ON – Beatles For Sale

We live in a world where music is readily accessible. Let’s face it, if you want a particular song, 99 percent of us turn to our computers and visit Apple’s iTunes store where nearly every artist has their songs available for download (for a fee.) First times iTunes store users are continuously surprised, however, that there is one incredibly popular band conspicuously missing from the iTunes roster – The Beatles. Yes, if you want songs from the Fab Four on your iPod you’d better start ripping your CDs or converting your old LPs to MP3s. But Sir Paul McCartney recently told Billboard Magazine that he expects the Beatles’ catalogue to become available on iTunes in 2008. So far, iTunes offers Macca’s catalogue as well as Ringo Starr’s and George Harrison’s. We can’t wait to start downloading some Beatles.

OFF – Holiday CD Compilations

Here’s a holiday shocker – your favorite artist is out promoting a CD especially for the holidays. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be. Almost every year recording artists pull out The Big Book of Holiday Songs, select 13 and record yet another Holiday CD. We’re here to say, “Save it.” We’re sick to death of all these holiday CDs and we don’t want them. How many versions of “Jingle Bells” do we really need? If recording artists are really itching to put out something for the holidays, choose one song and make it a single. Or write one (if you know how.) And if you must do a cover song, make it one of the more obscure songs. We don’t want to hear another tired version of “White Christmas” or “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

STANDBY – Gibson’s Robot Guitar

Yes, Gibson has done it again. They’ve come up with a new guitar that takes a little of the thought out of being a guitarist. Now, you don’t need to worry about whether you’re in tune, the new Gibson Robot Guitar tunes itself ensuring that you’re always right on. It’s cool a idea in theory, afterall does anyone actually enjoy tuning their guitar every two or three songs? We can’t help but think that this just means we’re one step closer to replacing the guitarist all together. We’d like to check out the Robot Guitar but most likely we won’t be adding it to our Christmas lists.