Let it be available: Beatles and iTunes together at last

LOS ANGELES -- Nearly 50 years after the Beatles took television by storm, the Fab Four's songs became available on iTunes on Tuesday.

Apple announced a deal Tuesday to immediately begin selling the Beatles' music by the song or the album. Until now, the biggest-selling, most influential group in rock history has been glaringly absent from iTunes and other legal online music services.

"The Beatles are one of those groups that parents and young people can kind of come together on, no pun intended," said Craig Marks, editor of Billboard magazine. "There are kids and there are baby boomers and people in between who, for whatever reason, never did download those Beatles songs because they weren't on iTunes, and now they're going to have the opportunity to do so."

Within hours of their availability, eight Beatles recordings were at one point among the top 25 albums on iTunes, including a $149 boxed set at No. 13.

Apple is selling 13 remastered studio albums, the two-volume "Past Masters" set and the "Red" and "Blue" greatest-hits collections. People can buy individual songs for $1.29 apiece or download entire albums, at $12.99 for a single album and $19.99 for a double.

The digital boxed set includes all the albums and the 41-minute movie of the Beatles' first U.S. concert.