U2's videos being remastered in HD

[gareth brown]

Sorry if there's already a thread I've missed, thought this was some good news after that pretty rubbish sounding ATYCLB box.

Remastered on YouTube

YouTube, Island Records, Interscope, and UMe have announced the relaunch of U2's Official YouTube Channel with weekly releases of the band's most iconic music videos and never before seen content on YouTube, all remastered at the highest standard.

Over the next year the band's music video catalogue will be remastered in HD and launched exclusively on YouTube in that format.

Highlights will include previously unreleased live, behind the scenes and remixed content, and some of the band's best known music videos upgraded to HD for the first time ever, up to 4K quality when possible.

The project will result in hundreds of new and upgraded videos being added to the channel, and a curated experience for fans to be able to explore the depth of the catalogue.

This seems long overdue though I guess we should hold our breath with those "previously unreleased live" videos. I'm not going to get excited hoping for the complete Tempe Joshua Tree show in HD/4K for example because you can bet it'll just end up being a bunch of live SOE songs...

But it'll be good to see the old videos remastered for a start. And if this leads to a proper video collection on blu ray then great

 

[prbiker15]

Good news. Thinking it'll just be music videos and live performances that we've already seen. But hey, HD/4K!

 

[tommycharles]

Hopefully the reaction to the Chicago film gave them a kick in this direction. I’ve no idea what else they have that can be effectively upscaled - in the spirit of the Elevation reissue I’d love a better quality Boston, but that depends how it was originally shot I guess. Failing that,... a 2011 show would be awesome.

 

[wolbersu2]

Great news
Hopefully we'll get the rare u2 videos in HD as well, like Lemon, Windows in the sky Modernista version, A celebration, Gloria, When liove comes to town (not the live r&h version).

 

[AndrewCowley]

Will be interesting to see if they remaster all their old videos. I’ve got a feeling they might take a revisionist approach and ignore certain videos and songs that they no longer like.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Will be interesting to see if they remaster all their old videos. I’ve got a feeling they might take a revisionist approach and ignore certain videos and songs that they no longer like.

They really are odd when it comes to this sort of thing. For example, I don’t think they have the US version of Stuck (Football kicker) or the US version of Walk On (people walking around turning into other people) on their official site (amongst many other videos).

Those two really stick out to me because when ATYCLB was released, they were all over MTV and VH1.

As much as I can admit they are nit “good” music videos, they are very sentimental to me as they are what I remember always seeing at that time in my life.

 

[tommycharles]

Will be interesting to see if they remaster all their old videos. I’ve got a feeling they might take a revisionist approach and ignore certain videos and songs that they no longer like.

You say that, but their first entry is the Stuck video... the Edge foot video for Numb is weird but it’s nothing on stunt Bono being thrown out of a van in a fleece jacket

 

[tommycharles]

They really are odd when it comes to this sort of thing. For example, I don’t think they have the US version of Stuck (Football kicker) or the US version of Walk On (people walking around turning into other people) on their official site (amongst many other videos).

Those two really stick out to me because when ATYCLB was released, they were all over MTV and VH1.

As much as I can admit they are nit “good” music videos, they are very sentimental to me as they are what I remember always seeing at that time in my life.

I think the football video of Stuck is the superior one. Like you, I was in the US in 2000, and it’s the canonical one.

 

[AndrewCowley]

Well let’s see if A Celebration gets a remaster or not.

 

[lazarus]

I think the football video of Stuck is the superior one. Like you, I was in the US in 2000, and it’s the canonical one.

I was in the US in 2000.

That video has always been cringe-worthy and awful, and still is.

 

[Irvine511]

I think the football video of Stuck is the superior one. Like you, I was in the US in 2000, and it’s the canonical one.

I’m an American who was in Europe at this time.

I despise the football one. Keep tossing stumbley Bono out of that van for not paying his dealer as many times as you can.

 

[trevgreg]

I think the "football" version came out rather late... just before the fall of 2001, as the Elevation tour was wrapping up. The other version had come out the year before when the single was released in non-US countries.

 

[Hollow Island]

The football video is so embarrassing. The stupidity of it and the degree of pandering was staggering. It was very unlike U2 and was the first time I though "oh God, what the fuck is this shit and why did they make it?"

