Does anyone actually believe Songs of Experience comes out in 2015?

[Nick66]

No, not even close. Dressing up as the Village People in a music video and taking a lemon on tour may have been dodgy artistic choices and attracted a fair amount of derision, but doesn't even begin to compare with being portrayed as megalomaniacal villains pushing their music on the masses surreptitiously (as laughable as that may be, that's the perception that now exists). Fans such as yourself are grossly underestimating the damage that has been done to U2's credibility, their integrity even. Their name has been dragged through the mud. Spider-Man was a light slap on the wrist in comparison with SOI.

Well both you're both off the mark on this. While U2Girl too easily brushes aside the SOI release fiasco, your suggestion that U2 has done some kind of great damage to their "credibility" and "integrity" is a little hyperbolic. It's not like they lied and said their 360 Spaceship got hit by an RPG. They made a marketing mistake, that's it. Yes, they became a subject of mockery for a while, but most of the public has forgotten and moved on from that. And by the time the tour rolls around, they certainly will have.

So yes, let's not pretend it was all sunny and roses for SOI, but it's also hardly the end of the world in U2 land. The tour will do great, and U2's legacy is pretty much set at this point.

 

[CosmoKramer]

No, not even close. Dressing up as the Village People in a music video and taking a lemon on tour may have been dodgy artistic choices and attracted a fair amount of derision, but doesn't even begin to compare with being portrayed as megalomaniacal villains pushing their music on the masses surreptitiously (as laughable as that may be, that's the perception that now exists). Fans such as yourself are grossly underestimating the damage that has been done to U2's credibility, their integrity even. Their name has been dragged through the mud. Spider-Man was a light slap on the wrist in comparison with SOI.

Not going to argue about SOI but in fairness, if social media had the presence it does today in 1988 or 1997, those years would have been disasters. Think about all of the "reviews" we read from random blogs or tweets from random people (kids/adults) that if it were not for social edit you would have never seen.

Can you imagine the Internet memes and GIFS if people had footage of U2 getting stuck in the Lemon.

For the record, I'm taking everyone's word about 1988 being really bad for U2 because I love Rattle and Hum and selling 6 million albums in the U.S. doesn't seem too bad to me....


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[digitize]

I don't think we really know yet how much damage the Apple fiasco caused. My instinct is that it's probably the final death blow to U2's chances at achieving a hit with great mainstream popularity, but it's not like the chances of that we're high in the first place. I don't think that it's going to seriously damage U2's legacy or how people view the overall artistic contributions of their career.


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[Registered Dude]

must we deal only in absolutes?

 

[mikal]

I don't think we really know yet how much damage the Apple fiasco caused. My instinct is that it's probably the final death blow to U2's chances at achieving a hit with great mainstream popularity, but it's not like the chances of that we're high in the first place. I don't think that it's going to seriously damage U2's legacy or how people view the overall artistic contributions of their career.


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I'm still not convinced that any real damage was done here. Sure they were the but of some jokes for a couple weeks. This is not new territory for the band. They've been the butt of jokes going all the way back to 1988. The people who are so over the top with the "Apple fiasco" negativity have failed to acknowledge the positives in this. I followed Twitter very closely during the weeks after the album release. Sure, there were a lot of idiots claiming that their human rights were violated. In turn, they became the butt of many jokes as well. But within all the noise, I also saw a lot of comments like "I have no idea who the hell U2 is, but this album is pretty good". The fact is that SOI "reached" so many more people than NLOTH did. That was the goal U2 set out to do and they accomplished it.

 

[lemonfly]

For the record, I'm taking everyone's word about 1988 being really bad for U2 because I love Rattle and Hum and selling 6 million albums in the U.S. doesn't seem too bad to me....


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Yep. R&H is still the third highest selling U2 album of all time. Regarding if social media had been around in 1997, U2 being stuck in the lemon would've gone viral and everyone would have had a good chuckle at their expense. But would there have been the kind of vitriol that we're now seeing? I mean, sheer hatred on a regular basis like "I hope U2 die in a plane crash"? Somehow I doubt it.

 

[CosmoKramer]

must we deal only in absolutes?

I never ever deal in absolutes!!!!!


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[U2girl]

No, not even close. Dressing up as the Village People in a music video and taking a lemon on tour may have been dodgy artistic choices and attracted a fair amount of derision, but doesn't even begin to compare with being portrayed as megalomaniacal villains pushing their music on the masses surreptitiously (as laughable as that may be, that's the perception that now exists). Fans such as yourself are grossly underestimating the damage that has been done to U2's credibility, their integrity even. Their name has been dragged through the mud. Spider-Man was a light slap on the wrist in comparison with SOI.

