Some interesting things out this week but the only thing I’m positive about picking up is from an ex-Beatle who falls on my list of artists whose stuff I always pick up regardless.

Paul McCartney - Good Evening New York City

Yes it’s another Paul McCartney live album, but the setlist on this is different enough from his previous live release to make it interesting, plus it comes with a DVD.  I’m looking forward to “Helter Skelter”, “A Day in the Life” and “I’ve Got a Feeling”.

John Mayer - Battle Studies

I need to hear this first.  I respect John Mayer as a musician and songwriter but a lot of times his stuff leaves me cold so I’m leery about buying this without hearing it first.  With every new studio release I keep hoping that it will capture the energy of his live show, so hopefully this is the one.

Rush - Working Men

Really Rush?  Another live album?  With the exception of 2112 I don’t see anything that wasn’t on the last one.  I love them live but this is just too much.

Them Crooked Vultures - s/t

I had no idea they even had a studio album coming out.  This is why the radio sucks, why hasn’t any station been playing this?  I really want to hear it first.

Fall Out Boy - Believers Never Die - Greatest Hits

I like Fall Out Boy enough to pick up a couple of their discs used but for some reason I have no interest in this.  I could see myself listening to it a couple of times and then just putting it away.

While not quite iTunes, it was announced that 320kbps MP3s and FLAC files of the Beatles’ discography would be available for purchase on a 16GB apple shaped USB drive, limited to 30,000.

For $279.99.

Now let’s do the math here:  14 albums for US$13.99 apiece plus let’s add three dollars apiece for the white album and Past Masters since they’re double.  So that’s $201.86.  That’s a fair amount cheaper, plus - for me at least - I would rather have the physical CDs and rip them than to purchase this.

Now I’ll admit the apple thing is really nice looking.  When I originally saw this I was hoping that you could get one of these for a single album which I would do in a heartbeat.  It’s just strange to me that this thing that is presumably cheaper than manufacturing 14 CDs is more expensive than them.  I’m sure part of it is just me.  Despite working in technology I still have a problem buying things in a digital format.  I guess I’ve seen enough hardware failures that I don’t have any faith in how they’re stored.  I don’t even like buying software that’s in a digital format only - I would much prefer to have it shipped to me on a physical CD/DVD so I have more confidence that I still have it.  Like I said, I’m sure it’s just me.

Let’s face it though, considering the demand for the mono box set, there’s more than enough Beatles fans to sell all 30,000 of these things in no time.

Boingboing has posted the animation sequences from Beatles Rock Band, and they’re amazing.  The intro video is especially good, going through the Beatles’ live career and then transitioning into something completely wild.  It’s almost enough to get me to buy the game.

My only experience with these type of games is the time I spent with Guitar Hero 2 on the PS2.  Admittedly it’s a lot of fun and I really liked the song selection on the game, but I felt that it was just wasted time when I would finish it.  That’s odd because I don’t have that feeling after playing Halo for a similar amount of time.  I think I just had the feeling that I could have spent the time practicing the guitar or the banjo and at least I would have gotten something out of it.

A lot of old-timers like me tend to badmouth these types of games, saying that kids think they’re able to play an instrument after playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band for a few hours.  I disagree though - as someone who’s been playing video games since the Atari 2600, it’s amazing that they have come so far and are so accessible to people.

Of course, in my opinion Guitar Hero was never as much fun as my all time favorite musical video game - Donkey Konga.

Entertainment Weekly recently published a list of the 25 best and five worst Beatles songs.  I’m not really interested in the “best” list - things like that are completely subjective and can vary.  However, for some reason the list of the five worst songs intrigued me:

05 “Flying”
04 “Don’t Pass Me By”
03 “Dig It”
02 “Wild Honey Pie”
01 “All You Need Is Love”

I don’t really have a list of Beatles songs I don’t like as much as I have a list of Beatles songs that I’m really tired of hearing, and it would look something like this:

05 “Twist and Shout”
04 “Birthday”
03 “Let it Be”
02 “Hey Jude”
01 “Hey Jude”

“Hey Jude” goes on there twice because I’m really tired of hearing it and it just goes on and on, especially in concert. Back to the Entertainment Weekly list - the first thing is that having “All You Need is Love” and the worst seems like a bit of a troll in order to get people worked up.  Yes, I’m tired of it, but a lot of people - including my wife - really love it.  If you want to call it overrated that’s fine, but saying it’s that worst….I don’t buy it. Another thing is the inclusion of “Don’t Pass Me By”.  Not only is this my favorite Ringo song, I would probably put it in my top 20 and possibly top 10 Beatles songs.  Songs like that are why the White Album is so great - just a collection of great songs and you never knew what was coming up.  I also like “Flying” quite a bit but I get that since it may be a little too weird for people. The other two I get as well but to me they weren’t really official songs, just little throwaway bits they had on their albums.

I don’t know where I’m going with this other than it really makes me sad when people slag “Don’t Pass Me By”.

When I first heard about the Beatles remasters I figured I would buy one or two and that would be it. In this case I bough Abbey Road (my favorite Beatles album) and the White Album (what I consider to be their most interesting). After hearing the two of them I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up with all of them with maybe the exception being Yellow Submarine since I bought the remastered version a few years ago.

The quality of the remasters is amazing. I never thought the original CDs sounded bad but the difference is incredible. With the new versions you can hear the separation of each instrument in the song, but not to the point of distraction.

The thing that keeps being discussed with the remasters is that the bass stands out more, and that’s absolutely true. For the past year or so I’ve been more aware of how good Paul McCartney’s bass playing was on these albums and having it brought forward made me appreciate it even more. The other thing is that you can hear other instruments, like acoustic guitars, that you didn’t know were in the song before.

I’m normally not a big fan of buying remasters when I had the album before, but for me it’s completely worth it. Next up will probably be Magical Mystery Tour and Beatles for Sale.