 

[lazarus]

Definitely an early sign of the ongoing pandering that was to come.

 

[An Cat Gav]

I was in the US in 2000.

That video has always been cringe-worthy and awful, and still is.

The sport version is appalling. The van version came out first and I'm sure is considered the official version.

 

[david]

Stuck is a really great song. Shame that both videos were so bad.

 

[DeVaul]

Little known fact: the same people behind that football video were later promoted to t-shirt designers

 

[CosmoKramer]

All That You Can’t Leave Behind Era official videos:

Beautiful Day A+
Stuck (Europe release) B-
Stuck (US football release) D
Walk On (US release) C
Walk On (International release) B
Elevation D-/ F

The Stuck “football” version is probably an “F” but it holds sentimental value for me. Elevation is a song I really love, especially this mix but but man is the video cheesy as all hell. The editing of putting Edge in with the movie scenes looks so amateurish....ugh

Anyway, Beautiful Day is one of their best music videos and was just spectacularly well done.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Little known fact: the same people behind that football video were later promoted to t-shirt designers

This is an underrated post.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

That they took a song about a conversation with a friend who was thinking about killing themselves and promoted it with a video filled with U2 puns, the extras from The Replacements, John Madden, and Edge slipping on nachos is an abomination.

 

[lazarus]

Little known fact: the same people behind that football video were later promoted to t-shirt designers

That they took a song about a conversation with a friend who was thinking about killing themselves and promoted it with a video filled with U2 puns, the extras from The Replacements, John Madden, and Edge slipping on nachos is an abomination.

Would you say their poor choices here were...in excess?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Would you say their poor choices here were...in excess?

 

[Irvine511]

That they took a song about a conversation with a friend who was thinking about killing themselves and promoted it with a video filled with U2 puns, the extras from The Replacements, John Madden, and Edge slipping on nachos is an abomination.

And the QB is so obviously German. They said they wanted it to appeal to Americans, and look at what happens when you underestimate us.

Wait.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

And the QB is so obviously German. They said they wanted it to appeal to Americans, and look at what happens when you underestimate us.

Wait.

I actually think the football part was filmed in Houston while Edge slipping on nachos was filmed in Berlin.

So the kicker is american but the beer guy is german.

 

[DeVaul]

Upon further review, I prefer the Adam edit of the US video

 

[gvox]

Remastered.. or just colour boosted with iMovie?

Spoiler

Really trying here, gang

 

[dan_smee]

Proper Beautiful Day video and Beautiful Day live in Boston now released.

They really are missing a trick here - they need a simple app for smart phones. AppleTV etc that people either get a login for with a U2.com subscription or can pay $20 bucks a year for that has:

- fully remastered concert videos - everything they’ve commercially released
- all the remastered video clips
- each album audio including a collection of b sides and demos
- live audio library - work through the back catalogue of iconic shows and release a new one every week or month - build up a bank of landmark shows from each tour (e.g elevation New York, pop mart Sarajevo, love town sydney and Dublin)
- live video library - other shows that were filmed but never released or produced to full commercial DVD quality (e.g some of the Boy tour shows, Dortmund, Washington e+I, vertigo South America, zootv Stockholm)
- live rarities - audio or video of songs rarely played live
- U2 x radio highlights.

They could use this app to have a mobile shopfront for buying merch and physical format music, and a news hub (ha!) for announcements.

It honestly wouldn’t be expensive to develop the interface/functionality - the cost is in the remastering process that they are doing anyway. Why not monetise it and expand it with the proceeds and offer something your die hard fans will love, and can passively engage casual fans through a free intro month or something?

 

[Muldfeld]

I was in the US in 2000.

That video has always been cringe-worthy and awful, and still is.

I remember buying the single version of "Walk On" that had that "Stuck" video and I was so excited to watch it with my dorm mates as the big U2 fan trying to convert more people, and was so embarrassed.

 

[david]

They uploaded an HD video for The Fly. I wonder why they ignored Night and Day. It was a bridge between eras.

 

[pacemaker]

I was thinking that maybe because it's a cover, licensing stuff is preventing them from mucking with the original. Or, maybe the original master/transfer/source doesn't exist or they couldn't upscale it effectively.