Beyond The Beatles

Turns out that I issued my next-gen iPod forecast piece a week too early. Now that Apple’s assuredly-iPod September 5th event has been announced and the rest of the world is busy playing the prediction game, I’m standing around with a smoking, yet empty, gun.

Damn these pesky psychic powers!

Since I appear to be working a good week into the future, I might as well stay the course and look beyond the event to September 6th. Because on that day, the details of new iPods will have been splashed across media outlets great and small and the mugs of the Fab Four (that would be The Beatles for you young-timers out there) will adorn the iTunes Store. (What, you think “The Beat Goes On” that appears on the invite to the 9/5 event means Apple’s announcing the Sonny & Cher remastered box set?)

With that done, one important question will remain: Now that The Beatles have finally come to iTunes, what holes in The Store’s inventory are left to bitch about?

There are a few obvious omissions: Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Garth Brooks (okay, maybe not so obvious to me), George Harrison (unless his catalog gets tossed in as a bonus when The Beatles are added), Frank Zappa (had him, now gone due to the Zappa Estate), early Metallica (they resisted forever, finally relented, but the work many fans consider their best is still missing), early Kinks (yes, I’m dating myself, but who else will?), and King Crimson (Fripp appears to be selling this stuff himself). Fewer care, but I’ll throw in early Captain Beefheart, The Bonzo Dog Band, and Joe Jackson’s Beat Crazy as well.

But that’s just me. Surely some of you have dashed to The Store in hopes of replacing a scratchy platter of vinyl, stretched tape, or clawed CD with a fresh digital copy of a favorite album and been thwarted by the iTunes’ equivalent of “Huh!?” Now that we don’t have John, Paul, George, and Ringo to kick around any longer, who, in your opinion, needs to make an appearance at The Store?