“Where is Beatles band?”, asked Samuel K Amphong in an infamous letter to the NME in the late 1970s. Spotify fans could be forgiven for asking the same question in 2010. There is no Beatles music on Spotify. In fact, there is no Beatles music available on any digital music service. This is due to a long-running disagreement between Apple and EMI, which has caused the very annoying Beatles Gap in online music.
However, while there is no Beatles music on Spotify, there are plenty of Beatles songs – cover versions performed by some of music’s biggest stars, and by some less-well known artists. And some of them (whisper it) may even be better than the originals. That can surely be said to be true of Joe Cocker’s With A Little Help From My Friends, but also consider Stevie Wonder’s We Can Work It Out, In My Life by Johnny Cash, and Dear Prudence by Siouxsie And The Banshees.
The Spotiguide Beatles Covers Playlist collects together an hour’s worth of superior Beatles cover versions for your delectation. Are they better than the original? Have a listen and judge for yourself.
Bob Dylan is one of a number of artists who hasn’t yet fully embraced Spotify. Last year, much of Dylan’s catalogue was removed from the service. “Unfortunately there are certain rights issues not resolved with this artist at this time,” explained Spotify. What that left us with was a rag-tag selection of live tracks, mis-labelled cover versions, and the odd decent Dylan recording tucked away on various artists compilations. However, over the past few months the number of tracks available has grown, and we’re now able to present a very decent “Best Of” Bob Dylan Spotify playlist.
The 16-track playlist ends with Dreamin’ Of You, a single released from the 2010 release Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8. An encouraging sign – could future Dylan releases be set to appear on Spotify? And could there be a return for the Dylan back catalogue? Here’s hoping.
Coming next week – a Beatles playlist. Sort of. Stay tuned.
Screenwipe and Newswipe are the brilliant satirical BBC Four shows from Guardian TV critic Charlie Brooker, poking a big stick into the inner workings of TV and news programming. Aside from providing an insightful and hilarious commentary on the TV industry, the show also features a wide-ranging and superb soundtrack, courtesy of the BBC’s excellent catch-all music licensing agreement.
Following the end of the last series of Newswipe last week, Brooker has updated his huge Screenwipe / Newswipe playlist, which now includes 196 tracks and runs for 12.4 hours. The playlist kicks off with the Screenwipe theme music, AM 180 by Grandaddy, and features plenty of other gems. There are some omissions, as Brooker admitted in a recent tweet, including the classic The Gonk from Dawn of the Dead, which sadly isn’t in the Spotify catalogue. But there’s still plenty here to enjoy.
For those who missed the recent Newswipe series, you can watch the compilation best of episode on YouTube.
“Where is Beatles band?”, asked Samuel K Amphong in an infamous letter to the NME in the late 1970s. Spotify fans could be forgiven for asking the same question in 2010. There is no Beatles music on Spotify. In fact, there is no Beatles music available on any digital music service. This is due to a long-running disagreement between Apple and EMI, which has caused the very annoying Beatles Gap in online music.
