Here's my take on it - if magnificent was first single the album would have sold 1M more in the U.S then it has currently and maybe 2M more worldwide....it would have also been more generally perceived by the public as a good album...in contrast to the luke warm perception presently (although it is regarded well by many hard core fans). Remember - 1M album sold in 2009 = 2M in 2004 with all the piracy killing the record industry over the last five years....the fact that NOLTH sold 3.5M worldwide and 1M in the U.S. in 2009 may appear low to historical u2 standards...but that is as good as any top album will sell nowadays...the music industry is in transition and the measure of success is no longer album sales in my opinion...what is the new measure...probably online streaming chart, youtube video hits, tour sales. How do you know U2 is still relevant and that this album wasn't a flop?....well the U2360 tour is completely sold out. During POP, the Popmart tour was not sold out in 50% of the cities...in fact in some cities they played to less then 50% capacity in the U.S....U2 was a big band in the 90's after AB and Zooropa....but POP was a flop...1M sold in 1997 = 200k sold in 2009 in my opinion...that's a flop.....Discotheque pushed the U2 crowd too far as a lead single and poisoned the fate of that album....although I admit I did like it at the time....Pop is my least played U2 album...and that's how I know it wasn't good..because I like almost anything u2 put out....Further, it was rushed and it showed....the re-makes of some of those songes on the best of 1990-2000 demonstrated what it could have been...especially Staring at the Sun....despite Discotheque being a flop lead single... the rest of the 4 POP singles did relatively well on the U.S. charts...for example Staring at the Sun went to #4 in airplay in the U.S..but in the end good POP airplay did nothing for the album sales sold squat and the tour did not sell out.
Get on your boots is a good song in my opinion but was too much like vertigo (for the mainstream casual u2 fan) ....without the commercial push that was required for it..if they did the iPod thing again for Boots (similar to vertig)...it would have worked great as the lead single; no doubt in my mind. Further, had they released the album in the fall of 2008 as planned it would have been a different story on the sales front. If you look back at Vertigo ...Atomic Bomb was destined for the same destiny as NOLTH in my opinion.....Vertigo had cracked the top #40 radio airplay in he U.S. before falling out big time one week later..then the ipod commercial kicked in...and boom...the single was back in the top 40 radio airplay for 2 months...the album sold 840k in the first week in the U.S.....then the grammy nominations kicked at the perfect time....and the xmas season sales pursued ..Vertigo maynot have been a #1 hit...but for all intensive purposes it was...everyone knew the song from the commercial....further the timing of the album allowed it to have grammy nominations in two seperate years....helping sales and keeping the momentum alive...NOLTH will not be so fortunate.....only one year of grammy's with no major category nominations...only secondary categories.
Was NOLTH a bust?....selling only 1M in the U.S...nope...did it do worse then ATYCLB and HTDAAB....yes....was it a timing and marketing problem....absolutely....would Magnificent as a lead single made this album more generally accepted in thh mainstream?....I think so .....even as a follow-up single...it did pretty well in the clubs...#1 in the dance club chart on billboard if memory serves me correct....don't forget U.S. stations were boycotting U2 after some remarks from Bono last April as well...that didn't help.
My guess is no more singles from NOLTH....they will let things die down for a few months and come back with an anthemic lead single from Songs of Ascent..and launch the mobile album concept that everyone is touting.....and incorporate the new album into u2360 tour..similar to zooropa during the AB era.
with IGCIIDGCT at #52 and GOYB at #65 
for Magnificent
