When Paul McCartney recently released his back catalogue onto digital formats, everyone knew that it was a harbinger for even more stupendous news, and now that news is here – Ringo Starr's solo back-catalogue is finally ready to go digital!
Finally our lives will be complete. Every day since MP3s were invented we've howled in agony because we haven't had the chance to pay 79p to hear Ringo Starr masterpieces like Coochy Coochy, Snookeroo and Gypsies In Flight. But now the wait is finally over – Ringo Starr has agreed to a deal putting his 1970s hit albums Ringo and Beaucoups Of Blues, along with a new Best Of compilation album, online across all digital music platforms. Rumours that this deal is worth in excess of £3.50, half a packet of Fruitella and several colourful ribbons are yet to be confirmed, but sound a little far-fetched at the moment.
It's taken members of The Beatles an awful long time, but they're all slowly coming round to the idea of their music being sold on digital formats. John Lennon is already slightly digital and Paul McCartney has recently gone digital as part of his campaign to be everywhere we look all the effing time, from every single branch of Starbucks to those annoying iTunes adverts where he dicks around playing the mandolin like an annoyingly smug pixie. George Harrison, we don't know about. He isn't answering his telephone.
But all of that was just a precursor to the big news – the news that Ringo Starr has agreed to release some of his back catalogue for digital downloads. Forbes reports:
Downloads of his hit 1970 album "Beacoups of Blues" and 1973's "Ringo" will be available August 28, along with a compilation album, "Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr." The best-of collection, with tracks like "It Don't Come Easy" and "Sentimental Journey," will also be released on CD and as a collector's edition CD/DVD package featuring a film and video clips. Six Ringo Starr ring tones will also be offered.
Ring tones! Yes! And at least one of those Ringo Starr ring tones had better be (It's All Da-Da-Down To) Goodnight Vienna, because frankly not enough people smack us in the mouth when our phones go off in public. "But wait," you're thinking, "Can't you already download Ringo Starr songs from iTunes?" And the answer is yes – an album called The Anthology So Far by Ringo Starr And His All-Starr Band is already on iTunes as we speak, but that's just a live recording of Ringo Starr performing hits like Photograph, Act Naturally and the historically inaccurate I'm The Greatest in the style of a twelfth-rate Chas & Dave impersonator.
But these new albums – this is the big time. Hopefully Ringo Starr will continue to embrace digital formats in the future, with downloads of Thomas The Tank Engine and that episode of The Simpsons he was in being made available as well as getting his own iTunes advert where, instead of larking about with a mandolin, Ringo would get to ride about on that giant prosthetic penis from Lisztomania.
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