Was the U2/Apple Launch Innovative, Arrogant, or Both

Last week I wrote about the U2/Apple launch exclusively for LinkedIn’s Publishing platform. Since then, multiple people have told me they haven’t been able to read it as they don’t have LinkedIn accounts so I thought I’d share it here as well.
~XO

By now everyone knows that U2 not only performed at Apple’s annual Keynote event in Cupertino on Tuesday, but the band used it to launch and distribute their surprise album, Songs of Innocence. After months of delays and speculation, Apple CEO Tim Cook and U2 frontman Bono announced that the record would be given to all iTunes users at that moment for free. Many people saw this as a sort of musical affront, especially as U2 have become the band that’s cool to hate. As industry folk and the blogosphere started weighing in, a few people have mentioned that it was very arrogant of U2 to presume all users of iTunes would want their record. Sasha Frere-Jones raged on about the entire thing via The New Yorker, and Bob Lefsetz, in all his cheerfulness, talks about it here (though admittedly, he lost me when he said something about ‘In Rainbows’ being a disaster).

My opinion? It’s complicated, as my relationship with U2 has been rocky in recent years. I used to adore them. I used to adore their former manager, Paul McGuinness. Then, as I saw it, he became antiquated in his thinking. U2 were one of the few bands (the only one I listened to) who charged for access to their entire website. While U2 raged against corporations and spoke up for the working man, Paul McGuinness soap-boxed about MP3s and, to my way of thinking, didn’t evolve along with the industry and music fans. Then came the Live Nation deal They lost me entirely when Live Nation bought them they signed a $20 million dollar contract with Live Nation. It seemed hypocritical, at best, and like they’d become caricatures of everything they believed in. On top of that, ‘No Line on the Horizon’ was a really mediocre record. I could perhaps deal with a band becoming the antitheses of everything they once stood for for a really good record….but they didn’t even deliver that. So I gave up on them- entirely.

Which brings us to Cupertino. While young artists face the constant pressure of merely trying to be heard in the global cacophony of constant competition, career platinum selling artists have a new pressure: Surprise. Artists are now expected to release the next In Rainbows, which Radiohead infamously released on a constantly cited ‘pay what you like’ model, Magna Carta…Holy Grail, which Jay-Z pre-sold a million copies of to Samsung for release to its customers, or Beyoncé, whose eponymous fifth album was released with no notice on the iTunes store. Grandiose surprises are the new expectation and when you’re talking about people who have careers spanning decades, who have toured the world several times over, and sold albums in the multi-millions, they’re not only competing with other artists to dominate the marketplace, they’re also competing with themselves.

Perhaps it can be argued that U2 was operating under the presupposition that every single iTunes user would want their record, or perhaps they were trying to think of what they might do to out-U2 themselves. How do you top a mirrorball lemon and launching a world tour at K-Mart? How does a band that helped launch the iPod creatively launch a new record which everyone thought had been delayed until 2015?

Sure, a lot of people ended up with the record who couldn’t care less, but a lot of people were really excited about it. A lot of people gave it a listen who otherwise may not have, while many will simply ignore or delete it. Some people even got a glimmer of the band they fell in love with. What was seen as an arrogant move by spoiled millionaire rock stars utilizing their connections to bombastically release their crappy record was, alternatively, seen as a much needed shot of adrenaline and a sign that their new manager, Guy Oseary, is in full control and very respectfully running things in a new way. A free album on a global scale isn’t something we would have seen in years prior. You can call it arrogance if you like, I call it a welcome change and a sign that U2 may be back on track. Finally.