Identity said:

Well, that was fast. No need for me to install iTunes; the album has now appeared on several file-sharing sites.

So it's being given away for free (for which U2 is being compensated) and you still decide to steal a copy?

BartVanHemelen said:

Neversin said:

And in the meanwhile Prince is back with WB trying to get his shit released...
I guess U2 will overshadow him yet again by a great marketing move...

.

Note how this was a complete secret until after it happened, while Prince's "mega announcement" on GMA was spoiled hours earlier. But then he didn't bother turning up anyway and the "mega announcement" involved three people nobody cares about saying absolutely nothing interesting while a song was barely audible.

.

Wouldn't be surprised if we're heading for a new Rave-like disaster. The simple fact that Funkenberry is already talking about a compilation with a bunch of tracks missing from the two albums is just frikking hilarious, even if it's just him making shit up.

Complete secret? Many details leaked about U2's involvement in the Iphone launch. So the part about giving it away to 500 million users was a secret, but give u2start.com a look, and it was not a COMPLETE secret. Thanks to the rumors I was watching the conference when I have absolute ZERO interest in Apple or phone technology.

Now if you're not a complete U2 fanatic, it was not extremely well known, but not exactly a COMPLETE secret.

Now you are right about Prince's ridiculous Morning Show debacle...Prince could learn a lot from U2, like their album release model that them, and Janet and Michael Jackson reaped incredible rewards by not over saturating the market resulting in multiple platinum albums while Prince had to settle for 1 million or less in USA Sales for all of his albums after Diamonds And Pearls

alandail said:

Identity said:

Well, that was fast. No need for me to install iTunes; the album has now appeared on several file-sharing sites.

So it's being given away for free (for which U2 is being compensated) and you still decide to steal a copy?

Yes. And in case you were wondering, I did it with a broad smile on my face.

[Edited 9/10/14 11:57am]

U2 are receiving millions from Apple because of this. Bono is the dirtiest capitalist in the pop world, his hands already filthy as a pig's ass. What is nauseating is Bono's political and humanitarian speeches, when he is as nasty as Bill Gates.

---

Frankly, this is just the internet culture, the culture of inmediacy. I much prefer to know an album of one of my favourite artists will be released in two months and to wait with expectancy until that moment to buy it than to wake up one day and know it's up there in an electronic cloud. I like U2's music a lot, and I'll wait until this record has an old school release, as I did with Beyoncé.

Identity said:

Javi said:

U2 are receiving millions from Apple because of this. Bono is the dirtiest capitalist in the pop world, his hands already filthy as a pig's ass. What is nauseating is Bono's political and humanitarian speeches, when he is as nasty as Bill Gates.

---

Frankly, this is just the internet culture, the culture of inmediacy. I much prefer to know an album of one of my favourite artists will be released in two months and to wait with expectancy until that moment to buy it than to wake up one day and know it's up there in an electronic cloud. I like U2's music a lot, and I'll wait until this record has an old school release, as I did with Beyoncé.

I am not exactly crazy about Bill Gates as a person, but Gates, and Bono have likely given more money to charity than you and I combined will in 50 lifetimes. It's also likely they have given a larger percentage of their fortune to charity than you and I combined have. Both have also spent large amounts of time working for charity. Yes they are both disgustingly rich, get over it. They're successful.

I'm ejoying the album, but if I'm honest, the quick commercial nature of the release has cheapened the product.

I'm not feeling it as a launch, or new chapter. It feels like a throw away. It's probably because I grew up in a age of anticipation and marketing, but I feel this album feels nothing more than a mid era product.

My gut feel is they were fearing irrelivence, so they decided to "be cool" and sell out to a very medeocre product launch.

A U2 album used to be an event. Now its a throwaway support act to a clunky and dorky watch.

When Apple was in the strategizing phase for ways to get a larger market for the Apple Pay thing that they're pushing they couldn't approach just any old artist for a promo like this. Few bands or artists have as large a fan base (that are tech-saavy, excluding bands like the Stones and Paul McCartney because most baby-boomers aren't likely to get on itunes or apple pay if they aren't already on it) as U2. Prince's audience isn't anywhere near as large. So they were an obvious choice, and I'm sure U2 received a big pay-day. I like a few of the tracks.. about 3-4, which isn't bad for a freebee.

