beatles

Tone Audio's Bob Gendron scored advance copies of "The Beatles Stereo Box Set" and "The Beatles Mono Box Set" of the complete Beatles catalog. Four years in the making, Gendron thinks the remasters are a feast for the ears.

Tone Audio is an audiophile Web site, so when I read Gendron's claims of "Near-miraculous improvements in the key areas of information retrieval, hidden details, palpable physicality, expanded midrange, transient presence, and frequency response" to the remastered sound, I was jazzed. Bass, never a strong suit on Beatles recordings, has been improved, so we get to hear more oomph from Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's percussion. I can hardly wait.

Gendron seems to favor the mono box, mostly because the Beatles and their producer, George Martin, lavished their attention on the mono mixes of the original albums; stereo was an afterthought. Me, I'm a stereo kind of guy, so I'll start with the stereo set. And yes, I'll report back after I've had time to mull over the sound for myself. The Rolling Stones' recent remasters are nothing to write home about, that's why I've remained mum about them. Remastering, all by itself, is no guarantee of improved sound quality.… Read more

What is it with the Beatles and nines?

As my colleague Caroline McCarthy pointed out in March when the launch date (September 9, 2009) for The Beatles: Rock Band was announced, the band's song "Revolution 9" ends with the words, "number nine, number nine, number nine."

So clearly, the date 09/09/09 has at least some symbolic significance for the band. And now, in addition to that date being the launch of the Rock Band title, it was announced Tuesday that on that same day, the Beatles will release a CD box set of … Read more

Beatles lovers will soon be able to feel what it's like to sing and play with the Fab Four in the interactive game The Beatles: Rock Band. But what famous Beatles tunes will be featured on the disc?

Rock Band makers MTV Games and Harmonix revealed 19 more songs Tuesday, bringing the total of known tracks to 44 and leaving the final tune a mystery.

The Beatles: Rock Band lets players sing, strum the guitar or bass, or hit the drums to play with John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they tour the world. Players can join in with … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The first couple of weeks of September are going to be a banner time for music video games. On September 9 (09/09/09), the much-anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band will hit store shelves, just eight days after Guitar Hero 5 gets its chance to rock living rooms everywhere.

With the Beatles game, it's easy to imagine long lines and huge sales figures. After all, this will be the first time that any of the recent slew of music-oriented video games will feature any Beatles songs, let alone dozens of them.

But with Guitar Hero 5 (see video … Read more

Mono was the one and only way to listen to music and movies for decades.

But it's not ancient history. Mono's on something of a comeback, and the upcoming remastered Beatles catalog will be offered in an all-mono box in September. You can listen to mono over just one speaker, or with two or more speakers. But mono at its purest is a single-speaker deal.

A fringe segment of the audiophile community still buys mono phono cartridges to get the best sound out of mono LPs. Over at BuyMeGetMe they're listening to an all out single speaker … Read more

It's a free-for-all gripe fest as we talk about our personal frustrations with the PS3, AT&T, the iPhone, and whatever else was crossing our minds at that point.

From cyberdoormen and using your baby's mama for an iPhone replacement at the AT&T store, to Scott finding pleasure in getting Julie so worked up that she accidentally drops a naughty word and Joseph's failed attempt to pit Scott and Julie against each other...it's all on the table.

We're also holding a contest for the best Digital City desktop wallpaper creation (not … Read more

This story was corrected at 9:48 a.m. Details are below.

Michael Jackson's position in long-time efforts to make the much-coveted Beatles catalog available digitally is one of the most misunderstood aspects in the very complicated negotiations.

The sudden death of one of the world's best known entertainers on Thursday will have no impact on whether songs from the Fab Four will finally make it to iTunes and other Web music stores. Rumors aside, no deals are imminent, music sources told CNET News.

Jackson bought ATV Music Publishing, the company that owned the words and music to … Read more

I have no idea why, but "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl" has never been released on CD in the U.S.

Worse yet, I don't think it's going to come out on CD or download when the remastered Beatles albums are released later this year. "Hollywood Bowl" came out on LP in 1977, before the CD was invented, and long after the group broke up. In 1977 all four Beatles were still alive. Luckily enough, it's not at all hard to score a decent "Hollywood Bowl" LP now.

I can't think of another major sixties band that didn't eventually put out a great concert LP. For reasons lost to the mists of time the Beatles live recordings were all pretty poor quality, and these Hollywood Bowl dates are less than stellar-sounding. But the thing is, the performances rock harder than the Beatles ever did in the studio.… Read more

Episode 36 of the Digital City, where Dan reports back from the E3 video game trade show, we check out the new MacBook laptops, and Joey jumps on the Palm Pre bandwagon.

Note that there are two versions of the show available now, the traditional audio stream, and our exciting, new video version -- check out both below.

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