Roger Friedman says U2 are making a big mistake with 360 tour,after NLOTH album flop

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wow, fucking terrible article...

I still don't fucking understand people who claim NLOTH is a failure or a let down or a flop ....how is it a flop if it's #1 in sales for 2009 WORLDWIDE....just think about it....how the fuck is that flopping?!?!
 
This is almost as bad an article as one from my university student magazine, reviewing the Obama inaugeration concert which started by calling the band 'Bono and U2', continued to recommend the band 'focus on the music instead of politics', and reported that their setlist consisted of 'Pride' and 'In the Name of Love'.

I was mighty angry that day :D
 
coolian2 said:
that's the fucking stupidest article i've seen all year.
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You took the words right out of my mouth! Stupidest article this year by far!

coolian2 said:
furthermore, this smacks of the same commercial wankery that suggests a u2 album isn't good because it hasn't been certified triple platinum.
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I blame the over-the-top undeserved success of Bomb.

coolian2 said:
btw, what's up with the original poster? three posts in five years and turns up to post this?
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The original poster probably is the same as the author. lol.

GBaxter said:
I'd have to say I totally concur with this (that since they don't need the money, U2 shouldn't be bothering touring the
hugely disappointing NLOTH album that's probably been their biggest flop). I'd suggest they look at working with new
producers who'd push (and even frustrate them) them a lot harder for their next album.

Bono Channels Michael Jackson in U2 Extravaganza Show | The Hollywood Reporter | Showbiz 411


Bono Channels Michael Jackson in U2 Extravaganza ShowBy: Roger Friedman. Friday September 25, 2009.
A pop star fishes a 12 year old boy out of the audience during his concert, runs around the stage with him, holds his hand, before returning him to his parents. Later, a group of volunteers holding candles fan out along the ramp encircling the stage. Is it Michael Jackson ? Sure sounds like it. No it's Bono and the show was last night at Giants Stadium, where U2 put on an extravaganza only Jackson and Liberace could've imagined.

This is U2's 360 tour, the follow-up to last spring's album release, 'No Line On The Horizon'. Here's the problem, which was unforeseen : No Line wasn't a hit and yielded no singles except for the grating 'Get On Your Boots'. It was the first-ever mistake in the U2 catalog and should've been rethought. Instead No Line and its turgid, mostly tuneless songs was foisted on the public. Months later, they're still unsingable and unmemorable. So Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullins Jr. have to take the bulk of their catalog and reimagine it onstage without benefit really, of new material anyone wants to hear. Thursday night's show ran the gamut from enervating to joyous, with lots of potholes in between. The highlights were standbys 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', 'One' and 'With Or Without You'.

But missing from the lineup were 'New Years Day', 'In the Name of Love', 'Original of the Species' and a few others that could've energized the proceedings. 'Vertigo' was refreshing and really rocked. 'Stay' would've been extraordinary except Bono 'went up' and forgot the words a quarter of the way in. He looked rattled and never regained his composure during the song. Too bad — it's so good and Bono and Edge played it just as they did at Elvis Costello's taping last week in Toronto. I've seen U2 at Giants Stadium before, when it was just them and their songs, but last night's show was about more, more, more. The stage is round, juts out into the middle of the field, encircled by a ramp. There's two massive, moving bridges. The whole has a kind of gigantic round space ship-like structure that's really a massive video screen, suspended by a spiderlike cover, maybe meant to be used later in the 'Spider-Man' musical, for which U2 has written the music.

The whole of the concept isn't bad, but is undermined by a neon steering wheel also suspended from the top and fitted with a microphone. This is a mistake. Bono dressed in a suit jacket lit up along the seams, sings two great songs into the steering wheel, then swings along on it. This should be stopped at once. All the intimacy of the show is jettisoned. U2 has also been a band of bombast, that was their appeal. Presenting them in stripped-down settings made the band very accessible and showcased the finer aspects of their songwriting. (The newer album is just a misstep. They'll be back, but this new show is all about more, bigger and unnecessary stuff. All the tamps and bridges — Mick Jagger, Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen know how to use them. Bono and Edge seemed indifferent to them. Either use or lose them. Right now, they're bridges to nowhere, but don’t think U2 isn't full of pleasures. The band remains a hot engine, with Edge driving it full force. I liked the inclusion of bits and pieces of other people’s songs — the Rolling Stones, Ben E. King, etc. — sort of tying U2's music to rock history. It was a bold move and it worked and Bono is still Bono.

