Tim Cook & Bono
News for a day…
No different than a rape or a murder, but with even less legs, in today’s world it’s not about making an impact, but sustaining it. Could it be that Bono’s been living too long in the echo chamber, hanging with 40 and 50 somethings who think they rule the world but truly don’t?
Yes, older people build the tools, but it’s young people who utilize them.
The older bloke will lament the loss of the record shop, the younger person has never been. If you want to make it in today’s marketing culture you must be online 24/7, picking up the nuances. Because it is about cred and it is about cool but if you think the old rules apply, you probably can’t name a YouTube star.
The Goth Rock band Evanescence
They’re an analog of the above. Here today, gone tomorrow. How could the band be so stupid as to believe anybody would actually play their music, especially the 500 million it was pushed to. Where’s the afterplan? Nonexistent.
PUSH
We live in a pull economy. Nothing pisses off the audience more than pushing something they don’t want and didn’t ask for to their devices. Even if you don’t download the album, it’s sitting there in your purchases, pissing you off.
HOW TO
Did you have iCloud turned on in iTunes? Even those who wanted the U2 album weren’t quite sure how to get it.
ALBUM
How many tracks did PSY (Gangnam style) have? One!
OVERLOAD
No one’s got time to listen to a complete album – especially when it’s pushed upon them – that’s just too much material. Yes, a nascent artist on his way up might have people check out more tracks on his album out of curiosity, but no one’s curious about U2, they already know everything about them.
One must factor in that we’re all overloaded with stimuli and you must point us to the paramount item and make it digestible in a matter of moments. If we love it, we’ll want more. If we don’t, we’re never going to get to the rest of your opus that you spent years creating.
ALBUM TWO
Make it an EP. Four tracks. People haven’t finished French economist Thomas Piketty‘s tome. It would have been better off as a magazine article. People bought it, they just didn’t read it, who’s got the time?
ENGAGEMENT
Now what? Where’s the game, where’s the jaw-dropping viral video? Where’s the element we can all point to and talk about? If anything, we’re talking about the U2/Apple stunt, not the music.
WRONG SERVICE
They’d have been better off releasing it on YouTube, that’s where the digital generation goes for music. iTunes is a backwater. It may be the number one sales outlet, but it’s not the number one music platform, not even close.
UNHIP
Put it on Spotify. Try to look cutting edge. Meanwhile, having the quality of your music trumpeted by Apple CEO Tim Cook is like having Ed Sullivan say your tunes are good.
CLOSED DOORS
This is the problem vexing filmed entertainment/video, there’s not one platform with everything. But in music we’ve solved this problem, Spotify and YouTube have all the tracks and you can access them for free, but putting hype over practicality, U2 failed to see they were playing in a walled garden, to their detriment.
This was a stunt, poorly executed. Everybody forgets that despite all the hoopla about naming your own price, “In Rainbows” was a disaster, with only hard core fans familiar with the material. Yup, Radiohead may be independent, but they’ve done a good job of marginalizing themselves.
And at least Beyonce had the videos, somewhere to click to.
And Weird Al had videos too, but after a week, few cared.
Because at the end of the day we only care about the music. And U2 didn’t cut that one indelible track that stops us in our tracks, that we want to listen to again and again and pass on. Sure, the song they played at the Apple soiree was good, but good is no longer good enough.
Furthermore, when Bono talked he lost all charisma.
This looked like nothing so much as what it was, old farts using their connections to shove material down the throats of those who don’t want it. It’s what we hate so much about today’s environment, rich people who think they know better and are entitled to their behavior.
Don’t listen to the press. Rock writers are antiques who are underpaid who are in it for access and free tickets.
And the business press doesn’t care about the music.
And the old fart 40-somethings who talk about this music should be ignored. It’s no different from a Jason Isbell fan testifying about his tracks. No offense, but it’s a tiny world. Sure, U2’s is bigger, but until U2 cuts a track that makes the rest of us care, we don’t.
Meanwhile, Jason Isbell had a hit today, he tweeted: “U2 PHONES IT IN.”
Yup, that’s Internet culture, where someone who raises their head above is fodder for criticism.
It gets worse.
Cultofmac said:
“But trotting out aging Irish rockers after you’ve wowed the world with the first glimpse of the glorious Apple Watch? That’s not thinking different. That’s a pity-f__k for a band that’s lost its edge, and an unfortunate bum note for a company that’s rarely perceived as tone-deaf.”
http://www.cultofmac.com/295084/u2-apple-event/
Whew!
