Technology | 2009.09.09
Beatles back on top with video game
Game and albums released today are expected to be big sellers nearly 40 years after Beatles split
• Datablog: The Beatles: every album and single, with its chart position
Nearly half a century after they first wowed the nation and a full 39 years since the band split, the Beatles were today the biggest noise in popular music yet again with the launch of a dedicated videogame and a series of remastered albums.
The Beatles Rock Band , in which players follow on-screen cues to "play" a scaled down plastic guitar, bass or drum kit with the band, or else sing along, is the first game officially endorsed by the group. It was released this morning and is expected to be become a top seller.
Also on sale from today, as part of a carefully planned marketing exercise by a group whose catalogue remains one of the most lucrative assets in entertainment, is a series of new versions of the band\'s albums.
The stereo sound has been remastered on 14 albums from Please Please Me to Let It Be, plus a compilation of B-sides and alternate takes, for the first time since their original CD release in 1987. They are available individually and as a £180 box set. Also on sale, for the purist, is a £200 collection of albums in mono.
The sets were this morning ranked second and fourth on the Amazon UK sales chart, separated by the Abbey Road album. The rock trio Muse – one of only four modern groups in a top 10 also featuring Vera Lynn – were the top seller.
The Rock Band game was officially launched at midnight in front of a Beatles tribute group in the rebuilt Cavern Club in Liverpool. A queue built up this morning outside the HMV store in Oxford Street, central London, where early arrivals had the chance to buy the game for a cut price.
The head of the queue was occupied by a 59-year-old self-described Beatles obsessive and collector, Alan Harrington, who said he planned to keep his edition of the game pristine in its box, but the great majority of early customers were born long after the group\'s demise.
"I grew up with the music. My mum was a big fan," said Lee, a 24-year-old from London. "It just feels very natural – homely, even. I rejected most of my mum\'s other music, but this was the one thing that stuck."
Critics of the Rock Band series of games, plus its near-equivalent, Guitar Hero, complain that young people who obsessively master the button-pushing facsimile guitar skills would be better off mastering a real instrument. "It encourages kids not to learn, that\'s the trouble," said Bill Wyman, the former Rolling Stones bassist.
Ross, 21, queuing alongside Lee, disagreed: "If you play a Fifa football game it doesn\'t stop you playing football. You can do both. It\'s not as if kids like us are going to be able to be on stage in front of thousands of people. It gives us the experience of what this might have been like. Anyway, I play the drums properly too."
Paul McCartney, one of the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney, said ahead of the game\'s release that he had not been tempted to give it a go.
"I haven\'t tried it. When you go to a demo they play it and I go \'God, that looks hard\'," he told the New Musical Express for a special Beatles edition of the magazine.
While a basic version of the game is available for around £30, the truly dedicated can spend more than £350 if they add in the microphone, tiny drum set and plastic versions of McCartney\'s Hofner bass, John Lennon\'s Rickenbacker guitar and the Gretsch guitar used by George Harrison.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/09/beatles-video-albums-game-launch