There's a video speech from Bishop Desmond Tutu. The candle ceremony is for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, jailed female leader of Burma's (Myanmar) opposition political party. It's a great thought and as usual Bono's heart is in the right place, but I doubt many of the 81000 U2fans had any idea what was going on. If you did word associations with 99% of Americans, they'd answer 'shave' after the word 'Burma', but U2 rocks on and Live Nation has a hit in a mostly sold out to the rafters tour. For every bit of nit picking, there's still the wonders of 'Mysterious Ways' and 'I Still Don't Know What I'm Looking For' and 'Beautiful Day' and that still puts them way out ahead of just about everyone else, but really leave the kids in the audience. It's just too weird.
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KILL YOURSELF!
 
RF was the guy that was fired by Fox because he leaked the X Man movie.

He's a total loser who simply cannot get over the fact that the beloved object of his interest has gone. His MJ obsession is so huge he has to bring his name up everywhere and in connection with everyone and everything.
 
It's basically the kind of article written from the standpoint of someone simple enough to think "High album sales=great album". Any decent music journalist ought to know that album sales are meaningless in this day and age.
 
A quick glance into the "Peeling Off the Dollar Bills" forum will inform anyone that NLOTH has now passed 1M in sales in the U.S., making it one of the top selling albums in the U.S. this year and one of only a handful to actually sell over a million.

That's right - it's almost October and under 10 albums released this year have sold 1M in the U.S. This includes releases by Green Day, Springsteen, Kelly Clarkson, etc. that have NOT reached 1M sold. Eminem's latest album is only floating around 1.2-1.4M sold. This, from a man who would easily hit Triple Platinum in weeks in the past. Furthermore, in 1999/2000, an artist could sell 1M copies in a week! N'Sync set a record selling 1.9M copies in one week of their latest back then. Now, an artist is lucky to hit 1-2M copies sold all year! Last year, no artist sold 3M copies of their album in the U.S. This proves that NLOTH is actually doing well given the current economic and music world environment.

Furthermore, worldwide, U2 have the best selling album released this year. For 2009 as a whole, depending on which chart you use, U2 have the first or second best selling album of 2009.

All of this indicates that NLOTH is NOT a flop.

What it does indicate should be painfully obvious - thanks to illegal downloads and people cherry picking songs on iTunes, albums simply don't sell. Ask any teenager how he/she gets songs. I doubt any would say "CD". Most would probably say "torrents" if they knew they wouldn't get in trouble. The rest may say they just pick songs they like off of iTunes. U2 have quite a few songs in the Top 200 rock songs list on iTunes, proving that people are selecting what they like.

As for the tour - gee, sell-outs everywhere. Yeah, it's a horrible idea to have a tour that sells-out every stadium show. 50-100K people per show must be dreadful. :rolleyes: I think the success of the tour speaks for itself.

Furthermore, NLOTH started to drop on the U.S. charts. "Crazy" gave it a bit of a revival, but the bigger revival has come from the U.S. tour. As people aren't buying albums these days and as U2 didn't have some monster hit, like "Beautiful Day" from NLOTH, most are hearing the new album for the first time in concert. And clearly people are liking what they hear. A tour usually holds an album steady in the U.S., but this time, the album has been rising on the charts, getting better sales each week. These sales won't suddenly make it a 2X Platinum album, but when the #10 album is floating between 10-20K sold each week, it shows how low album sales are.

Bottom line - this man is an idiot who did not do his homework. The album and tour are doing very well (especially the tour), given the economy and the music world right now.

PHAIL! :angry:
 
friedman-roger_180.jpg

^Is this the guy?
 
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