Songs of Surrender - New album discussion - 6

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One of U2's new acoustic versions should be made especially for him: Sometimes You Can't Take It Off Your Phone.
 
An article that utilizes two of the (many) things that have ruined the internet - clickbait and persecution fetish.

If you haven't undertaken the easy steps to get the album out of your library 8 years after the fact, I have no sympathy. Plus, at no point does Bono scream "SLEEP LIKE A BABY TONIGHT". I hate this shit. Content aggregation has ruined journalism.
 
And I love this fabricated legend that these whiners have adopted repeat all the time, that every time they start itunes/apple music that this album comes on. Or him saying, he finishes a podcast and this album comes on. No. No it doesn't.
I've had itunes for 20 years, this album on my phone for 8, I have a library filled with U2. when you connect your phone with your car and turn on itunes it would play the first song in your library alphabetically (I've heard the first 5 seconds of Vampire Weekends A-Punk a thousand times. With apple music, it doesn't usually play anything or plays the last song you had it on. Absolutely after a podcast it does not.
 
Those whiners are pathetic and full of shit; U2 were dumb as fuck and that disaster is and will always be as much a part of their legacy as the Joshua Tree. Hell, for a generation it probably is (and will remain) their legacy because it was by far their most prominent encounter with the mainstream. They got what they wanted, and it's a textbook example of being careful what you wish for.
 
That Guy Oseary kept his job after that debacle remains something of a head-scratcher.
 
That Guy Oseary kept his job after that debacle remains something of a head-scratcher.



That album wasn’t going to net U2 $100 million in any other fashion.

Also, virtually all of the band’s albums went top 50 on the iTunes sales charts thereafter. Let’s not mistake the failing legacy issue with the success of the move financially. Probably (?) unprecedented for a rock band of 50 year olds.
 
True, and good point. Between that deal and JT30, plenty of legacy cash-in with Guy at the table. Wonder what Paul thinks
 
If you ever want to change a non-fan’s mind over the debacle, just remind them that they too would accept $100 million.

To this day it still baffles me that Apple owns little to no fault for something they paid $100 million to make happen.
 
If you ever want to change a non-fan’s mind over the debacle, just remind them that they too would accept $100 million.

To this day it still baffles me that Apple owns little to no fault for something they paid $100 million to make happen.



I find it difficult to believe:
- no one at Apple brought up the automatic download possibility
- no one in the U2 camp reviewed the mechanism
- everyone in the band was so excited about a surprise album drop in the midst of product announcements from the world’s most popular tech company that they didn’t think about downsides
- someone in the U2 camp brought up possible downsides
 
And the solution to the PR issue was so simple:

Either have it behave like every other song/album on Apple Music and enable deletion, or

Send a notification to every phone/iTunes account saying: “a gift for you: enjoy U2’s long anticipated new album ‘Songs of Innocence’ for free. On us. No strings attached. Thanks for your support of Apple. To download the album, click below. You will also be able to download it for free for the next month from iTunes.”
 
Amusingly enough, I think their “relevance” would be about the same (the album was never going to light up the charts and the shows sold just fine). Two consecutive records without a mainstream hit then became three and here we are. Amazing career with similarly amazing unforced errors.
 
Amusingly enough, I think their “relevance” would be about the same (the album was never going to light up the charts and the shows sold just fine). Two consecutive records without a mainstream hit then became three and here we are. Amazing career with similarly amazing unforced errors.
Ehhhhh I don't know about that.

If your judging relevance merely by whether or not they reach the peaks of JT, Achtung Baby or the two early 2000s albums? Then yes, they'll never achieve that again.

But without the embarrassment of the iTunes release? Who knows. Depends on what would have taken its place.

It's easy to forget that just a few months earlier Invisible was downloaded from itunes 3 million times (for free).

So a) the switch from YOU MUST DOWNLOAD IT YOURSELF to WE'RE JUST PUTTING IT IN YOUR LIBRARY was clearly a conscious decision that both U2 and Apple HAD to be aware of, and b) the appetite for new U2 was still fairly sizable as early as February or that same year.
 