This will backfire on U2. They've made their first album in 5 years (after one that was fairly lackluster) a footnote to someone else's launch. It will be completely forgotten by the time it goes on sale to the 5 people in the world without an iTunes account.

That said, I finally gave the album a listen this afternoon. Pretty good. Not one of their best, but definitely something of a return to form (in that it is comprised entirely of songs and not mostly of noodling fuzziness).

Gunsnhalen said:

I expected to be completely disappointed. But i liked a few tracks!

But there still on that arena rock binge. They have no more balls with their music. Every song is a ''rock anthem''they used to take chances (Achtung Baby, Zooropa, War, All that you can't leave behind) Hell even Pop was a bit of a departure. The last 2 albums are just ''yeah rock anthem yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah''

But much like Prince... they have a good discography. I just don't get excited for new music from them

No Line On The Horizon could have benefitted from being chocked full of rock anthems. That one was chock-full of navel-gazing horse shit.

2020 said:

Identity said:

Yes. And in case you were wondering, I did it with a broad smile on my face.

[Edited 9/10/14 11:57am]

If it's free, how do you steal it? What a mixed up world we live in now...

It's not often one is accused of stealing a free digital album, but I had to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Askani said:

This will backfire on U2. They've made their first album in 5 years (after one that was fairly lackluster) a footnote to someone else's launch. It will be completely forgotten by the time it goes on sale to the 5 people in the world without an iTunes account.

.

Pssht. Nonsense. The physical release will contain more songs, for one. The newspaper I read today has a full page on this new album, besides all the coverage of Apple's crap.

.

I bet Prince is super pissed off he ain't getting this kind of deal.

BartVanHemelen said:

Neversin said:

And in the meanwhile Prince is back with WB trying to get his shit released...
I guess U2 will overshadow him yet again by a great marketing move...

.

Note how this was a complete secret until after it happened, while Prince's "mega announcement" on GMA was spoiled hours earlier. But then he didn't bother turning up anyway and the "mega announcement" involved three people nobody cares about saying absolutely nothing interesting while a song was barely audible.

.

Wouldn't be surprised if we're heading for a new Rave-like disaster. The simple fact that Funkenberry is already talking about a compilation with a bunch of tracks missing from the two albums is just frikking hilarious, even if it's just him making shit up.

Apparently it wasn't a complete secret, but I bet people will be talking about this move and the buzz of a physical release rumoured to have bonus tracks more than either of Prince's releases on WB... And we all know who he'll blame when the albums won't sell...

Neversin.

The promo ad is rockin'.

^ stillwaiting

---

How sweet of Bono and Gates to give their money to charity! And to give more than I do... wow, that's impressive! Who needs a welfare State when you have millionaires who give their money to charity?

---

Oh, and I don't need to "get over" them. I admire Bono as an artist and despise him as a person. And I couldn't care less about Gates; anyway, he's there because people want him to, so that's free market and everything is fine!

[Edited 9/11/14 6:21am]

Javi said:

^ stillwaiting

---

How sweet of Bono and Gates to give their money to charity! And to give more than I do... wow, that's impressive! Who needs a welfare State when you have millionaires who give their money to charity?

---

Oh, and I don't need to "get over" them. I admire Bono as an artist and despise him as a person. And I couldn't care less about Gates; anyway, he's there because people want him to, so that's free market and everything is fine!

[Edited 9/11/14 6:21am]

And you are free to have that opinion. I'd rather despise corporate executives who spend every single moment only worrying about finding innovative ways to have more private planes, and organize more golf trips and power lunches for their top 100 paid employees, and trying to figure out ways to put the squeeze on the lower level workers. I do know that Microsoft may do some bad things, but at least they have happy employees..just like Bono may do some bad things...so it's just my opinion.

Javi said:

^ stillwaiting

---

How sweet of Bono and Gates to give their money to charity! And to give more than I do... wow, that's impressive! Who needs a welfare State when you have millionaires who give their money to charity?

