U2 on a cloud

But who’s listening to it? The answer is still unclear. Apple has not released official download rates for Songs of Innocence and U2’s manager, Guy Oseary, also said he didn’t know how many people had actually downloaded the album.

But that really wasn’t the point: The album will live on in users’ iCloud, and the band envisions new listeners accessing it for the first time for years to come.

“We’re quite happy that 7 per cent of the planet has this album, and they can enjoy it at their leisure,’’ Oseary said. The band’s move was hotly debated within the industry as people tried to assess whether it was another stroke of genius from a band that has been a top-selling juggernaut for decades or a ploy by an ageing group trying to make a splash in a landscape that has vastly changed since it released its last album in 2009. Even though that album went platinum, its sales were a bit of a disappointment for the band.

Back then, frontman Bono told The Associated Press, “We felt that the album is almost an extinct species, and we (tried to) create a mood and feeling, and a beginning, middle and an end. And I suppose we’ve made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of pop stars.’’
That diet has gotten even more extreme since then, with album sales continuing to plummet industry wide, singles dominating and streaming services including Spotify and even iTunes helping diminish the impact of a cohesive art form album.

So what is U2 trying to achieve with its latest Apple alliance? Oseary said the band achieved one goal: keeping the integrity of Songs intact by releasing it as an album.

“I don’t expect everyone to get everything now,’’ Oseary said. “Maybe in a few years, things will start making sense or they won’t. But that’s not our job. Our job is to make sure the music is in as many hands as possible.’’

U2 joined Jay Z, Beyonce and a growing number of artists who are working out exclusive corporate deals and employing guerrilla ad campaigns rather than moving the album through the typical marketing plan of singles release and slow build to launch date.

Like Jay Z and his Samsung partnership to launch Magna Carta … Holy Grail last year, U2 and Interscope Records get handsomely paid — something that’s no longer guaranteed from album sales alone — and the money comes on up front. Apple continues a high-profile relationship with a longtime business and philanthropic partner, plus earns more credit for innovation. Fans get something for free and those who don’t want it can just ignore it.
But there may be penalties to pay later if physical retailers refuse to stock the album, as Target did when Beyonce surprise-dropped her self-titled LP exclusively on iTunes last December for a week. And there are still lots of questions. Will fans now buy a physical copy? Will the band lose some of its cool? Even the unflappable Jay Z suffered backlash when the app he and Samsung used to distribute his album to 1 million customers catalogued user information, and there have already been complaints from some who didn’t want a U2 album on their cloud — even as a gift.

There’s no question the album’s arrival got the meter moving in a year that’s been light on buzzy releases. Reports surfaced earlier that the band would not release an album until 2015 after teasing its imminent arrival earlier this year. Now, it will be one of 2014’s most memorable musical moments.
AP