Fans as yourself are grossly overpumping this. A few weeks of jokes is all that really happened.

Nowhere near the burn they got with Spiderman (or tax "scandal") or Pop or Rattle and Hum (unless you think people today would love the Village people look or Bono ranting about US foreign policies on stage) but keep telling yourself revisionist history.

 

[CosmoKramer]

I mean, sheer hatred on a regular basis like "I hope U2 die in a plane crash"? Somehow I doubt it.

I see comments like that about all things. Truthfully, anyone or thing popular gets trashed by a segment of people just depends how many of those people you get in front of and U2 got in front of 90% of them!

Comments like that are ridiculous no matter what the circumstances and hatred is everywhere and it's sickening. There was a Facebook page devoted to "ugly babies" and If I recall, someone put a picture of a baby with DS on the site and people trashed the pic. To me, that is one of the most heartless things I have ever heard of and those people are scum and those same people are the ones who woke up on 9/9 and had a U2 album on their phone...and I'm sure let the world know it.

In the end, it could have been worse but it certainly could have gone better.


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[Hollow Island]

Well both you're both off the mark on this. While U2Girl too easily brushes aside the SOI release fiasco, your suggestion that U2 has done some kind of great damage to their "credibility" and "integrity" is a little hyperbolic. It's not like they lied and said their 360 Spaceship got hit by an RPG. They made a marketing mistake, that's it. Yes, they became a subject of mockery for a while, but most of the public has forgotten and moved on from that. And by the time the tour rolls around, they certainly will have.

So yes, let's not pretend it was all sunny and roses for SOI, but it's also hardly the end of the world in U2 land. The tour will do great, and U2's legacy is pretty much set at this point.

Their legacy is safe but that's not their primary concern. They're concerned with what they're doing NOW, not the past or how the future sees them. They know they've got two albums in the all-time classic canon, but they want their new stuff to get the same recognition as the Joshua Tree. And SOI failed, or at least it seems that way. Nobody talked about the music or lyrics, or Bono's accompanying essay providing context. The only way to tell how well the album really did is to wait til the tour starts and see what kind of reaction the new songs get when U2 play them.

The SOI thing was solely a marketing mistake and blown way out of proportion, but the reason it was a disaster is because it prevented people from talking about how good the new U2 record was. Word of mouth is still the best way to get momentum, and U2 lost that.

U2's credibility did take a hit, but I don't know why. Teaming up with a megacorp to give away music is bad but advertising for them is good? What the fuck is going on?

 

[Hollow Island]

I see comments like that about all things. Truthfully, anyone or thing popular gets trashed by a segment of people just depends how many of those people you get in front of and U2 got in front of 90% of them!

Comments like that are ridiculous no matter what the circumstances and hatred is everywhere and it's sickening. There was a Facebook page devoted to "ugly babies" and If I recall, someone put a picture of a baby with DS on the site and people trashed the pic. To me, that is one of the most heartless things I have ever heard of and those people are scum and those same people are the ones who woke up on 9/9 and had a U2 album on their phone...and I'm sure let the world know it.

In the end, it could have been worse but it certainly could have gone better.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

God, that's disgusting. Are people worse now or does the interned just allow people to expose cruelty that they would have kept inside before? It seems that as society becomes more accepting it's also becoming more nasty.

 

[Nick66]

I'm still not convinced that any real damage was done here. Sure they were the but of some jokes for a couple weeks. This is not new territory for the band. They've been the butt of jokes going all the way back to 1988.

While I agree that they haven't done any long term damage to their legacy, I'm also not sure it's a simple as brushing it off as being the butt of a few jokes for a couple weeks. I've been a U2 fan a long time, and I've never seen anything near negative reaction that the SOI release got them. Not for Pop, and certainly not for R&H. Part of that is social media to be sure...but that is what it is. And whether some of the idiots mocking them were the butt of a few jokes themselves is irrelevant...no one cares about them.

The people who are so over the top with the "Apple fiasco" negativity have failed to acknowledge the positives in this. I followed Twitter very closely during the weeks after the album release. Sure, there were a lot of idiots claiming that their human rights were violated. In turn, they became the butt of many jokes as well. But within all the noise, I also saw a lot of comments like "I have no idea who the hell U2 is, but this album is pretty good". The fact is that SOI "reached" so many more people than NLOTH did. That was the goal U2 set out to do and they accomplished it.

There were some positives, but I think on balance the whole thing was a net negative for U2. Yes, if the goal was simply to get the record into the hands of more people than NLOTH, they accomplished that. But I don't agree that this was U2's goal. The goal was to recapture their popularity and "relevance". The release was simply a way to go about doing that. By that metric, the results are much more mixed, at best.

What difference does it all make? Not much. The tour will sell out and their legacy is secure. Part of the sad part is that now matter how big U2 might have screwed up, it really doesn't matter that much because aside from die hard fans, most people don't have anything invested them and don't really care. In other words, ironically it's their lack of relevance that enables them to just quickly move on from this.

 

[CosmoKramer]

God, that's disgusting. Are people worse now or does the interned just allow people to expose cruelty that they would have kept inside before? It seems that as society becomes more accepting it's also becoming more nasty.

My take is that people have always been like this, only now you can do these thing behind a computer screen and an Avatar. You can say anything you want and there are virtually no consequences and you are never held accountable.




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[mikal]

While I agree that they haven't done any long term damage to their legacy, I'm also not sure it's a simple as brushing it off as being the butt of a few jokes for a couple weeks. I've been a U2 fan a long time, and I've never seen anything near negative reaction that the SOI release got them. Not for Pop, and certainly not for R&H. Part of that is social media to be sure...but that is what it is. And whether some of the idiots mocking them were the butt of a few jokes themselves is irrelevant...no one cares about them.



There were some positives, but I think on balance the whole thing was a net negative for U2. Yes, if the goal was simply to get the record into the hands of more people than NLOTH, they accomplished that. But I don't agree that this was U2's goal. The goal was to recapture their popularity and "relevance". The release was simply a way to go about doing that. By that metric, the results are much more mixed, at best.

I think a lot of what shapes our perspectives are our own individual experiences. I was barely embarrassed by the Apple fiasco because I didn't have anyone in my life, whether it be friends, family or co-workers. They just didn't care. They were either very excited for a U2 album or couldn't care less becuse they don't like U2. The only person who remotely showed any negative emotion about the album auto downloading was fine after I told her that the album will disappear after a month anyway. She had a 64gb iPhone so space wasn't an issue for her.

I'm sure others have had different experiences though. I'm pretty sure Headache or someone else said that other people were really giving him a hard time in the weeks following the release, so I can understand how that could shape his perspective to be different than mine.

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

Will they keep Danger Mouse, Tedder, and Epworth to the finish line on this one?


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[Nick66]

I think a lot of what shapes our perspectives are our own individual experiences. I was barely embarrassed by the Apple fiasco because I didn't have anyone in my life, whether it be friends, family or co-workers. They just didn't care. They were either very excited for a U2 album or couldn't care less becuse they don't like U2. The only person who remotely showed any negative emotion about the album auto downloading was fine after I told her that the album will disappear after a month anyway. She had a 64gb iPhone so space wasn't an issue for her.

I'm sure others have had different experiences though. I'm pretty sure Headache or someone else said that other people were really giving him a hard time in the weeks following the release, so I can understand how that could shape his perspective to be different than mine.

Well, yeah, it's the same for me. I don't have anyone in my life who cares much about U2 one way or the other. My best friend, who at one time was a bigger fan than I was, gave up on them some time ago.

 

[mikal]

My take is that people have always been like this, only now you can do these thing behind a computer screen and an Avatar. You can say anything you want and there are virtually no consequences and you are never held accountable.




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That and the ettiquete expecations haven't fully (or even close) caught up with the general public. I continue to be amazed when I see people completely slamming their employers (even their bosses) on Facebook.

 

[CosmoKramer]

I didn't have anyone in my life, whether it be friends, family or co-workers.

Well, stop making Bono fat jokes and maybe people will like you more!


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[CosmoKramer]

I don't have anyone in my life who cares

That's just sad. You an Mikal should hook up.


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[RaisedByWolves]

That and the ettiquete expecations haven't fully (or even close) caught up with the general public. I continue to be amazed when I see people completely slamming their employers (even their bosses) on Facebook.

That is one of the stupidest moves any employee can make.

 

[Nick66]

That's just sad. You an Mikal should hook up.

Enough of that. You're going to make Gabe jealous.

 

[mikal]

Nick and I have been lovers for years, folks. Get with the times.

 

[Bad Exit]

I'll just sign Mikal's opinion on this issue (the apple issue, not the nick gabe triangle), since that's exactly my take on this.

 

[popacrobat]

Fwiw, I'm not suggesting that SOE is coming out this summer or even this year. Just that when it does, it's tied into iTunes in some capacity. The way it was talked about leads me to believe that they're already underway with whatever technology it is they're exploring. If it turns out SOE is scrapped, then yeah, Apple will find somebody new, but it wouldn't shock me if the two sides have some sort of contract already agreed to. Hardly a crazy idea.

Of course, they could go and agree to rip it up as well.

 

[Nick66]

Fwiw, I'm not suggesting that SOE is coming out this summer or even this year. Just that when it does, it's tied into iTunes in some capacity. The way it was talked about leads me to believe that they're already underway with whatever technology it is they're exploring. If it turns out SOE is scrapped, then yeah, Apple will find somebody new, but it wouldn't shock me if the two sides have some sort of contract already agreed to. Hardly a crazy idea.

Of course, they could go and agree to rip it up as well.

No one has to agree to anything. If U2 and Apple have a contract for U2 to be tied to some future Apple product, and Apple decides U2 is toxic, they can walk away, period. No contract can force Apple to partner with U2 if Apple doesn't want to, contract or no.

 

[Scorpionac]

All this talk of people's real lives is making me uncomfortable. My conception of Interference members is that none of them have real lives, other interests, friends, etc.

Anyway, re: the "Biggest Fiasco: R&H, Pop, or SOI?" debate... You can argue that the R&H movie was embarrassing (I wasn't even alive to see it in 1988, and I get embarrassed watching it by myself today) and that the Discotheque video and parts of PopMart were embarrassing. But it's just not the same story as SOI. A pretentious film in 1988 and a lame video in 1997 meant nothing more to the public than U2 going in a questionable new direction. The band might have earned some derision in the music press. But I don't think the general public felt more than apathy towards U2 for their missteps. Why would they?

Fast forward to 2014 and the band is pushing their album onto Apple computers and devices, and the general public is given a good reason to actively hate on U2. SOI's release spawned a ton of bad press because of the release's big implications re: privacy, consumer choice, the music biz, and the band's self-importance (which many people already suspected due to Bono's activism). A whole can of worms, dumped right in the public's lap. R&H and Pop were nothing like that.

As to the social media question - imagine social media had been around in 1988 and 1997. Okay, you can stop imagining now, because guess what? It wasn't. The negative reaction to SOI might have been amplified by the social media echo chamber, but that doesn't change the fact of it. Doesn't make the reaction illegitimate. And the idea that anyone outside Interference would have created "memes" about a PopMart stage malfunction? Nah.

 

[Nick66]

All this talk of people's real lives is making me uncomfortable. My conception of Interference members is that none of them have real lives, other interests, friends, etc.

Anyway, re: the "Biggest Fiasco: R&H, Pop, or SOI?" debate... You can argue that the R&H movie was embarrassing (I wasn't even alive to see it in 1988, and I get embarrassed watching it by myself today) and that the Discotheque video and parts of PopMart were embarrassing. But it's just not the same story as SOI. A pretentious film in 1988 and a lame video in 1997 meant nothing more to the public than U2 going in a questionable new direction. The band might have earned some derision in the music press. But I don't think the general public felt more than apathy towards U2 for their missteps. Why would they?

Fast forward to 2014 and the band is pushing their album onto Apple computers and devices, and the general public is given a good reason to actively hate on U2. SOI's release spawned a ton of bad press because of the release's big implications re: privacy, consumer choice, the music biz, and the band's self-importance (which many people already suspected due to Bono's activism). A whole can of worms, dumped right in the public's lap. R&H and Pop were nothing like that.

As to the social media question - imagine social media had been around in 1988 and 1997. Okay, you can stop imagining now, because guess what? It wasn't. The negative reaction to SOI might have been amplified by the social media echo chamber, but that doesn't change the fact of it. Doesn't make the reaction illegitimate. And the idea that anyone outside Interference would have created "memes" about a PopMart stage malfunction? Nah.

This post scores a zero on the Pritchard scale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHORRHXtyI

 

[popacrobat]

No one has to agree to anything. If U2 and Apple have a contract for U2 to be tied to some future Apple product, and Apple decides U2 is toxic, they can walk away, period. No contract can force Apple to partner with U2 if Apple doesn't want to, contract or no.

"Of course, they could go and agree to rip it up as well."

 

[mikal]

I just don't really think Apple would think of U2 as toxic. Unless Apple starts caring about idiot teenagers on Twitter which has never been heir target market.


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[Scorpionac]

This post scores a zero on the Pritchard scale.

I don't normally read your posts, but thanks for sharing!