When Apple announced yesterday that the Beatles are now on iTunes, I didn’t expect the general sense of dismissive petulance that the Internet shot back. The vast majority of the coverage I read was somewhere between bored and negative. NPR’s Monkey See blog rounded up 10 of the best “who cares” tweets, including one from Wil Wheaton that surprised me a little, since he’s usually a big advocate of the idea that what’s old and tired to one person is fresh and exciting to another. (It was probably intended as more of a jab at Apple’s hype machine leading up to the announcement, which was, admittedly, very hype-y, but still.) The Huffington Post’s roundup of tweets has a similar feeling of “meh.”

Me, I’m excited. Wired kicked off part of its coverage with, “If you are one of the rare people who is both a huge fan of the group, but somehow doesn’t actually own the music, you can buy the entire back catalog at once for $150.” I am one of those rare people. Here’s how that happens.

1. You grow up in the ’80s, and, after you’ve graduated from vinyl in your early childhood, you start buying music on tape.
2. Once you upgrade to CDs, you’re in college and have no money, so when you’re buying CDs, you’re buying them used. I think I found a used CD by the Beatles once, and it was “Anthology 1,” and … see below.
3. Once you have some money, you find that there are two basic ways to buy the Beatles in stores. There are expensive boxed sets that include some stuff you want and a bunch of stuff you don’t, and there are CDs of the individual albums. If you live in a not-that-metropolitan part of the world, your average music store has more of the former than the latter.
4. Once downloadable music happens, it doesn’t happen with the Beatles, unless you’re into piracy.
5. You dither about whether to buy the stereo boxed set or the mono boxed set, what with the differences in album art and whatnot, until you discover you have spent the money you planned to use to buy it, rendering the question moot.

All of a sudden, you’re a thirtysomething, and the only Beatles songs on your iPod are the “Across the Universe” soundtrack. And what you ripped from that copy of “Anthology 1″ you found in a used CD store in 1994.

Clearly, I’m not the only person who is excited.  Mashable has a nice graphic of how music by the Beatles is dominating iTunes sales. And another reason to be excited: The $150 list price for the entire Beatles collection on iTunes means other retailers have dropped their price for the CD boxed sets: It’s 50 percent off at Amazon (down to $129.99), and I’ve seen other sellers list it as low as $99.95.

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