Here is my take: Thin line to walk but in the end, brilliant move.
In 2009, U2 sold ~4.5 million albums worldwide. Its fair to say that people illegally downloaded their songs and listened to them on YouTube but at the end of the day, they got their product in the hands of 4.5 million people over a 12 month period. The fact that as an "older" band, it is harder (not impossible by any means) to get radio play on top 40 stations, makes reaching new fans very difficult. So in the age of Justine Beiber/Miley Cirus, how do you reach a new audience? How do you get in front of people who never heard of you(true irrelevance)?
U2 found a way and in the end it's a win win. As I mentioned, they got their product in the hands of 4.5 million people in 12 months, most of whom were already U2 fans (I bought 2 copies myself, shit, Interference alone probably accounted for 2 million in sales). They didn't really expand their audience and if they did it was by very little.
But on Tuesday, they cracked a code(perhaps not THE code but a code), they got their product in the hands of 500 million people in 5 seconds.
And I have news for you...it worked. Yes, we all read the tweets, You Tube Comments and comment section of various blogs about "I'm pissed that I have this trash" or "why was this old ass band forced upon me". Guess what folks, the fact that these people got a FREE album from a major artist and are making these comments mean U2 would have never gotten them anyway(give me a free Madonna or Prince album and if I don't like it, Ill just remove it).
But the people who genuinely don't know U2, kids or young adults or even some older adults will listen to it and some WILL like it and WILL be turned on to U2.
Us diehards or even general fans don't care, we love U2 and we love free, so free U2 is going to go over well with us.
People who don't like U2 like free but then there is that whole U2 part, so they will delete it and so be it.
but people who never knew of U2 will now have it handed to them to try and some will hate it and some will like it and THAT is the goldmine U2 wanted in order to extend their legacy.
If just 10% of people don't delete the album and actually listen to the songs! thats 50 million people.....50 MILLION! Who are not just listening to your lead single but your full album. If U2 can gain even just 5 million new fans, thats 5 million people who will discover the Live Aid performance...Joshua Tree...Achtung Baby....ZooTV....the 2002 Super Bowl performance. They may potentially create a whole new generation of fans.
I end with this.....I read a review on iTunes. It was from someone named Edgar Garcia who wrote something along the lines of "Never heard of this band but glad I was given this album because I really liked it. I will for sure check out their other stuff."
It may have been a fake review and or it might be the only person that writes that type of comment for all I know but thats 1 and Edgar was the reason U2 did this(I hope someone can find that review and take a screen shot because it is what this Apple thing was all about).
By the way, when I said win win, this is a huge win for Apple. They just pulled off getting a major artist to distribute their album exclusively via Apple...no record company needed....hmmmm.....perhaps a new industry business model is being created(who needs a label when you can get free advertising from Apple and an audience of 500 million plus???)
Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