---

Oh, and I don't need to "get over" them. I admire Bono as an artist and despise him as a person. And I couldn't care less about Gates; anyway, he's there because people want him to, so that's free market and everything is fine!

[Edited 9/11/14 6:21am]

And you are free to have that opinion. I'd rather despise corporate executives who spend every single moment only worrying about finding innovative ways to have more private planes, and organize more golf trips and power lunches for their top 100 paid employees, and trying to figure out ways to put the squeeze on the lower level workers. I do know that Microsoft may do some bad things, but at least they have happy employees..just like Bono may do some bad things...so it's just my opinion.

BartVanHemelen said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Askani said:

This will backfire on U2. They've made their first album in 5 years (after one that was fairly lackluster) a footnote to someone else's launch. It will be completely forgotten by the time it goes on sale to the 5 people in the world without an iTunes account.

.

Pssht. Nonsense. The physical release will contain more songs, for one. The newspaper I read today has a full page on this new album, besides all the coverage of Apple's crap.

.

I bet Prince is super pissed off he ain't getting this kind of deal.

Prince has now the deal he wanted...compelte control of his masters...and releasing his records where he wants...What he is doing with this freedom remains to be seen

As you know he already did this, but not digital and not at this big scale like U2 of course...

But one has to give him the respect as he was the first majour artist with a newspaper deal where he got paid in advance and the papers sold a lot more than their normal sales...

Time magazine:

http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1644427,00.html

"For its part, the Mail on Sunday printed, and sold, an extra 600,000 copies in addition to the 2.3 million they usually sell every week. Advertisers find it hard to resist those kinds of sums."

BartVanHemelen said:

.

I bet Prince is super pissed off he ain't getting this kind of deal.

You should go through each and every thread in the Music : Non-Prince forum and make it a thread about Prince and write about how jealous that artist probably makes Prince feel. I think it'll be really cathartic for you..

After listening - maybe Bono & Princey can get a twofer deal at a hook-writing workshop

Songs of Innocence behind-the-scenes studio clip.

Further devaluation of the art form that I love.

An awful lot has been said about the release strategy and very little has been said about the music. The people who are talking about the music are mostly saying "Meh, it's not as bad as it might have been. There's a couple of okay things on it." This is true in the FB things I have seen in the last 2 days as well as other message boards.

Whether you like them or hate them this was SMART, not smart, GENIUS move. For many reasons, ONE no one has been talking about the band, they have been way out of the eye of everyone for awhile, every now and then BONO pops up on the Letterman show and talked about working on a record. TWO if you have itunes U got the record free right in your library, if you like the band just download it, if you dont, shit download it too you might like something on there or fucking hate it who cares you listened to it. People were raving about the whole BEYONCE thing but this move makes that move look like nothing special. The reason this is better is you got it free! and then in a month and a half it will be in stores, for the loyals who want a hard copy, plus the deluxe will have stuff not on this.

Now some are already citing PRINCE in this discussion, here is the problem with that, PRINCE is not, and I REPEAT no on the level of u2 and when i say that i mean PRINCE is still an "underground" type guy, he has a base that is nowhere near that of u2 especially worldwide, and I love PRINCE but please do not try to compare levels of popularity of the 2. YES everyone knows them both, BUT if you ask random people on the street they havent heard anything from Prince in eons, for u2 they have.

alandail said:

Identity said:

Well, that was fast. No need for me to install iTunes; the album has now appeared on several file-sharing sites.

So it's being given away for free (for which U2 is being compensated) and you still decide to steal a copy?

If it is free, how is it stealing?

It's freaking hilarious some of the complaints I am hearing, ONE is i dont like u2, Ok dont download it, TWO "fans" saying "i dont like this album" OK when it comes out in a month dont buy it case closed, its fucking free. THREE people complaining about this being in their library Jesus H Christ only this fucking generation would bitch about stupid meaningless bullshit. "I cant take more useless selfies because the new u2 is taking up space" complaints like these show me how society has become nothing more than a bunch of complaining whining group of bitches. Sorry for my rant, but this generation buys almost NO MUSIC and now complains about free shit?

Askani said: