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| Online streaming services |
To illustrate what this means, here's a story. In the summer of 2013, I arranged a Beatles night in Oslo, where we had a lottery, we had a lecture, a quiz and we had a live band. The event was held at a renowned cafe in Oslo, next to the Pop music museum, "Popsenteret". In the various intermissions in the evening's programme, we were going to keep the audience entertained by playing Beatles music over the cafe's speakers.
This proved not to be possible as is, because the venue depended solely on the services of Spotify. This was their only source for musical entertainment. Usually, this was enough for their customers, because Spotify could provide almost any kind of music from a wealth of artists. But it fell short when it came to the Beatles. Yes, we could access the solo careers - but when it came to Beatle music, all that was available were the Polydor recordings - the songs they made as a backing band for Tony Sheridan.
And that's how a lot of the bars, pubs and cafes are equipped around the world today. No CD player, no means of getting music from a USB stick to get played over the speakers - all they have is access to the world of streaming - usually from one of the main providers of such, be it Spotify, Wimp/Tidal or the new Apple Music service. It's also convenient for the business, as the systems keeps track of which songs by which artists are played, so that the pub etc can pay the fees required. Until now, people who visit these places have not been able to enjoy real Beatles music. I'm very happy that this problem now has been resolved. And I bet that The Beatles have negotiated better revenue from streaming than most other artists.
The various streaming providers have been promoting their newfound music lately, by releasing various promotional films.
Fans can now stream the Beatles' 13 UK studio albums (the 2009 remasters) and two compilation albums ("Past Masters 1+2" and "Beatles 1" 2015 Remixed and Remastered) on Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon Prime, Slacker, Tidal, Groove, Rhapsody and Deezer.
Early figures from Spotify suggest that in less than the first 12 hours, Beatles songs have been streamed a huge 413,000 times.
The most-streamed tracks so far are (as published by NME):
1. Let It Be
2. Here Comes The Sun
3. Hey Jude
4. Twist and Shout
5. Come Together
TheBeatles.com
Spotify
Wimp/Tidal
Apple Music