Russell Baillie: Feeling just fab

Item one: Another Beatles revival is upon us. Next Wednesday - 9/09/09 - is the release date for the band's digitally remastered back catalogue. As well, there's the videogame The Beatles: Rock Band which lets players go from moptop to magical mystery tourist while playing and singing along.

For this a) transgression against all that is holy in Beatle mythology or b) bold reinvention of the world's best band for yet another generation, you can blame George Harrison's son Dhani. He was bit of a Guitar Hero freak, despite probably having like some real guitars kicking about the place. He suggested it to MTV head Van Toffler who put him in touch with game developer Harmonix. Apple Corps came to the party and soon you'll be able to emulate a refabricated virtual Fab Four as they progress through their world-changing career. Which should be fun, I guess, but wasn't there more to being a Beatle?

Shouldn't they have a bit of the game where you are being chased by groupies and you have to decide whether you want to be caught? Or you are off to India to seek enlightenment - and if you find it, does that mean an extra life in the game or beyond? Or could there be a level where Linda and Yoko avatars wrestle for the soul of the group?

Yes, that's all a bit unlikely but Rock Band will at least make the Great Beatles Revival of 09 a little more fun than its many, many predecessors.

And, of course, while the band's surviving members and their backers might be masters of managing their legacy, there is still no sign of the Beatles turning up on iTunes any day soon. It seems Apple Corps still has the pip with Apple Inc. Still, those remastered CDs should make the MP3s sound better.

Item two: For Beatles non-believers, here's one way to get through the coming hype - the book How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music by Elijah Wald. It might sound like an iconoclastic swing at some rock-crit sacred cows but Wald puts up an intriguing argument - because the Beatles stopped, mid career, making music you could dance to, black American pop stopped co-habiting as it had been with white American pop. Rock'n'roll turned to stolid "rock" for album-buying white folks, hit single-aimed black music kept its aim on the dancefloor and the musical cross pollination of American pop that marked the first half of the 20th Century pretty much stopped.

Something to think about while awaiting your turn on John's fake plastic Rickenbacker at your next Rock Band session ...

Item three: One of the places The Beatles game gets you to is New York's Ed Sullivan Theatre where the band's American television debut shook the nation back in 1964, the same year they toured New Zealand. That's the very same theatre Prime Minster John Key is headed for his upcoming appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. Rather than sit and chat with the host about our country's tourist splendour, Mr Key is to present the show's traditional nightly top ten list, an honour which in the past has gone to a bikini-wearing Britney Spears and various American sports stars. It will be a proud moment for Mr Key - after all, he'll have the services of the best writers he's likely to encounter in his speech-making career and they won't be costing the New Zealand taxpayer a dime.

Of course, this only tempts the idle and smirking among us to our own suggestions for Mr Key's top tens. So far they include - 1) The top ten reasons I am still ambitious for New Zealand, despite everything.

2) The top ten reasons I wish I had been booked on The Daily Show instead where apparently that leftie Jon Stewart guy actually interviews visiting world leaders when they come to New York to address the UN.

3) The top ten reasons why I shouldn't tell Letterman his show screens in New Zealand where the average it is watched by is seventeen people, six of whom are usually drunk and can't find the remote.