U2\u2019s recent album giveaway through Apple\u2019s iTunes store<\/a>, which caused controversy when iPhone and iPad owners found it automatically downloaded to their devices.<\/p>\n\u201cWe got a lot of people who were uninterested in U2 to be mad with U2. And I would call that an improvement in the relationship!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we were paid. No one values music more than the members of U2. To us music is a sacrament, it\u2019s a sacred thing. I think artists should be paid way more than they are. But the greatest way you serve your songs is to get them heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in his on-stage interview, he returned to the theme. \u201cWe always wanted our music to be heard, and the idea that we could work for years and years on what we think are the most personal songs we have ever written \u2013 you have to become very raw to write like that – and then the idea that they might not be heard is terrifying. So we were just thrilled that we got this chance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 100 million people checked us out, one or two or three tracks, but about 30 million people liked the whole album. That took us 30 years with The Joshua Tree. So we did in three weeks with Songs of Innocence what took us 30 years with The Joshua Tree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bono also claimed that while digital music disruption is worrying many artists, it will ultimately be good for young bands starting out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m already paid too much, I\u2019m a spoiled rock star! I\u2019m the wrong spokesperson for this, but i have to tell you if I were starting a band now, aged 17 or 18, I would be very excited,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would be as excited as I was when we formed U2 when we were 17 \/ 18 years old. Though it is clear that there are some traumas as we move from physical to digital and 20th century to 21st century, and the people paying the highest price for those traumas are songwriters rather than performers, I still think forming a band is so exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
U2 may have signed an exclusive deal with Apple\u2019s iTunes to distribute their latest album, Songs of Innocence, as a download, but Bono said streaming services are also a positive step forward for artists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see streaming services as uite exciting ways to get to people. In the end, that\u2019s what we want for U2 songs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t see songs as like our children, I see songs as like our parents: they tell you how to dress, how to behave, what time to get home at, and the only thing they don\u2019t like is to be ignored. So anything that gets your song out there is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the remunerative bit of this has yet to be figured out,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s an experimental period. Let\u2019s experiment. Let\u2019s see what works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bono went on to compare artists\u2019 situation now with the days long before recorded music, when their main source of income might be travelling to play for \u201cthe lord of the manor\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI prefer it when we are in charge of our own destiny. What I would like to see is a station where tech companies cross-fertilise with cultural companies, and I think our voices will then be naturally more heard, more understood and therefore more valuable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are slightly slipping back: musicians are losing that firepower that they had. We must be careful that we don\u2019t underestimate our value. We don\u2019t have to play for the lord of the manor. The lord of the manor can come and see us, and pay in like everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bono talked about his work with Apple on \u201cnew formats for music\u201d which he had alluded to in interviews earlier in the year<\/a>, adding animation and interactivity to album artwork.<\/p>\nHe suggested that people might think of these formats as \u201cmore valuable than a simple MP3 file\u201d and added \u201c we\u2019re working with the company, if we get there we get there, but they\u2019re letting us into the lab.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U2 frontman Bono has praised streaming music services as a way for musicians to get…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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