2011-11-10dated from the article

Updated: Let it be (on iTunes)

Written November 10, 2011. Platforms and services described here have changed. This is kept as a record, not as current advice. A related workplace perspective is covered in Monitask’s Chinese overtime calculation methods.

You’d have to be living under a rock to have escaped the hype. Yesterday, for the first time ever, you could legally download a song or album by The Beatles. The absence of one the biggest bands in popular music history from the legal digital download realm seems not just a little crazy. But apparently, and not surprisingly considering their vast fortunes, the remaining living members of the band weren’t concerned about the cash they were missing out on by not having the albums available online, rather their concerns were around preserving the integrity of the work.

No doubt this had to do with the likelihood that many, if not the majority of people would be purchasing individual tracks, rather than albums. To a band who have created masterpieces of the album format, designed to be listened to as cohesive works, albums like Sgt. Pepper’s and Revolver , this prospect must have been difficult to come to terms with.

Results so Far At time of writing it’s exactly 24 hours since the back-catalogue has been made available and from an album sales perspective the news is good. While we aren’t privy to the actual sales numbers, The Fab Four are currently holding four out of the top ten and ten out of the top 20 positions in the album charts. Furthermore, ranked in tenth place is the box set with a retail price of $149 US. For a current measurement and audience-data reference, see Nielsen.

And the cash register goes kerrching! In the singles chart the performance is less strong; the first Beatles song to make the list is “Here Comes the Sun” at #19. So it seems people do like to buy albums after all. Here is the iTunes chart as of 17th November, 3.30 GMT Beatles Albums on iTunes charts: #6 Abbey Road #7 The White Album #9 Sgt.

Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band #10 The Beatles Box Set #13 The Beatles 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) #14 The Beatles 1962-1966 (The Red Album) #15 Rubber Soul #16 Revolver #17 Magical Mystery Tour #18 Let It Be #23 A Hard Day’s Night #24 Please Please Me #25 Help! #27 With the Beatles #29 Past Masters, Vols 1&2 #31 Beatles For Sale #40 Yellow Submarine Update: One week on and Apple have announced sales of 450,000 Beatles albums and 2 million individual tracks (accounting for over 6% of all tracks download in the US for that week).

The highly priced digital box set shifted over 13,000 units. And the groups CD sales and digital sales in other retailers have benefited from all the iTunes exposure.