RaisedByWolves
War Child
Is there a Pitchfork article about it yet? (Somewhere between Kanye West article #1 and Kanye West article #350)
Best comment ever!
Is there a Pitchfork article about it yet? (Somewhere between Kanye West article #1 and Kanye West article #350)
This copout shouldn't even warrant a response. The music videos with the highest view counts are artists who have a largely female audience. In fact, it's been documented to show that the more zealous fangirls get into view count competitions to keep their view counts above the competition.
As it only takes one play to register in the data, we could be squabbling over 225 U2 plays here (or 214 SOI plays) across 978 people. The percentage is massive on paper, but we know U2 is a unique case; they are the only artist in the study to give a free album to everyone.
I would love to think that the population of iOS users are listening to U2's back catalog, but when 95% of them have heard a song from their free album (which may or may not have been unwittingly left in the 225 devices in question, we don't know) and all it takes is one play to count as a "U2 listener"...well, suffice it to say I'm not ready to proclaim that U2 is more relevant to iOS users than Taylor Swift and Katy Perry combined.
Wake me up when there's a list of total plays from each artist throughout the month of January 2015. If U2 is in the same position, then I'll be convinced. As far as measuring popularity, this study is about as useful as the "SOI was 'experienced' by 849384247085045048540540 people" study from September.
The Kantar article says at least once.
This article is inaccurate, as it claims the data says the 23% of people are listening to U2, not just a single song. It's definitely misleading.
Twenty-three percent of all music users on Apple's operating system listened to at least one U2 track in January-more than twice the percentage who listened to the second-placing artist, Taylor Swift (11%). - See more at: Kantar data on free U2 album consumption by Apple device users - Kantar
You don't like the album, you didn't like the release method, and it's pretty clear that no matter what kind of positive data is released, you'll dismiss it.
As it only takes one play to register in the data, we could be squabbling over 225 U2 plays here (or 214 SOI plays) across 978 people. The percentage is massive on paper, but we know U2 is a unique case; they are the only artist in the study to give a free album to everyone.
I would love to think that the population of iOS users are listening to U2's back catalog, but when 95% of them have heard a song from their free album (which may or may not have been unwittingly left in the 225 devices in question, we don't know) and all it takes is one play to count as a "U2 listener"...well, suffice it to say I'm not ready to proclaim that U2 is more relevant to iOS users than Taylor Swift and Katy Perry combined.
Wake me up when there's a list of total plays from each artist throughout the month of January 2015. If U2 is in the same position, then I'll be convinced. As far as measuring popularity, this study is about as useful as the "SOI was 'experienced' by 849384247085045048540540 people" study from September.
It's also been documented that plenty of men will watch Katy Perry whether she's singing or doing literally anything else.
I also saw that exact prerequisites for being surveyed was ownership of a U2 iPod, replicas of Bono's Fly glasses, a distaste for Coldplay, delay pedals, and a Vox guitar amp.
Honestly, if you don't believe a marketing research firm because it doesn't feel right to you, then fuck it. No one cares anyway.
All I can say is, U2 360 was the biggest tour of my generation. HTDAAB along with American Idiot were some of the most talked about albums during high school. And it wasn't uncommon to see Elevation tour T-shirts in the 7th grade. I'm only 25, and I've been a fan of the band since ATYCLB. My girlfriend, who predominately listens to alternative music like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Lana Del Ray, and M83, thinks Every Breaking Wave and The Troubles is the shit, can't stand Mysterious Ways, thinks the Joshua Tree is just okay, and insists U2 in Under The Blood Red Sky is the coolest fucking musical event she has ever seen on video. If you think U2 is limited to a certain audience, then you are just ignorant to proclaim so. There are preteens making SOI fan videos on YouTube. They probably don't even know who U2 even looks like.
U2 always had fans across the entire age spectrum, and that doesn't make it surprising that a 1/4 of all active iTunes listeners listen to them, especially considering THEY GAVE AWAY A WHOLE FUCKING ALBUM TO EVERYBODY ON ITUNES. Good god, most of them probably are just listening to Every Breaking Wave because the song is fucking fantastic.
@stereogum
U2 accounted for nearly one-fourth of all listens on iOS devices last month U2 Accounted For Nearly 1/4 Of All Listeners On iOS Devices Last Month - Stereogum
Even Madonna's manager, Guy Oseary, re-tweeted this:
I didn't know he had any U2 connection.
Remember that the free release, paired with a sale of their older albums, had also given nearly all of U2's back catalog a huge sales bump on iTunes. Seems that has gotten U2's music, past and present, listened to a whole lot more lately on Apple devices than it likely would have without the 'free purchase' tactic.
So it failed miserably.
Sent from my fingertips.
The other thing we can take from these statistics is that more songs of SOI reached people than was the case with No Line.This argument is tiring. The only thing I take from the stats is this, as I've mentioned: People didn't delete SOI off of their iTunes accounts, clearly. The big story was that, according to the outraged youth of Twitter, everyone wanted to be able to delete the album off of their accounts. Apparently that wasn't the truth. Or at least people really didn't actually care as much as the noise made it seem. So that's your story, that's the only thing you can take from these completely unexplained statistics. It's the only data readily available from what we know.
The other thing we can take from these statistics is that more songs of SOI reached people than was the case with No Line.
Even when you half the outcome of the statistic to account for people skipping songs and whatnot, the amount of people hearing at least some of the band's work has increased an enormous amount compared to the prior album.
As far as I can tell that was exactly what the release strategy, from U2's point of view, was supposed to achieve.
I believe Bono has spoken a couple of times after No Line how he fears that the band isn't able to reach potential listeners. He didn't seem so much concerned whether people love, like or dislike their music but very concerned that someone might have loved one of their songs but never got to hear/discover it.
Taking out of the equation the false pretense that the release strategy's aim was to make people fall in love with the album, these statistics do proof that the strategy was successful.
Whether the album itself is successful is a different topic and because of lack of sales info (not many people buy an album they got for free) difficult to assess. U2 will consider it a good sign that their back catalog did very well on iTunes. Lack of radio play might however concern them.
The other thing we can take from these statistics is that more songs of SOI reached people than was the case with No Line.
Even when you half the outcome of the statistic to account for people skipping songs and whatnot, the amount of people hearing at least some of the band's work has increased an enormous amount compared to the prior album.
As far as I can tell that was exactly what the release strategy, from U2's point of view, was supposed to achieve.
I believe Bono has spoken a couple of times after No Line how he fears that the band isn't able to reach potential listeners. He didn't seem so much concerned whether people love, like or dislike their music but very concerned that someone might have loved one of their songs but never got to hear/discover it.
Taking out of the equation the false pretense that the release strategy's aim was to make people fall in love with the album, these statistics do proof that the strategy was successful.
Whether the album itself is successful is a different topic and because of lack of sales info (not many people buy an album they got for free) difficult to assess. U2 will consider it a good sign that their back catalog did very well on iTunes. Lack of radio play might however concern them.
I'm at the Axver phase in my time here, I guess.
One album is all it takes!