These posts regarding the price of vintage Beatles labels isn't surprising, is it? As was wisely posted, price depends on demand and let me add some things I recently discovered. A few months ago I was involved in a project where we evaluated high school student responses to music technologies. Not surprising, iTunes and downloading music, as examples, were cited before radio as a music source. But what I found surprising was how many young people have discovered the Beatles and have a lot of their songs in their personal library. I guess the nature of kids is if their parents tried to turn them on to the music, they would have rebelled but the fact that they found it on their own, it appears they appreciate the genius that was the Beatles.
When I started this post, I brought up a radio station in Miami that discussed the British Invasion and a week or two later they did an A-Z Beatles special. As I looked over the song list they posted, there were some titles I wasn't familiar (or at least I thought I wasn't familiar). In just using a search engine, I plugged in the song title and found YouTube had everything I was looking for in video. Quickly I realized I knew the song but when I read the various posts that I knew were from young people and saw all the positive response, especially to beautiful songs such as "Till there was you," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" it made me realize the music has transended age, generations and certainly gender. The first two songs I mention here are my favorites from the Fab 4 and there's a ton of honorable mentions that follow. Programmers today make too many assumptions. I "betcha" the average person has a wide variety of music they listen to, including the younger generation.
We also discussed Dusty Springfield in this string too and I enjoyed another recent surprise. Over this past weekend, WCBS-FM in NYC did a special where they played the first and last hit of an artist. After "I Only Want to be with You" played, I was very surprised to hear a tune I didn't know " What Have I Done to Deserve This" from the late 80s with the Pet Shop Boys. By the late 80s, I mainly listened to talk and oldies and so with what today's oldies stations are now doing, I'm enjoying lots of songs now for the first time. I guess a whole new, younger generation is doing the same. So when people say music such as the British Invasion is timeless, it's not just being said by fans who wax nostalgic, but it has some real facts to back it up!