If your judging relevance merely by whether or not they reach the peaks of JT, Achtung Baby or the two early 2000s albums? Then yes, they'll never achieve that again.



Oh indeed. That’s what the band prob was (is?) using as a yardstick, hence my derisive quotation marks.
 
Boners, probably

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Ehhhhh I don't know about that.

If your judging relevance merely by whether or not they reach the peaks of JT, Achtung Baby or the two early 2000s albums? Then yes, they'll never achieve that again.

But without the embarrassment of the iTunes release? Who knows. Depends on what would have taken its place.

It's easy to forget that just a few months earlier Invisible was downloaded from itunes 3 million times (for free).

So a) the switch from YOU MUST DOWNLOAD IT YOURSELF to WE'RE JUST PUTTING IT IN YOUR LIBRARY was clearly a conscious decision that both U2 and Apple HAD to be aware of, and b) the appetite for new U2 was still fairly sizable as early as February or that same year.

It will be interesting to see if we get any behind the scenes type of info on the Apple decision in the U2 biopic.

Also, you're right. U2 still had/has retail strength. Obviously touring wise, but SOE was in the top 5 best selling albums worldwide in 2017. And the top selling rock album.

As I've said before, one main reason U2 will never reach JT, AB, All That success again, is that rock has been dying a slow death for the last 20 years.

Just for some perspective. Coldplay has been a huge seller, probably the biggest selling rock band, album wise in the last 10-15 years.

So if we look at their trajectory,

2013 - Ghost Stories - first week US sales - 383k
2015 - Head Full - 195k
2019 - “Everyday Life” sold just 48,000 including streaming. Pure sales were a shockingly low 36,000.
In its second week, the album dropped 70% and sold just 15,000 copies. Pure sales were just 9,288.
2021 - Spheres of Shit - First week total of 57,000 equivalent album units, 37,000 of which were traditional album sales.

compared to SOE-
2017 - “Songs of Experience,” U2’s 14th studio album and its eighth to top the chart, sold 180,000 copies and was streamed 6.5 million times, for a total of 186,000 units

Other rock bands that are still putting out new music that are well known, to compare first week sales

Weezer - 2017 - 17,000 2019 - 39,000 2021 - 23,000
Death Cab - 2015 - 56,000 2018 - 27,000
Chili Peppers - 2016 - 118,000 2022 - 95,000
Foo Fighters - 2017 - 127,000 2021 - 70,000
Green Day - 2016 - 90,000 2020 - 48,000
Pearl Jam - 2013 - 166,000 2020 - 63,000
The Killers - 2017 - 50,000 2020 - 37,000 2021 - 25,000

So this is where rock is. You see the trajectory. U2 is still at the top of the heap some 42 years in, for both album sales and touring.
 
Idk if I’m being lazy not reading, but I don’t know how anyone can talk about sales over time through the streaming revolution and compare it to artists at different points in their late stage career.
 
Album releases used to be events way back when. I don’t think we will ever have another “Thriller” moment. The idea that an album, band, genre or whatever, being a cultural phenomenon again seems behind us. Maybe it’s just my age, or how I listen to music now, as much as I look forward to new releases by artists I like I find myself listening to the new albums a few times and then kind of moving on.
 
There are still artists and albums that are cultural phenomenons. It's just that they usually don't mean much to middle aged people. Same as it ever was.
 
Didn't U2 bundle SOE with concert tickets, thereby artificially inflating its sales? I know this is common practice, but I don't think it should count towards sales because the consumer isn't choosing to buy the album - it's being given to them. That practice also acknowledges that concertgoers may not be interested enough in new material to seek it out. It's sad and desperate. And the bands are juking the stats.
 
Yeah. We’ll never know how much the last two albums actually would have sold, because both situations were compromised by release method.

On the flipside, those Coldplay numbers are pretty damning, especially for the supposed heirs to the throne. Their most recent one getting eclipsed by the Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, and Green Day? Oof.
 
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