All over the web people are criticizing U2. And that’s where music now lives, online.
So, so long Bono and crew. You’ll continue to sell tickets, but you’re no longer au courant.
So long rock that does not break through on Top 40. U2 would have been better off cutting a country track, that would have been a better fit with a fighting chance of airplay.
So long albums. If you’ve got an hour to listen to one that must be listened to ten times to get you’ve got no life. But everyone does, and they’re the center of it, glued to their devices, and to distract them you’ve got to be pretty damn good and the talk of the town for an extended period of time, U2’s new music is not.
So long stunts with no aftermath.
If you’re not in the news every damn day, you’re getting it wrong. The biggest pop stars are the Kardashians. Ever notice not a day goes by without them in the news? Bono, et al, would be better off hanging with the sisters than heads of state, at least if they want to have a hit.
And so long the fiction that U2 manager Guy Oseary would do a better job than former U2 manager Paul McGuinness. There might be a patina of new school, but this album release is positively old school.
Here’s how it goes:
Make everyone aware.
Put tickets on sale.
Make it an event, a la the Stones, i.e. if you don’t come now, you may never be able to experience it again.
Trump up traditional press so wankers believe there’s something happening.
But there’s not.
Because “I Will Follow” was inspired. It sounded like nothing else. It had urgency. It had attitude. You needed to hear it again. It was so good you wanted to hear what else the band was up to.
The new album is paint-by-numbers disposable.
Today we have to pull you into our world. And we only hold you in our bosom if we believe your music is repeatable and deserves our time.
Bono’s on top of the world, he’ll reject everything I say.
Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino and Oseary will keep shoveling, hoping to keep this alive.
And you and me?
WE’RE ALREADY OVER IT!
Lefsetz’s hard-on for Bono and iTunes is getting very boring.
I dunno, Mysterious…
I think Bono and U2 have been fat-cat-over for more than 20 years.
A lot longer for me personally. I moved on when they became basically a commercial act. I was totally in during their cutting edge, early years.
Their last halfway legit album was Achtung Baby in 1991. They’ve been mailing it in for the money ever since. The supposedly got paid like $100 million by Apple for the gig this past week.
And if you watched it – I did – it was the most phony, scripted sell out I’ve seen at this level. It came across as a small time corporate schmooze.
And I agree, it took Apple from the hip high of its new phones and the Apple Watch to loser levels. Did you hear Tim Cook’s endorsement of the new song?
It reminds of how difficult it is for rock bands to remain relevant with their current offerings.
As for the band’s hipness quotient with younger listeners, I think the fact that there have been postings of “How to hide the U2 album on your devices” says it all.
I didn’t say I liked U2 (barely spent a minute thinking about them since I saw them at a half-full Arrowhead in 1997) or that this was a GREAT idea. My point is that Lefsetz manages to take a swipe at U2 and iTunes no matter what he is talking about, even when writing an obituary. This probably seems normal to you (as you regularly drop attacks on The Star into obituaries as well!), but to normal people it is gauche and just plain dull.
I guess I – and thousands of others – must not be normal, Misty.
Because I thought his points were well made and quite interesting.
What is he supposed to do when U2 is majorly in the news? Talk about how great they are so you don’t get bored hearing him take another shot?
Here’s the way writing columns about news works:
You cover the story and express your opinions based on what happened. Not on what somebody who read earlier columns about unrelated stories remembers as being critical and notices a pattern.
If the Star writes or someone there does something worth critiquing, I’m going to critique it. Or on occasion give them a pat on the back.
Media criticism is a fairly common practice, if you haven’t noticed.
Hearne
totally unrelated , but I saw Nick Wright on GMA this morning, or maybe today show…anyway they are crediting him with breaking the Peterson child abuse story. Dude has a face for radio for sure.
Looks are not everything and I liked his show ok, but he does look like Barlow the Vampire.
http://th00.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2014/107/1/5/barlow_by_shredguts-d7euik7.jpg
Interesting, thanks Mark.
I watched it, and Nick is identified as “one of the reporters who broke the story.”
First of all, he’s a talk show host not a reporter. He looks good on camera, far more subdued than the Nick Wright most Kansas Citians probably remember.
And with that blue silk tie, etc, he definitely didn’t look like a Barstow grad