Apple Scruffs

Todd Chanko | March 27, 2006, 10:21 AM

I've written a few times about the conflict between the 60s Apple and the 80s Apple - the Beatles' label versus Steve Jobs' computer revolution. Revolution. How fitting that that anti-radical Beatles romp - the flip-side of "Hey Jude" - is being turned against that which Jobs has wrought on the music biz. At first it was his use - and logo - that irritated George Harrison. Then the group settled in 1989 for $26 million and an agreement by Apple Computer to limit the Mac's ability to make music. Now comes a "really big shew" - "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" against iTunes. Last year, when Paul McCartney and U2's performance of Sgt. Pepper at Live 8 was distributed on iTunes, many thought it was a quiet way of resolving the decades-long conflict between the two Apples. But that was "Yesterday."

The Beatles' Apple Records was an attempt at gaining more control for artists over the production and distribution of their music. Their largesse resulted in many other artists getting a crack at the music biz that might otherwise not have - notably James Taylor, whose first album was on Apple and for whom McCartney contributed bass. It may have been an analog world, but the impulse was not lost on Steve Jobs - how to grant more control into more hands. It's not likely that most of the ear-bud wearing generation is that aware of Apple Records, but Jobs should find a way to pay homage to the antecedents of his own "Revolution."