Hi, DeDe here,
Personally, I love U2, and I think this was a very smart move for them. Bono has proven over and over through the years that he's not just a super-talented musician, he's also a true marketing genius. Look how he keeps re-creating his music, yet keeps it true to the U2 sound, and it's stayed more or less, quite popular...for almost 30 years.
However, this just shows how truly bad the situation has gotten for almost all of the artists in the music industry. What everyone's not telling you is that U2 got a huge paycheck (~100Million) behind the scenes from iTunes, Apple, etc. But for us non-famous, unknown, hardworking musicians and songwriters, this may be a signal of the final kiss of death for album and CD sales, which 99.9% of us still rely on for survival and in order to keep creating music....
There's got to be a solution here that protects artists, and pays us a fair amount for our new music-keeping copyright protections in place, while at the same time keeping music affordable and available to consumers. I'm open to your thoughts on this, any suggestions or ideas?...
http://www.DeDe-Music.com
What does U2’s
Deal With Apple Mean for the Music Industry? The world's biggest band have
given their new album away for free on iTunes. But what's in it for them?
-From entertainment.ie, Sept. 2014
U2 sent
shockwaves through the music industry last night by announcing at the launch of
the new iPhone 6 that their new album 'Songs of Innocence' was to be
given away completely free of charge on Apple's iTunes online music store.
To say that
this is an unconventional method to release new material would be an
understatement and it could potentially be seen as a seismic shift in the way
music is delivered to its audience. Since the advent of iTunes and, more lately
Spotify, the means by which people experience music has been subverted. Purists
suggest that this is to the detriment to the concept of the album as a
standalone collection of music, as today's listeners seem more content to
download or stream a series of individual tracks as they grow their personally
curated collections. It's the musical equivalent of separating the wheat from
the chaff.
By partnering
with Apple and giving their entire record away for free, U2 have embraced the
digital age in a way that many of their contemporaries have appeared so hesitant
to do and also encouraged fans to download and listen to the albums as a whole
rather than to cherry-pick their way through it by downloading the odd single
here or there.
But what
exactly is in this for U2? Quite a lot, it turns out. Bono has said on many
occasions, and as recently as last week, that he doesn't believe in
"free" music so it would be naive to suggest that this is an entirely
philanthropic gesture by U2. Various figures are traversing the internet this morning about
exactly how much U2 will earn from their "free" album and it's
entirely possible that this could generate Bono and co. more than any other album
they've released in the last two decades.
The Wall Street Journal quotes a source "familiar with the
talks" who said U2 were paid an astonishing $100 million for their
participation, with Apple only too happy to realign with the group they
previously worked with ten years ago to release a special U2 iPod. This move
was also presumably designed to incentivise the purchase of U2's back catalogue
in iTunes to a younger audience and to highlight ticket sales for the eventual
tour on the back of 'Songs of Innocence' (though it's unlikely they would have
needed to much help in that regard).
Jimmy Iovine,
record producer and co-founder of Beats, explained Bono's intentions further to
Time.
"The
charts are broken", he said. "The old music industry has reached a
low point and hasn't kept up with the digital world. He wants to see the
artists' reach measured by how much they're listened to, by whatever medium or
method."
U2 are
following the lead of Beyonce, Jay Z and Radiohead who in the past have
released music either unannounced, packaged with a tech company or free. In
fact, Beyonce sold around 800,000 units of her last album within a week (though
fans had to pay for it) when it was made instantly available on iTunes and U2
are expected to far eclipse that figure.
What can we
take from this? It's a pretty strong indicator from U2 that they think the
traditional means for music distribution is broken and what they have done with
'Songs of Innocence' is set a very appealing, if completely unsustainable,
precedent. When the sales figures are released in a week or so we expect
there'll be a few happy faces around the Vico Road but where does this leave
the bands who are relying on album sales to generate income or recoup losses?
Releasing an
album for free (or by having Apple write you a Euro Millions sized cheque) is a
luxury only afforded to the 1%, leaving countless other bands trying to keep
their balance on the shaky ground that is today's music industry.When the
world's biggest band acknowledges that the system in place to sell music to the
public is broken, where does that leave the little guy? U2's free album will no
doubt be a delight to many but it might just be the clearest indicator yet that
the system we have in place is irreparably damaged.
