Earnie Shavers
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
Releasing it as a conventional album single would attach more weight and demand to it, thus potentially more downloads/donations/awareness. Proceeds are still going to charity no matter if it's attached to an album still several months away. I don't see the problem.
What's the difference? It's being released as a single, and they're saying it's from the album. If they're going with a slightly different release strategy this time - that's great. Pages and pages of posts over the years have been saying they should do exactly that. They're being quite specific with their wording ("sneak peak") for a reason, whatever that is.
I can only think it's to do with...
(a) Their judgement over whether or not they should overtly be promoting a single/album for what is meant to be a charity thing. Especially for Bono to not be seen to be 'using' his own charity to push his bands new product.
(b) For some reason it doesn't work with a larger album release plan.
(c) It's about the specific songs. There's Invisible, and then there's Song X, and Invisible is not really a 'single' song, but might well be the best one on the album, while Song X is the long tagged 'Lead Single' but maybe didn't suit the HIV/AIDS charity ad, maybe it's a new direction and a bit of a risk (!!!), or maybe they're just a bit gun-shy about their own judgement after Boots. The band would like Invisible to be the first thing heard, the first thing to receive critical judgement, and the thing to lead buzz. But they don't want it tagged with 'Lead Single' and with it's performance judged as such. Some time in the near future, Song X is released with all the Lead Single hype alongside New Album hype with a more traditional promo push. It's been said in here a lot - think about how differently No Line would have been received if Moment of Surrender had somehow been the first song heard. It would not have done well as a single, but if they had it out there somehow ahead of Boots... different trajectory.