Beatles deluxe "sessions" box sets: will such a thing ever be released?

Joe blow playing with actual multi track files...not cool, really not cool.

 

"Yesterday"...and Today remixed with 50 year old dead babies on the cover ......and throw I'm Down on there

 

Well unless The Beatles/Apple lost their veto control over new releases when EMI was sold, the industry has no say in the matter.

Will some crazy barrel scraping vault trawl happen? - eventually. In the remaining band members/widows lifetimes? - Almost certainly not.

In the sons/daughters lifetimes - perhaps, but still not very likely.

In our lifetimes? - depends on how old each of us is, but given the average age of the people on this board, I'd say no for most of us.

Depending on how far copyright is extended, and in the States at least, it seems to be on course to be, if not eternal/unexpirable (which would be clearly unconstitutional), then probably through lobbying efforts by big business/content owners, slowly but continually allowed to creep up in length just enough to always keep (for instance) Mickey Mouse just out of reach of the public domain. Anyway, assuming copyright is extended to say 200 years or more (its already at 95 years), this is how I see things happening:

The bandmembers/widows won't want it, because the concept of putting out everything (every take/mix/outtake/rejected song/flubbed note/wonky tempo/off key singing/interpersonal conflict/argument etc) would likely make them feel a loss of control, if not personally violated (would you want your diary made public?), and even if in theory they didnt mind the general idea, EVERYONE is going to veto somethings that (for example) they feel personally embarrassed by, or feel shows their dead spouse in a relatively poor light. Plus how many of them are currently in need of the money (or are likely to be in their lifetimes).

How far it goes beyond the band members/widows before it happens depends on how many generations it takes for the heirs to care more about the money (for nothing) they can receive, as opposed to the level of respect they continue to hold for the wishes of their increasingly distant and personally unknown relative.

I'd assume Paul's great great great grandchildren would care more about the cash than what that guy with the funny haircut from 100+ years ago would want.

OTOH his children (mainly) and grandchildren (to a lesser extent), would likely care more about his wishes, especially since their inheritances will likely not yet have been fully depleted.

All this assumes a continuing multi-generational extention of copyright and for The Beatles/Apple veto control of releases to not expire. Otherwise the company owning the master tapes at the time will surely move to (as soon as they legally can without Apple approval) cash in big time by dumping EVERYTHING onto the market (probably as downloads/flash drives or an online subscription service). We're talking decades from now, rather than years from now.

 

Spoken like a guy who's never tried it!

It is indeed very cool. Even playing with Rock Band extractions can be quite enlightening!

 

No, I dont mean it couldnt be fun. I meant I think its fundamentally wrong. The mix is the mix, just let it be. Its the artists art. Dont think Joe blows got any business stuffing round with multi-track files in my opinion.

 

They served a purpose for a long time. But it's 2014 and now they're just holding the industry back from doing something, anything more interesting. I'm glad there's a few companies experimenting with blu-ray audio, but few are actually using the format to anything resembling its full potential, because it's easier to cram 4 CD's in a "super deluxe" box set and charge more for it. I wouldn't hate CD's as much if I felt like there was significant effort to innovate on other mediums and give consumers something truly new (especially since their primary objective is still to repackage and resell old recordings)

 

Anything that gets an audience more involved with art is a good thing. It's not like Joe Bloe's mix of "Tomorrow Never Knows" is going to be for public consumption, it'd just be a fantastic way to interact with music that would be super easy to facilitate on modern devices.

If you had the multitracks of, say, All Things Must Pass or Pet Sounds at your fingertips on an iPad, don't tell me you wouldn't have a blast messing around with them.

 

Excellent points

However, I never said anything about scraping the barrel or embarrassing the Fabs. I was just saying it's highly likely some super deluxe Beatles project will happen.

It could look like the deluxe McCartney sets or the Zeppelin deluxe sets which are all very nice. It doesn't have to suck.

I just think the industry is in a spiral, and somehow someone will convince the Fabs and their estates this is the way to go.

They've already made a video game and a Vegas show. How can we think anything is off the table?

 

I for one dont need to hear 100's of flubbed, half takes. Demos and unreleased songs would be welcome. Maybe someone can get this/close to Yoko.

 

The industry is holding the industry back because they are in free fall and confused. CDs have nothing to do with that as a medium. The industry is falling back on a ready made audience. Those still buying CDs would buy them anyway.

