The album's not free (not an album quality discussion)

[Elvis]

Ahhhh those were the days hey Elvis

Yes, they were. The Internet was so wild and free back then. 'Leaks' now happen to the tune of a cool $100M or so.

 

[codeguy]

Bono said it's not free, apple paid for it.....


Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference

 

[Elvis]

Bono said it's not free, apple paid for it.....

Hopefully in stock.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

All artists charge a fortune for concert tickets these days. You're looking at £70 average, in my experience anyway.

Then you're just one of those people that goes and sees a lot of big name artists, usually of the classic rock variety. If you want to go see Macca or Paul Simon or The Stones of course you're going to pay through the nose...they love to bleed the boomers dry since they all stopped listening to new music around 1978.

The rest of us will enjoy seeing young artists in their prime for only $20-40 US (top indie names and a lot of younger mainstream ones playing theaters).

And for what it's worth, U2's shows are a pretty good value for nosebleeds and general admission. To see the world's most sought after live act for about $50 US is kind of a steal.

 

[last unicorn]

It's not free in terms of U2 being paid for it, which is good and absolutely correct. Artists have to be paid for their work. U2 struck a very clever deal with Apple here by giving away the album for "free" to costumers, reach a massive audience (so much for "relevance") and still getting money for it. Plus, for those of us who love to have a physical release, the album will come out in a couple of weeks and you can buy it then. It's a smart move and I applaud the band for that

 

[Babydoll]

U2, like many big artists, make their money on tour these days. The album basically reason to tour...I don't know that they really lose much in terms of dollars, pounds and euros releasing it "free". And it's not like it's totally "free" for them...Apple certainly paid. I will say, I thought Bono was a bit self-conscious about the whole "free" thing...like he knew it would be perceived as kind of a stunt by a band that can't sell records to the "kids" anymore. And Apple will certainly get use out of the commercial, which I presume was a big part of the reason for the deal.

I'll really be interested to hear the wholes story about how all this came together one day. Like I said in the other thread, there will be plenty of time to talk about what this all means for the future of U2 tomorrow, but for today we have new music, and to my ears it sounds pretty damn good.

All of this.

 

[rennowba]

http://m.independent.ie/entertainme...om-apple-to-give-away-new-album-30576404.html

100 million dollers theve got paid according to this. Wow they wouldnt make anywhere near that through record sales. Cant see why apple would pay that much though

 

[Babydoll]

Woah!

 

[vaz02]

100 mill worth of marketing behind the project. The band didn't get that.

Sent from my SM-T210 using U2 Interference mobile app

 

[gvox]

Honestly in this age of accesibility with tools and tricks out there like torrenting etc, why does anyone care that it's "exclusively" available on Apple first?

There are a few different kinds of non-Apple consumers, but most fall into two categories: 1. People who just like other products better, and 2. People who are, for whatever reason, anti-Apple and actively avoid and criticize every product no matter how good. So no matter what drives you away from Apple, why make it a principled objection type thing? Why even post on an Internet forum about it?

Because, aren't you a U2 fan? It could be fucking Shreddies for all I care and I only eat Harvest Crunch, the point is, my band, the one I love and the one I want to see win and rule the day, has just won an excellent compensation package for some great music in a landscape where it has become increasingly harder and harder to do so - and they did it without (to these ears) selling out musically much at all!

AND! They did it without forcing the listener to even buy the new iPhone to get some specific streaming thingy to play the songs to hear it! Nope, just straight up dropped it out there.

So fine, you're not an Apple fanboy - great! Don't you still have the album? Aren't you ecstatic that they got paid handsomely for it?? There's no principled objection in saying "I refuse blah blah blah", its just whining imo




Sent from my ass crack

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

U2 got paid a LARGE sum of money for this "free" album. It's already in a few articles, and when it's all fleshed out, we're talking in the $100 million dollar range... plus royalties.

