Amusing thread.
He's talking about two things here. Music and the motivation behind the music.
The music:
The music is subjective. However profound and innovative you thought Zooropa or the like was, or how bland you think ATYCLB or the like was is purely subjective.
As a musician, you should know, you make the music that YOU want to make. That's artisitic integrity, nothing more or less. You put the music on magnetic tape, and you either let people hear it or you don't. If they hear it and buy it, then you are SOLD. Any artist who makes money off of their "art" is a proverbial "sell-out", whether that is Britney Spears or "insert pretentious indie band here".
The motivation for the music, seems to be your contention. That u2 are making more digestable music so they can make more money. Which is ridiculous, but I'll try and play a long.
What MrBrau is trying to say, and you have bene ignoring is that U2 are making the music that THEY want to make. U2 have never made any bones about wanting to be the biggest and best band in the world. If they wanted the riches they wouldn't have wasted their entire 30's chopping down the Joshua Tree-ya know, their most brilliant success, moentarliy and otherwise.
So U2 wants to make tambla-motown, soul, basic song structures, they want to make their "Beatles" album. And they make it. Is it any great fucking surprise that people bought it?
That MTV and radio wanted to play it? These corporate entities have been praying for a decade for U2 to make something "safe" so they can themselves cash in on it.
U2 made the album that they wanted to make. They could have mimmicked the tones of the Joshua Tree, the Americana, roots rock, or even mimmicked any of their previous efforts if they really wanted to cash in.
U2 have always been a pop/rock band who INCORPORATES sounds, ideas etc and hardly INNOVATES at all. All of that 90's music had existed previously in other artists.
The genious of it was U2 to put their balls on the line to make music that wasn't proven to make them money. ATYCLB doesn't sound like their 80's stuff to me at all, with the expcetion of Walk On.
Don't paint U2 as something that they aren't or never were. They are a musical act. Who plays rock, in forms of all kinds, not all of them are disposable to the mainstream ear, not all of them even jncorporate anything inventive or innovative. They are just a good band, they make music, people buy it. They are a product. If come huge fucking billion dollar company prints up your music and promotes your music, then that my friend IS A PRODUCT.
But it's no different than any other music. The difference is in the perception. You have your idea of what you think U2 SHOULD be and then there is what they are.
I got over that a long time ago. I am a musician. I know that the bravest thing you can do is make a song and let people hear it and tear it to bits. And if they love it and buy it up and the corporate monster sucks it up and wants to playt it and promote it then I guess, it changed your intention?
No, but it sure does make you an easy target for pretentious music fans who don't yet see the full picture. Rush (I love them too) is a product to be sold. They are only 3 men making music. No matter how much you spin the dramatic changes in all of their albums, it's essentiall the exact same thing as U2.
Some people will love you. Some people will hate you.
The more people that love you, the more others will hate you.
Not because of what you are, but because of what they want you to be?
Ticket prices? Get some perspective. You pay $25 to see a band like Pearl Jam (oe whomever) because that's what their money machine sets that price at. There is artistic control in the music, do you think the mega-giant money hogging corpoartionw ill turn over their cash cow to "artistic control". No fucking way.
It seems to me, you just don't understand the motives in the music as much as you understand how much money they are making. I don't give a shit about it.
Do you think U2 wants to gouge fans by putting 6 different versions of Vertigo so their fans have to buy them all if they are a collector? Hell no. It's the LABEL. The LABEL. The LABEL.
The motivation for the people who own U2's music has nothing to do with their integrity.
U2 are making the music they want to make. Rock and roll. Nothing more or less. None of it was ever as 'innovative' as you think and it's certainly not "sell-out" as you seem to think.
It's just men making music.
And you as a musician, should know more than possibly someone who is not, once you make the music, and then let people hear it, you have no control over their reactions. And if they react well, you could repeat and repeat if you just wanted to sell sell sell.
But if you change? What does that say. U2 has always changed. Retrogressive to you or not, they have changed. They risk artistic failure just like any musician, you should know that. And the commercial aspect goes w/o saying, or it should.
