Last week, Neil Aspinall left his post at the head of Apple, and ended his 40-plus year relationship with the Beatles. There is, not surprisingly, some controversy surrounding Aspinall's departure, as in "Did he jump, or was he pushed?" We'll leave that to the gossip columnists, who will, no doubt, end up blaming Aspinall's departure on Yoko Ono, who is probably getting used to that sort of thing by now.
The real question is, what does Aspinall's exile from "Pepper-land" mean to Beatles fans? It means celebration time, to be sure, though not at Aspinall's expense - he served long and well, and did his best to navigate through some pretty ugly lawsuits along the way. No, it's party time for we Beatle freaks because new Apple head honcho Jeff Jones, late of SONY/BMG, will certainly be righting some wrongs concerning the Fabs' back catalog, which has been too long neglected. Aspinall was against bringing the Beatles into the downloading age; Jones is not. He'll also likely initiate some remastering and bonus editions of the greatest catalog in rock history, and man, that's way past due. And hey, DVD editions of Beatle films like "Help" and "Let It Be" would be nice too, huh?
Any thoughts on the Apple shake-up?