Things have been bad for the music industry ever since itunes and it is getting worse. Physical album sales are expected to drop 40%. The RIAA in the US and the worldwide IFPI have often said that these drops in sales are only due to piracy, but we all know that that is just bogus. Much of the drop is due to the decline of the album format.

Much of the industry’s sales has always been due to stronger whole albums in some cases and of course the necessity to buy a whole album at $15 to $20, even when you only want one or two songs. Strong quality albums are what sells. Quality. Are there any modern Beatles? Stones? Bah. I’m going back to bed.

The Beatles’s first appearance on a digital store has led to a dramatic uptick in sales, according to data from Apple. About two million individual tracks and 450,000 albums were sold on iTunes in the first week alone.

Information collected by Billboard gave 1969′s Abbey Road the lead, both as the top-selling album and for “Here Comes the Sun” as the top-selling song. Many consider Abbey Road to be their best album. Now a newer generation of listeners can be exposed to the band, while others can re-discover them.

Just like we told you yesterday, the Beatles are now on iTunes. You can find the Beatles page live right now. It looks like the entire catalog is available in a $149 box set complete with iTunes LP content, and there’s also a few videos.

Steve and Yoko must be friends now. As a bonus the “Live at the Washington Coliseum, 1964″ video will stream for free for the rest of the year. Beatles fans are very happy today.

The Beatles are legendary. Sadly many kids have yet to discover them thanks to their absence from iTunes. But fear not, your kids will have the chance to have a listen on iTunes yet. This comes seven and a half years after Apple launched the iTunes store.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that The Beatles catalog will be among tomorrow’s iTunes announcements. WSJ’s sources warn that plans could change at the last minute however, and that the talks between Apple, Beatles reps, and EMI were taking place as recently as last week. Still, you have to keep the faith. It’s just time to do it.

The folks who make the Fretlight guitar learning system wanted us to check it out and see for ourselves how easy it is to learn guitar with their system. The basic idea is that the frets of the guitar light up. That, along with an interactive learning system which includes videos and tutorials are supposed to make it easy.

Since my son has been learning how to play guitar by more or less teaching himself, I figured he was the perfect candidate. So they sent us the whole kit and my son checked it out. How good is it at teaching you to play the guitar? His review follows:

In the psychedelic world of late sixties Beatles, you can easily see one of them using this thing to make tea that will later be stirred by a Blue Meanie. Perfect for when you are in an Octopus’ garden having tea in the shade.

Tea infusers are usually metal though, aren’t they? Is this even safe? If I drink of this tea will I suddenly be transported to Pepperland? See Lucy in the sky with diamonds? Is the Walrus really Paul?

Beatles fans can now display their fandom on their laptops and cellphones proudly thanks to MusicSkins who have just launched a line of Beatles skins. Now you can dress up your cell phone, laptop, mp3 player or gaming device.

They offer custom fit skins for almost any popular device. Your choice of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, Yellow Submarine, Let it Be, A Hard Days Night, Rubber Soul and more. It’s a sticker with an adhesive that leaves no residue behind so it can be removed and reapplied many times.

MSI’s all-in-one Wind Top AE2220 just arrived in the States. We can only assume that it arrived with all the fanfare of the Beatles arrival so long ago. And why not? It has some nice specs, like a 21.5″ screen with 16:9 widescreen display, full HD 1080p resolution and high-fidelity 5.1-channel SRS Premium Sound.

Under the hood you’ll find NVIDIA ION graphics and the latest Intel Core 2 Duo/Pentium Dual Core processors, along with VGA and HDMI input ports. The Wind Top AE2220 all-in-one PC will start from $749.99 and go up from there.

Music games are still doing well and the most recent version of Rock Band is The Beatles: Rock Band. The game has proven to be popular and MTV and Harmonix are set to launch the second DLC pack for the game tomorrow.

The new DLC content will hit the Xbox 360 tomorrow and the PS3 on November 19. The new content is the Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band. The content will be available per song for $1.99 each or as an entire album.

Apple Corps and EMI are finally offering up a legal way to grab digital Beatles tracks. The Apple-shaped stick you see above has FLAC and MP3 versions of the new CD set, which includes all the band’s music re-mastered in stereo.

FLAC quality is 44.1Khz 24 bit, and MP3 is 320 Kbps. Only 30,000 of these USB Sticks will be made, so you better grab one on November 8 when they go on sale for $280 (You can pre-order). The stick costs $60 more than the CD set, but you get “all of the re-mastered CDs’ visual elements, including 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original UK album art, rare photos and expanded liner notes.”

Oh Special Edition Beatles Rock Band Xbox 360, I want to hold your hand. Uh, controller. This Xbox 360 console is a beauty. I don’t care if the walrus was Paul or John, I just want this. Even though it would cost small fortune.

Proceeds from the auction will go to Doctors Without Borders. This rare Xbox 360 was custom made to honor the Fab Four and will go on sale this holiday season on eBay. Each console will be numbered and come with illustrations straight from the intro for “The Beatles: Rock Band.”

In my town karaoke is a stable at bars and just about every one of the 600 Mexican restaurants we have. Anytime I have been in and someone was singing, I wished for a mute button. It seems like no one who can sing ever tries karaoke.

I would never sing karaoke myself, but Rock Band Bar nights might be fun. I like to play Rock Band and as long as I could be on an instrument and not sing, I would be good. Harmonix is signing bars up to be official Rock Band spots and offering materials to help get people into the location.

Today E3 was seriously rocked by Beatles Rock Band as they unleashed the awesomness that is the fab four upon the world. Turns out that you will be able to perform multiple vocals (harmonies). Harmonix showed off what you can expect in the game.

The Beatles: Rock Band will be released simultaneously for XBox 360, PS3 and the Wii in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other territories. The trailer above is pretty awesome for Beatles fans.

That’s right. The latest volume of Guitar Hero is nearly ready to hit the streets. So unpack your plastic guitar (We’re assuming you are sick of those old songs by now.) and get ready to rock. Guitar Hero 5 arrives on September 1st.

There are a bunch of features like the ability to play through sets with no players actively playing, so anyone to join in at any time. But you have some hard choices to make. The release date comes one week before The Beatles: Rock Band. Decisions, decisions.

We know that you’ve been counting down the days until The Beatles: Rock Band is released. You’ve been practicing your british accent and you’ve even formed your own band in anticipation, complete with a Yoko all ready to break you up. Well, get a hold of your mop-top. It’s now available for pre-order.

And there will be two custom guitars available for purchase along with the Special Edition bundle (the game itself, Höfner bass and Ludwig drums microphone and mike stand). The guitars are a Gretsch Duo-Jet and a Rickenbacker 325 which will retail for $99.00 each when the game arrives on September 9th.