What did Apple have to gain by this? iTunes isn't exactly burning up the charts anymore. This isn't 2004, despite what some apparently think. Apple needs a little relevance, too. This will drive people to iTunes again, instead of Pandora and/or Spotify. I'm sure Apple hopes they actually make a purchase or two while they're there.

If not? $100 mill to Apple is but a drop in the bucket. They've bought out other companies for more money than that simply to keep the competition from buying them. They have more cash flow than most 1st world countries, let alone the 3rd world ones. It's nothing to them.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Honestly in this age of accesibility with tools and tricks out there like torrenting etc, why does anyone care that it's "exclusively" available on Apple first?

There are a few different kinds of non-Apple consumers, but most fall into two categories: 1. People who just like other products better, and 2. People who are, for whatever reason, anti-Apple and actively avoid and criticize every product no matter how good. So no matter what drives you away from Apple, why make it a principled objection type thing? Why even post on an Internet forum about it?

Because, aren't you a U2 fan? It could be fucking Shreddies for all I care and I only eat Harvest Crunch, the point is, my band, the one I love and the one I want to see win and rule the day, has just won an excellent compensation package for some great music in a landscape where it has become increasingly harder and harder to do so - and they did it without (to these ears) selling out musically much at all!

AND! They did it without forcing the listener to even buy the new iPhone to get some specific streaming thingy to play the songs to hear it! Nope, just straight up dropped it out there.

So fine, you're not an Apple fanboy - great! Don't you still have the album? Aren't you ecstatic that they got paid handsomely for it?? There's no principled objection in saying "I refuse blah blah blah", its just whining imo




Sent from my ass crack

i suppose i'm a 1.5.

i desperately wanted an iPhone when it first came out, but refused to switch to AT&T. so eventually i had to try other options. first with blackberry, and then with the motorola droid series, and finally on to the Nexus line, with a momentary and gigantic mistake of a step into the galaxy world in between Nexuses.

I have a tremendous respect for what Apple did to the music world back in the early 2000s, and the iPod may still be my favorite invention ever (even if they didn't, ya know, actually invent the idea of it).

i also have a great respect for their appreciation for beautiful design and ease of use.

i also enjoy their stock

that being said, there are two things i despise about Apple... their patent/lawsuit approach to dealing with competition, and their closed environment. i suppose they're both related.

i much prefer the open source of android. it allows others to take a good idea and turn it into a great idea. it opens up the innovation to the entire world, instead of just those who are working at cupertino. i like being able to constantly tweak my phone until it looks exactly the way i want it to look, as opposed to looking the way some designer tells me it should look.

i also love google's willingness to be cross platform, even thought hey have their own mobile OS. I'd still be using iTunes if they had made it cross platform. It was the OG of music. They lost me as a customer because they wouldn't open up their world. So I moved on, and only return for moments like this. (upon downloading the album from iTunes, i promptly uploaded it to Google Play, and hath closed iTunes and their constant requests for my password, which i always forget, until the next iTunes exclusive )

all that said... even the biggest of apple haters is silly for knocking U2 for taking this deal. it's a good deal for the band. it's created a huge buzz.

 

[Nick66]

100 million. Wow. Obviously, that's many, many times over more than what U2 would make from the record, even if it sold very well (and there's no assurance it would have).

This deal is clearly for a lot more than just this record and the commercial...as I said in the other thread, it's got to be a multi-year, multi-platform, multi-layered agreement for that kind of money. Expect to see a lot of U2 and Apple together the next few years.

Have to admit, this is all Guy Oseary. I hate how McG was handed his hat, but Oseary is probably what U2 needed to achieve what they want at this point.

 

[prbiker15]

Guy Oseary is one brilliant man. Paul McG wouldn't have pulled this off for shit.

 

[Nick66]

It's interesting, because the more I think about it, the more this kind of deal is really groundbreaking. And it subtly changes the relationship between the artist and their fans.

