'U2: Revolution' by Mat Snow is published by Race Point Publishing.

[Super Yo]

Interesting...

U2.com: Does size still matter when it comes to 'big' rock bands?

Well, U2 were the biggest. But my own feeling is that rock is going the way of jazz; it has become a genre whose best days are behind it. Unlike jazz, however, which was succeeded by other forms of music, young people now engage with music as a generalised soundtrack. They consume digitally streamed music, as if it's running water or fresh air - but without necessarily the depth which generations before engaged at, especially with bands like U2. All the schmozzle with U2's iTunes upload is down to a generation gap in the different valuations we put on music.

http://www.u2.com/news/title/revolution


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[RaisedByWolves]

Interesting...




U2 > Sign In


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

Unfortunately he may have a point

 

[Reggie Thee Dog]

He has an extremely valid point. This current (teenage/20 something) generation is all about living in a 'disposable' state. Nothing sticks anymore......whatever, you live, you learn, you move on. U2 will tour and it will be huge...SOI will get a boost from the tour, and hopefully from that SOE will emerge from that...

 

[Hollow Island]

If the entire culture is based around disposability then it follows that art would be treated the same way. Music is the only popular art form that suffers like this though. I think it's because the industry treats it like product whereas books, film, and now television (for the first time) treat their products like art. Maybe if the music industry put as much into promoting the real artists as they do the transient popstars people would engage with it differently.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

If the entire culture is based around disposability then it follows that art would be treated the same way. Music is the only popular art form that suffers like this though. I think it's because the industry treats it like product whereas books, film, and now television (for the first time) treat their products like art. Maybe if the music industry put as much into promoting the real artists as they do the transient popstars people would engage with it differently.

 

[Irvine511]

(most) films and television *are* product -- ratings and box office are (nearly) everything, and they are test marketed and focus grouped to death. god forbid shareholders of giant media companies not get instant profit.

i think it comes down to form influencing content. if you are going to sit down to watch a 2 hour film or 12 hours of House of Cards, you are making a commitment -- that's what you are doing at that time. music, however, is over in 4 minutes, comes in and out of your life and day and car and onto your iPhone and in bars and clubs. by its own nature it has always been transient, and in the past, it was the nature of the product you had to buy -- a record, a CD -- that forced you to sit down and really *listen* to the product you just spent $18 on (which is a lot when you're 14) so you felt like you got your money's worth (and sometimes you got 1 song and 11 pieces of shit).

a band like U2 who assembled real albums benefited from this, and it's how i got into the band. and it's also what was incentivized -- make an album that *forces* someone to spend $18 getting that one song they love, and then if they love that album, they'll buy the next one.

music, by its nature, can be delivered in a variety of different ways, so it's not so much that the music industry has decided that everything is disposable, or that evil corporations are stacking the deck against "real artists," it's that the delivery of content has changed dramatically, and albums have become the territory of real audiophiles and people who take music very seriously and would consider a fun evening sitting down and listening to an album all the way through start to finish on a friday night. hence the resurgent interest in vinyl amongst certain demographics. it's just not the 15m people who went out and bought Joshua Tree in 1987. those 15m people receive media through their devices and use the shuffle function, and thus content will follow form.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

(most) films and television *are* product -- ratings and box office are (nearly) everything, and they are test marketed and focus grouped to death. god forbid shareholders of giant media companies not get instant profit.

i think it comes down to form influencing content. if you are going to sit down to watch a 2 hour film or 12 hours of House of Cards, you are making a commitment -- that's what you are doing at that time. music, however, is over in 4 minutes, comes in and out of your life and day and car and onto your iPhone and in bars and clubs. by its own nature it has always been transient, and in the past, it was the nature of the product you had to buy -- a record, a CD -- that forced you to sit down and really *listen* to the product you just spent $18 on (which is a lot when you're 14) so you felt like you got your money's worth (and sometimes you got 1 song and 11 pieces of shit).

a band like U2 who assembled real albums benefited from this, and it's how i got into the band. and it's also what was incentivized -- make an album that *forces* someone to spend $18 getting that one song they love, and then if they love that album, they'll buy the next one.

music, by its nature, can be delivered in a variety of different ways, so it's not so much that the music industry has decided that everything is disposable, or that evil corporations are stacking the deck against "real artists," it's that the delivery of content has changed dramatically, and albums have become the territory of real audiophiles and people who take music very seriously and would consider a fun evening sitting down and listening to an album all the way through start to finish on a friday night. hence the resurgent interest in vinyl amongst certain demographics. it's just not the 15m people who went out and bought Joshua Tree in 1987. those 15m people receive media through their devices and use the shuffle function, and thus content will follow form.