2009 in Review - Buy your favorite music (AGAIN)

Where were you on 9-9-'09?

A friend of mine was standing at BestBuy's doors at 9:59 a.m., wearing a Beatle cap and a Beatle T-shirt, having decided that "Number nine, number nine, number nine" was a holiday. He also reports that he got through the entire "The Beatles: Rock Band" story mode before dinner.

But if 2009 did not quite generate the banner sales that the debut of CDs provided (again, the book is called "Appetite for Self-Destruction," and almost anyone with more than a dozen CDs should laugh wildly while reading it), there were a whole lot of reasons why you probably found yourself re-purchasing music you already owned.

Beatle re-releases

Your correspondent has the memory of dozens of articles about the effort by EMI (aided and abetted by Beatle producer George Martin's son Giles, who was the primary force behind the wonderful "Love" CD packages last year) to re-engineer the catalog to 2009 standards. I still haven't seen anyone do a review of how it turned out.

My own rock-and-roll-damaged-ears find little difference. Here and there, there is the sense that someone has applied a Chorus pedal to a guitar, or added echo. And oh yes, "Help" is now in stereo. No, wait...the booklet says George Martin re-engineered the mono recording to stereo BACK IN 1988, and THAT is the release included. Huh?

Meanwhile...the MONO versions of the Beatle catalog are also back. How does this make sense? Well, Beatle fans who have yet to read Geoff Emerick's memoir, "Here, There and Everywhere" are advised in this as-yet-unpaid-unpolitical-announcement to get 'hold of a copy; in that valuable volume, the talented and innovative engineer unashamedly admits that no one at EMI anticipated that Stereo would make Mono recordings obsolete, and that the main effort ALWAYS was on the Mono version, with Stereo an afterthought.

But the most interesting bit of reengineering I've found so far is the Rock Band remix of "Dear Prudence," where a George Harrison crescendo near the end of the song is turned up to assist the guitar player in following the melody. Louder than on the 1988 OR 2009 CDs, it sounds better in the game than anywhere else; why they buried it in the mix is a mystery. But this leads us to...

On-line downloadable content

"Guitar Hero," "Rock Band," "Band Hero," "DJ Hero," and even the PSP-only "Rock Band Unplugged" continued to thrive this year (despite at least one first-person-shooter that used the tag line, "Because YOU'RE TIRED of music games"). Not only were there new song packs adding Metallica, the Beatles and (by year's end) Van Halen to Aerosmith and AC/DC's band-specific titles, there were several multiple-artist titles as well.

But the real action was on-line. Too much classic rock? Download songs by the Dixie Chicks. Too much testosterone? Rediscover the Breeders. Two Beatle album downloads were finally added to the successful game's original lineup, and lots of "mini-album" packages were available for about $2 per song or $6 in combination. Even the Faux Four, Spinal Tap got into the game with a few titles from the reunion album that preceded their not-in-costume tour.

You've heard Steven Tyler's proud claim that the Guitar Hero game made Aerosmith more money than they've made from any album release? No reason to doubt it, which means this is going to keep going for a while longer.

Extras

This didn't begin in 2009 (the Black Eyed Peas' 2006 release was a remix of their 2005 release, after all) but it reached new proportions this year. With DVD-added versions, extra-track versions, remixes and the rest, it was tough to buy only one copy of a new release this year. Self-proclaimed supergroup Chickenfoot put out a decent CD, then attached one additional song to their "album only" iTunes release, then for good measure, they released the album on vinyl.

21 seven-inch vinyl "singles" from Green Day? Hey, they sound better than bobble-head dolls, whatever the eBay resale value.

As I write, the #1 album in the country is...Lady Gaga's reboot of "The Game," with 8 or 9 new tracks (reports differ) and for all I know, a do-it-yourself mask-making kit. And the beat, like the marketing, goes on. [FYI - the "Nano Video" commercial is not Gaga but a Swedish artist named Miss Li. And if you think the song sounds like "Count Me In" by Gary Lewis and the Playboys - gee, you're older than you look!]

SNL

This didn't require an outlay of funds once or more than once, but a very positive trend was the good use of musical performers for the 2010 edition of the soon-to-be-Verizon-Night-Live franchise. Taylor Swift showed charm and a startlingly broad sense of humor, probably finishing ahead of all competition, but anyone who can get Madonna to show up and wrestle has my attention - well done, Gaga and well done, Lorne Michaels.

Kudos, before I end, to Green Day for not only following up "American Idiot" with a solid "21st Century Breakdown," but perhaps even topping themselves. Sneers, though, for giving iTunes the note-for-note remake of the Who's "A Quick One While He's Away."

Happy listening from your ever-lovin' Unclejack