When The Beatles split up in 1970, ending their eight year long 'Magical mystery tour' through pop history, some people believed interest in the band would wane quickly.
 
But it's 2009 and the band is still making headlines. Next week a new set of CDs and a video game will arrive in shops. Not that the CDs contain any new songs - they are remastered versions of the albums that were first released in the 1960s and that have been available on CD for over twenty years. Nevertheless, most Beatles fans can't wait to hear the highly anticipated 'cleaned up' versions of those same old songs.
 
Dutch Beatles expert Azing Moltmaker is one of them. A fan since he got his first Beatles record on his fifteenth birthday, he is now known as a living Beatles encyclopaedia. He runs the only Dutch Beatles museum in the city of Alkmaar, 40 kilometres north of Amsterdam, and has written almost 40 books on the Fab Four's career.
 
Bright and clear
He admits he couldn't believe his ears when he first heard the remastered versions of the songs he must have listened to thousands of times before. "It's just super", he says. "If you listen to the old recordings, it sounds like someone put a blanket over them and now they've removed those blankets. You finally hear the songs as bright and clear as possible".

Smart marketing
But some may wonder whether better sound quality is enough to entice people to go to record stores to buy these 'new' albums. Mr Moltmaker thinks it is, all thanks to smart marketing from Apple Corps, the multi million dollar company that controls The Beatles' commercial and artistic interests.

"The Beatles are shrewd businessmen and they're surrounded by experts in marketing and hyping", he says. "They know how to create a hype and how to drive people crazy. They've been giving small pieces of information on this project for a while, saying: 'Wait it's coming and your life is not complete without it!'. They know how to sell that".
 
Number nine
Even the release date of the new CDs is intentional - 9 September, or '09.09.09' (the ninth day of the ninth month in 2009) as it's marketed on the official Beatles website. "John Lennon had a particular preference for that number", Mr Moltmaker says. "He wrote songs like Revolution 9 or Number 9 Dream, so Apple decided to pick this date. It's very easy to remember, of course, but it also shows that Apple's marketing machine likes to watch every detail".
 
The Beatles and Apple Corps already proved their marketing worth in the 1980s, when the old albums were issued on CD for the first time. They sold millions. In 2000, a compilation album with all their Number One singles (simply titled 1) sold 12 million copies in only five weeks, making it the fastest selling record of all time. It remains the best selling album of the decade so far. But again, none of these records contained any new material.
 
Video game
And now there's even a video game, The Beatles Rock Band, which enables the player to actually perform with The Beatles. 21st century technology combined with '60s music - but to Mr Moltmaker, it's the right combination.

"The Beatles are still a big influence for many of today's musicians", he says. "These artists always find small things in those old songs that make them think: 'That's a nice way of doing it'. And you can always find something in today's music that refers to The Beatles".
 
And where will it end? Despite the remastered CDs and the video game, the end is not in sight, thinks Mr Moltmaker. "The films Let it Be and Magical Mystery Tour are still not out on DVD and there are a couple of live records that remain unreleased. So we have many hypes to go!".
 
And with the money that keeps coming in, it's unlikely Apple Corps will ever stop marketing the Fab Four and just let it be.

Listen to a Newsline report by Johan van Slooten: