The "Apple Stunt"

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Dragonfave said:
Apple tie-up with U2 branded a 'dismal failure' by music retailers - Telegraph

UK sales figure, by the way.
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Who'da thunk it. The most pissed off (from a business perspective) segment of the Market quick to brand it a failure after just a week. Of course they would say that, they are losing out on the foot traffic a U2 album release would generate. They want to ensure no one else does this. The payback on this will be measured in YEARS, not DAYS. It will be in concert ticket sales, merchandise sales, continued back catalog sales, sales of FUTURE releases, etc. We aren't privy to the details, and never will be. For all we know Apple will get a cut of ticket sales, or exclusivity on other releases/events, it's about 3 years too soon to call this a failure, no one should be getting their panties in a bundle over this.
 
I'm a little bummed out today. I must say.

I had some fun today and rated SOI's songs, track by track next to the tracks off the last 3 albums. It's a very cool thread over in the main section started by Flaming Friar.

The result? SOI killed the other 3 by a large margin.

So why am I blue? I feel like this album is starting to suffer the fate of POP, in my opinion U2's last great album. Both POP and this album are so incredible, but suffered from factors beyond the music. It's very frustrating for a fan, because the band is at fault, pushing a little too far without completely thinking it through.

Now, I know, I've been beating the drum that all this bad publicity is really not bad at all, and they are gaining new and old fans, blah blah, which is true.

But we all know the copy and paste "journalists" out there are just beating this thing over and over. So I guess what bothers me most is that now there are a lot of people out there that continue to think that this is a crap album and U2 still hasn't delivered since the 90's or 2001, whatever.

Ah, I know I shouldn't take it personally, but I was really so pleasantly surprised with this album, that it sucks to see it get knocked around.

Go about your day ya'll
 
I'm slightly bummed about the negativity surrounding this release, but that was to be expected. Of course, they're going to shut everyone up when tickets for the next tour go on sale, but now U2's going to be known as "the band who forced their way into everyone's iTunes libraries" for the rest of history.
 
prbiker15 said:
I'm slightly bummed about the negativity surrounding this release, but that was to be expected. Of course, they're going to shut everyone up when tickets for the next tour go on sale, but now U2's going to be known as "the band who forced their way into everyone's iTunes libraries" for the rest of history.
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I honestly think the whole iTunes thing will die down at some point


Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
 
oh, it totally will. It's only been a week - some other 'hot' social media story will come along any day now.
 
corianderstem said:
oh, it totally will. It's only been a week - some other 'hot' social media story will come along any day now.
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Add to that we have seen a couple of positive reactions starting to brake through, then have gone out of the public view on purpose IMO, we will start seeing and hearing from them again when the cd version is released, it will all be planned I bet


Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
 
I'm sad because they made and released a fine album after such a long time and it's being bashed, mainly because of this Apple thing. I'm not mad at U2 because they partnered with Apple, I can understand why they're doing it, but I'm really bummed about the general reaction to it that is clearly overshadowing the music. Hopefully there will be better times ahead as soon as the album is released in physical form, and the band gets into promotional and later touring mode.
 
It's funny that this thread is named The Apple Stunt. That hasn't even happened yet. Imagine U2 coming out of a giant sized Apple during their concerts? :lol: That would be some funny shit.
 
I'm not sure how the Apple "stunt" can ever be deemed a failure from the band or Universal Music's perspective. The entire point was to put U2 back in the mainstream conversation. I don't think there has been this much discussion of U2 in the worldwide mainstream press in 10 years.

Was it controversial? Absolutely. Piss some people off? For sure. But I'd guess the vast majority of the haters were never going to buy a U2 album in any case.

But I'd also bet it's reignited the band in the minds of thousands of passive U2 fans that haven't even thought about the band in the last decade.

Over time the album will stand or fall on it's own musical merits, but this has at least given the album a chance to reach the larger U2 (and music) fan base. NLOTH never had anything close to this opportunity to succeed.
 
I remember a while back when Bono kept saying to press and interviewers that the world didn't need/want a new U2 album... Kinda strange that the solution to that dilemma was to force it on people. I wonder if a simple opt-in/opt-out prompt on iTunes would have eliminated all this backlash.

Myself, I own two Apple devices and couldn't get the damn thing to show up on either. So I'm not especially impressed right now.
 
Scorpionac said:
I remember a while back when Bono kept saying to press and interviewers that the world didn't need/want a new U2 album... Kinda strange that the solution to that dilemma was to force it on people. I wonder if a simple opt-in/opt-out prompt on iTunes would have eliminated all this backlash.



Myself, I own two Apple devices and couldn't get the damn thing to show up on either. So I'm not especially impressed right now.
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Do you have the latest version of the software on both? Cause it only showed on my iPhone.

Still the outcry is odd in the sense that it was not downloaded. It was just prepped for it. To me there is no significant difference between this and a link you click on to download something. Just don't click on it. A friend of mine who's a U2 fan didn't even realize it was on her iPhone until I told her. ☺️
 
Any Apple-savvy folk here? Dont laugh but I am the most non-Apple-savvy iPhone user ever. Anyways, for the first time in the life of my contract with this 4s, I'm getting a warning from my provider that if I continue on my current usage pattern, by month ent I'm going to be above and beyond their "fair use" policy and I will be charged for extra data. The only thing I've done differently from the past 2 years, this month, is listen to the album a good few times. So it got me thinking, have I in fact been streaming it this entire time? And how can I tell, and fix ie permanently download it so I'm playing my local copy always? I don't use my phone for music, hence my ignorance here


Sent from my ass crack
 
So we need to look at this not just from album sales or from album "listens" but from other aspects too(its a different music world than it was 10 years ago).

With that said, for what its worth:

Facebook: U2 went up 4k "likes" from this morning (18,117,000)
Instagram: U2 went up 400 "followers" from this morning (57,932)


If people are truly upset with U2 or this "stunt" was a failure, these numbers will either go down or stay largely unchanged in the coming weeks/months.

Time will tell......


Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
 
gvox said:
Any Apple-savvy folk here? Dont laugh but I am the most non-Apple-savvy iPhone user ever. Anyways, for the first time in the life of my contract with this 4s, I'm getting a warning from my provider that if I continue on my current usage pattern, by month ent I'm going to be above and beyond their "fair use" policy and I will be charged for extra data. The only thing I've done differently from the past 2 years, this month, is listen to the album a good few times. So it got me thinking, have I in fact been streaming it this entire time? And how can I tell, and fix ie permanently download it so I'm playing my local copy always? I don't use my phone for music, hence my ignorance here


Sent from my ass crack
Click to expand...


I just put mine on airplane mode and all songs still played. Very likely the data issue is due to having downloaded it over your phone provider connection. I don't think you're streaming it. I always download or view videos on wi-fi.
 
CosmoKramer said:
So we need to look at this not just from album sales or from album "listens" but from other aspects too(its a different music world than it was 10 years ago).

With that said, for what its worth:

Facebook: U2 went up 4k "likes" from this morning (18,117,000)
Instagram: U2 went up 400 "followers" from this morning (57,932)


If people are truly upset with U2 or this "stunt" was a failure, these numbers will either go down or stay largely unchanged in the coming weeks/months.

Time will tell......


Sent from my iPad using U2 Interference
Click to expand...
They are one of the least followed artists on social media, yet they sell more concert tickets than the artists that have a much larger following.
 
prbiker15 said:
They are one of the least followed artists on social media, yet they sell more concert tickets than the artists that have a much larger following.
Click to expand...


I love that! ? We should all form a #teamU2 on Twitter lol - except I don't use it at all!
 
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