For nearly fifty years, the only way to listen to any music from the iconic band, The Beatles, was through records, tapes, CD’s and the radio.  Finally, in 2010, Apple released The Beatles’ entire catalogue on iTunes.  As of December 24th, 2015, The Beatles’ music became available for streaming via nine websites, including Spotify and Google Play.  

When The Beatles’ fans heard the news, the band’s decision was met with speculation, and many people took into consideration two important questions when hearing of this news.

1. Why would a massively successful band like The Beatles publicly release their music on free digital streaming services?
2. Why are The Beatles streaming their catalogue when popular modern artists such as Adele and Taylor Swift are not?

The surprising truth: they had no choice.  The Beatles have amassed hundreds of millions of fans internationally during their 50 year existence; but today, as they seek to begin the next chapter of BeatleMania, The Beatles face the challenge of competing with BieberNation, Taylor Swift, Drake, and the massive universe of electronic music, among many other stars, in a world where all the music is readily available and free for the consumer.  In order to achieve this onerous goal, it was necessary for The Beatles to join the streaming revolution.  In 2015 alone, over one trillion songs have been streamed, and eighty percent of music is consumed via streaming services — a fact showing that newer generations of music fans connect with their favorite bands and artists and listen to their favorite tunes mostly through streaming services.

The Beatles also released their music due to pressure from the handlers of their catalogue and other music, Universal Music Group.  As one of the largest music holders in the world, based out of the United States, the group realized the need for The Beatles to catch up with the time period.  

Overnight, the catalogue has become an immediate success.  The decision to release it on Christmas Eve opened the opportunities of becoming more popular because the strong online presence by shoppers at this time.  The catalogue made for a great holiday gift to us all!

The decision to release their catalogue has already improved the next generation’s view of The Beatles and hopefully will continue to show the world why they have been popular for half a century.