Traditionally, an artist releases and record, and the fans decide if they want to spend their money on it. Artist creates, fan buys. Even when Beyonce did her surprise release on iTunes, the metric was basically the same...buy it if you want, if you don't want it, don't buy it. The relationship is between artist and fan.

For this record the relationship is between U2 and Apple. Apple paid for this record. They bought it. Then they choose to give it to us for free...even if we didn't ask for it. This is actually a pretty big deal, and sort of takes the relationship between entities like Apple and big bands like U2 to a different level. What it's all going to mean for the music world, and whether it's a good or bad thing, I can't say. 99.999999% of bands out there aren't in a position to make this kind of deal.

But going forward, for the ones that are in a position to do something like this, I wonder how much pleasing the entity that's actually paying for the record is going to factor into their artistic choices. Fascinating. Paying 100 million for U2 is a lot different than U2 just putting the record out there for free, ala Radiohead. U2 and Apple really did a lot more yesterday than initially meets the eye.

 

[U2BROTHR]

It's interesting, because the more I think about it, the more this kind of deal is really groundbreaking. And it subtly changes the relationship between the artist and their fans.

This exactly.

DON'T YOU KNOW THAT U2 IS ALWAYS AT THE FOREFRONT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATIVE STUFF, AND BRILLIANT IDEAS?

Think back......

R&H - movie..... ok... let's not go there...
ZOO TV - Revolutionized arena tours.....end of story.
POPMART - That football sized screen was the 1st of it's kind
ELEVATION TOUR - What? an inner stage and outer stage?
VERTIGO TOUR - Led bulb screen
360 - LARGEST STAGE AND TOUR OF ALL TIME

I've said this before, when Radiohead did the pay what you want for "In Rainbows".... people gasped. What did they just do? They changed the game. No one has ever done that before.

I can see Bono and the boys thinking, what can we do to "change the game" this time around....and make a statement. Something no band has done.

They used a music distribution system (iTunes) to their advantage.

WE WANNA GET OUR HOT SHIT SOUND OUT THERE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.

click

done!

I've read some critiques that some people felt that U2 spammed them. Fair enough.

Think of this. When we put up blogs, posts, youtube videos, most people want to see the click counter go up and up and up. Any band or artist wants their art to go viral. They want people to see it or hear it......talk about it. If I could spam certain things for people to see, I'd probably do it.

U2 did just that.

I've been telling my friends and co-workers, yesterday U2 broke the internet.

Which is exactly what they planned to do.

 

[rennowba]

Dont forget u2 were the first act to put their whole back catalogue on itunes

 

[U2girl]

Was Notre Dame the first internet streamed concert ? If not Rose Bowl was the first You Tube streamed show.

 

[U2FloridaFan]

This one is free, and I'm sure lots of people who wouldn't ever think twice about listening to U2 if they had to pay for it will give it a shot.

...that's if they care enough to figure out how to download it. I know a lot of people had trouble with that.

 

[Afliktor]

Not sure this will be positively received by musicians in less-than-superstar bands trying to make a living selling music, it also sends a message (imho) to the joe-public masses that music should be free (if I don't have to pay for U2 why should I pay for insert_artist_here) so the few that have a conscience and were paying for recorded music now have a precedent to justify not paying.

apparently you didn't read Bono's letter on U2.com, because he actually thinks just the opposite.

You’ll have noticed the album is free to U2.com’ers from the band. It’s also free to everyone on iTunes thanks to Apple. To celebrate the ten year anniversary of our iPod commercial, they bought it as a gift to give to all their music customers. Free, but paid for. Because if no-one's paying anything for it, we’re not sure “free” music is really that free. It usually comes at a cost to the art form and the artist… which has big implications, not for us in U2, but for future musicians and their music... all the songs that have yet to be written by the talents of the future… who need to make a living to write them.

 

[allbecauseofu2]

this is a offshoot of the idea that bands won't release albums anymore, just singles. Because no one listens to albums anymore . unless they are free!!???