In the last year, The legendary Beatles -- coupled with a mild form of Beatlemania -- have returned en masse with a six hour television special; 3 double CD sets of alternate, rare, and previously unreleased tracks; a video collection of the television special with more than 5 hours of additional footage; and a couple of "new" songs, thanks to the wonders of modern technology.
Consequently, a bevy of Beatle-related Web sites have emerged. Like all popular subjects, Beatle Web sites come in all shapes and sizes. A vast portion are virtual shrines to the Fab Four and include personal anecdotes about their impact and influence, links to other Beatle sites, photos, logos, quotes and whatever else the creator may have dug up. Others simply list the band's albums, movies, television appearances and various achievements.
There are a number of photo galleries -- often visually enticing, but with rare exception, nothing that hasn't already been reprinted in books and/or magazines. If you want to see some uncommon Beatle photos, take a look at Ethan Russell's home page. Russell's portfolio is a virtual who's who in rock circles. Russell personally shot several photos of the Liverpool Mop Tops, and includes several examples on his site. For John Lennon fans, Spud Murphy's The Imagine Sessions is a personal photo journal of Lennon's recording sessions.
Many of the sites we looked at are elaborate or unique in their presentation. They are not necessarily definitive; no Beatle page is. In fact, The Beatles are one of the few profit-making entities who do not have an "official" Web site of their own (note: http://www.beatles.com will get you nowhere). Web wise, it would seem The Rolling Stones have finally put one over on the Beatles.
The closest thing to an "official" site is the Capitol Records' Anthology site, which for whatever reason, is currently "under construction." (we tried to contact Capitol for a comment, but they never responded). Apple -- the Beatle-owned company behind the Anthology project -- has yet to set up shop on the Web.
Beatlefest is not alone in the rush to cash in on the Beatles. Some, like American Cyberstores, have your basic CDs, tapes and videos.
Looking for a Beatle candy dish set? Rockaway Records, who specialize in hard-to-find music and memorabilia, has it for $650.
For the die-hard collector who wants everything, check out InterStudio, Ltd. where you can buy recording equipment that used to belong to John Lennon.
Andrade's Sgt. Pepper's Theme is an cordial tribute to what many would consider pop music's greatest album -- with lots of cleaver clip art and audio files. It's this distinctive flavor that sets his site apart from the others. "The first time I looked for Beatles pages in Yahoo!, I found only 20," says Andrade. "Today, there are more than a hundred Beatles pages over the world, including mine."
Scott Stohr decided to zero in on Beatle bootlegs, a popular branch of the Beatle tree these days in the wake of the Anthology release. "The page really started as an outgrowth of sorts of my own collection," he says of the inspiration behind The Internet Underground Beatles Guide. Stohr's site pretty much has it covered, with an alphabetical listing of songs and bootlegs they can be found on, ratings of bootleg labels and their catalogs, articles on the bootleg industry, even WAV files of unreleased outtakes.
Does the Anthology series pose a threat to the Beatle bootleg market, which, with the advent of the Web, has ascended to new heights? "If anything the Anthology CDs have complimented my bootleg CDs very nicely. Much of what collectors already had was upgraded to a point that nearly makes the unauthorized versions obsolete," Stohr says. "I said nearly because there are still people out there, like myself, who have to have it all."
Want to know how about planets named after the Beatles? Check out Rock & Roll Minor Planets.
What about all the Beatle related clues in the "Free As A Bird" video? The Free As A Bird site has the answers.
Maybe you hate the Beatles. So does Jonny Whiteside, and he explains why on Let It Be: How The Beatles Ruined Everything.
How about the "Paul Is Dead" theory? Gabriel Montemurro's Paul Is Dead takes a close look at how this entire fiasco came to be, including clues on various Beatle songs and albums.
As it turns out, this was a subject Montemurro was actually searching the Web for. "I never found a site on the 'Paul Is Dead' rumor that was very good. So I figured why not do it myself. I had already done the research. I was learning HTML. So I took some time and published it on the web."
Since then, Montemurro has received the kind of feedback Web authors dream about. "People at all corners of the earth have access to connect with each other. There's a feeling of pride involved that you've educated someone so far away."
If you're interested in novel little tidbits, trivial facts and whatnots, The Internet Beatles Album may be one of the most comprehensive sites around. Here you can find, among other items: an interview with Jimmy Nicol, the drummer who replaced Ringo Starr for two weeks in 1964; a heated letter to Paul and Linda McCartney written by John Lennon; a humorous essay explaining how the Beatles arrived at calling their recent retrospective, "Anthology;" and a link to a companion site on the Rutles, the infamous Beatles spoof band put together by Monty Python's Flying Circus.
"Since I was, and am, a huge Beatles fan, I wanted to do a page on the Beatles, but I felt there were already too many. I realized that there were no Web pages focusing on the solo careers on any of the Beatles, and I felt that was something I could specialize in. I went with John because I was more familiar with his solo stuff."
Considering Lennon's prolific stand on peace, it's interesting to speculate how he would have viewed the World Wide Web. During a March 13, 1996 celebrity chat room session, Lennon's son, Sean said: "I'm sure he would see the philosophical implications, but I'm sure he'd be threatened by the digital realm. He never played video games."
Chourkri, who many now regard as a wired authority on Lennon since he launched his page, has a different take. "I think John Lennon would have loved the Web because in many ways it achieves some of the ideals he was promoting. One such idea was 'bagism' where he and Yoko appeared before the press covered with a bag. The idea behind getting into a bag was that it would allow people to communicate with one another without worrying what the other person looked like or what race they were. The Web is a modern day example of this idea."
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