There is innovation in some other mediums unfortunately, there's no consensus which is why we don't see continuity from the industry as a whole. Running around like a chicken with your head cut off or screaming the sky is falling isn't going to help matters.

They are still sold on CD for one reason and one reason alone: they sell. Not in the numbers they used to but they do. As you know it's a fragmented market which guarantees that we aren't going to see any sort of continuity. Vinyl and CD aren't holding anything back. They are part of a larger market.

Blaming the medium is absurd. It's the industry. It's the customers.

Until Blu-rays are portable and in cars, they are unlikely to completely replace CDs or much less ipods, etc.

 

I agree. What I have heard is more than enough. Not every fart, belch and mistake needs to be released and preserved for an eternity.

 

We don't even have a DVD/Blu-ray of Let It Be yet. I'd say chances are slim.

 

CD's aren't going to be in cars much longer, so that isn't going to be an issue. Can't even tell you the last time I was in anyone's car that was actually playing a CD. For people who don't care about music, it's FM radio, and for the people who do, they plug in their smartphones or have Satellite radio.

I just think as long as the 80 minutes per-disc limit is what drives the thinking, you're never going to see anything really interesting or innovative like the kinds of things people on this board are wanting. I dunno...it's frustrating. I work in technology and I'm a music geek, and I look at the potential with all this material in things like Beatles 'deluxe' releases or the Dylan Basement Tapes to really make something interesting, and instead...just a box of CD's which people not on this board are going to rip to their computers and never spin again. It feels like if movie studios were still trying to sell us things on VHS. I dunno...I wish the format would just die already so we could be freed from the constraints of "Oh, we have to fit this on X number of discs and it's going to be $100." Granted, I think it's too late for any physical format to really matter, but it's a bummer they didn't innovate with DVD-A and blu-ray years ago when they first came out, the way movie studios did with the same formats.

 

I quite agree with you. It was a missed opportunity for blu-ray and DVD-A. Unfortunately, they missed the window. It kind of became every man for themselves.

I tend to use my iphone or ipod in the car but will occasionally still spin a CD in the car (the player also plays DVD-A). Me, I don't think that the focus on the CD format and 80 minutes had any impact on this at all. I think it was the lack of a concerted effort on behalf of the industry to put in place something to replace CDs and an inability to respond to an industry that was changing beyond suing people for file sharing.

To paraphrase "Star Trek" it was two dimensional thinking due to bean counters who couldn't think outside of the box. Like them or hate them, the people that used to run the business could see both business and creative opportunities. That stopped. It doomed the industry.

The industry was too lazy or too busy trying to push their format rather than agreeing to one consistent one and invest rather than reap the benefits of a format that could have offered creative opportunities. Frankly, I also don't think most music listeners cared. The music industry made mistake after mistake (pushing vinyl out when there are folks devoted to vinyl, phasing out CD singles when that's how kids discover new music and can afford music, etc.). It's going down because the people running it were idiots, well paid idiots but idiots nevertheless.

I must have been Japanese in a former life because I love to collect this stuff and keep it even when I rip it to my harddrive for my iPod or iPhone.

 

I agree completely, up to the last bit. Small living spaces have taught me to be increasingly OCD about stuff I know I'm probably never going to physically use again. If I wasn't a renter and was more settled, I'd probably have a room in my house just for that stuff, just for the hell of it, but...I just moved up to about 800 square feet and it feels huge.

Getting back to the original thread...I think 'official' release of Beatles outtakes is inevitable, but they're going to be the last band to do it. Same with the Stones, whose vaults have barely been sniffed, let alone opened. Luckily, I think interest in this material will continue on some level for a long time, even if the first generation fans are no longer alive (or interested).

 

But the OP did. He was asking if we think truly barrel scraping "put it all out there" releases are likely. I was mostly addressing that.

Could they put out individual album boxsets? Sure, but judging by the evidence of what has been done and is being done with the solo super deluxe releases, box sets etc, I dont have high hopes that such releases will be much to get excited about.

I could see 3CD/1DVD individual album boxes happening, but probably offering only:

CD1 - Stereo Album
CD2 - Mono Album
CD3 - a small selection of era appropriate remastered Anthology tracks (maybe 6) and two unreleased exclusives for a total of 8 tracks
DVD - the making of docs from the 2009 remasters and maybe 15-20 minutes of era appropriate TV appearances/music videos

If John, Paul & George's solo reissues of the last decade are any indicators.....