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The Beatles: Soon to stream online – Metro US

The Beatles: Soon to stream online

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At 12:01 a.m. on Christmas Eve, the Beatles will finally be available for streaming worldwide.

Beatles music, famously absent from digital platforms until recent years, will finally be available for online streaming, the newest form of distribution, starting Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m., the Guardian reported.

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for music industry body BPI, was quoted by the Guardian, saying that the announcement meant “streaming’s journey toward the mainstream will nearly be complete.”

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Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Universal Music Group, which controls the band’s recorded music, made statements, according to the New York Times, acknowledging that the Beatles’ catalog will now be available on nine subscription streaming music services: Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play, Amazon Prime Music, Tidal, Deezer, Microsoft Groove, Napster/Rhapsody and Slacker Radio.

“It’s fantastic to see the songs we originally released on vinyl receive as much love in the digital world as they did the first time around,” McCartney was quoted by the Times in 2010, when Beatles music first became available on iTunes.

“An increasing number of music consumers are switching to streaming for their day-to-day needs while still also buying and collecting their favorite artists on vinyl and CD, so the addition of such iconic albums can only accelerate the dramatic growth of this digital platform,” Castaldo said in the Guardian report.

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Within the band’s first week on iTunes in 2010, the Beatles sold 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs, according to Apple figures cited by the Times.

When it comes to streaming, the Beatles’ main competition will be younger acts, the Guardian reported, adding that Justin Bieber, with 31.7 million monthly listeners, is currently the most popular Spotify artist.