There’s an epic New York Times article about The Beatles: Rock Band that is required reading for any fan of The Beatles, or music, or games about music. Yes, it’s a bit of a novella, but it really is that good. Set aside 30 minutes and read the whole thing; you’ll thank me later.

“We’re on the precipice of a culture shift around how the mass market experiences music,” Alex Rigopulos told me recently. Rigopulos is the 39-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Harmonix Music Systems, which developed The Beatles: Rock Band and created the original Rock Band and Guitar Hero games that are its foundations. Although video games are associated more with guns than with guitars, music games are now the second-most-popular type on the market, ahead of sports and not far behind the traditional action category. The first Guitar Hero game came out in 2005. Two years later, Harmonix, now owned by MTV, introduced Rock Band. Together, Guitar Hero and Rock Band (now rival franchises owned by competing companies) have altered the way fans relate to music.

Playing music games requires an intense focus on the separate elements of a song, which leads to a greater intuitive knowledge of musical composition. “When you need to move your body in synchrony with the music in specific ways, it connects you with the music in a deeper way than when you are just listening to it,” Rigopulos went on to say. Paul McCartney said much the same thing when I spoke with him in June. “That’s what you want,” he told me. “You want people to get engaged.” McCartney sees the game as “a natural, modern extension” of what the Beatles did in the ’60s, only now people can feel as if “they possess or own the song, that they’ve been in it.”

Have I mentioned how great this article is? It’s the single best journalistic piece on the music videogame genre I’ve yet read, and I’ve read a lot. What are you still doing here? Go read it! I’ll wait.

In addition, the full 45 song tracklist for The Beatles: Rock Band has now been confirmed.

(* In addition, the NYT article confirms that Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road will be the first three albums released as DLC.)

Between the reinvigorated Guitar Hero 5 and The Beatles: Rock Band, there’s going to be a awful lot for fake plastic rock enthusiasts to do this September. Be sure to get your 3 microphones warmed up, because you’re gonna need ‘em for all those Beatles vocal harmonies!