An intriguing micro-revelation in Get Back – Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary that rewrote the Beatles’ tortured ending – was their repeated use of the word “corny”. This limited but effective shorthand was used again and again to measure creative decisions, a metric that had presumably seen them through the Cavern, through Beatlemania, through psychedelia. It is also a good guide as to how the Beatles have sought to manage their lucrative afterlife – right up to and including “Now and Then”, a “new” song by the band released today, with the help of artificial intelligence.
During the CD boom years, their product was kept at premium prices. When commercial logic said the opposite, the band’s company, Apple Corps, showed restraint over greatest-hits compilations and obvious cash-in projects. When the band’s songs were used in advertisements, Paul McCartney – genuinely hurt – fought hard to regain control over the band’s back catalogue. Now, in the 2020s, the Beatles archive projects are a familiar and bankable marker of the festive economy quarter. Big projects, but nothing corny.
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