell yet more product, spreading the word to a new generation and so on. However, the questions have to be asked; just what on EARTH are they doing? Why are they not concentrating on putting out the remastered music, the films etc; Who is making these choices and ok-ing these decisions? Something is afoot in Pepperland folks and we might need to employ Old Fred once more to save the music!
My personal opinion is that this is a bad and unrequired move on the part of the Beatles management and can only be motivated by wonga, which as I’ve said earlier I don’t really get. It’s not like they need to tell the public who they are really is it?
The top hats at Apple should be dealing with the core issues and stop concentrating on the Corp issues.

Just get back to the band please folks!

PS

And in reference to Ringo’s latest outburst, (which I can understand to a degree) it would seem to make sense that if you don’t want attention then don’t turn up at an awards ceremony!!