Well, I woke up this morning to the news that U2 had released its 13th album – Songs of Innocence – for FREE! That news made me depressed – if the biggest band in the world didn’t believe their new album could sell, then all of us in the music industry are well and truly fucked! But thankfully, there was a silver lining from the band itself as they made a clarification at U2.com
“You’ll have noticed the album is free to U2.com’ers from the band. It’s also free to everyone on iTunes thanks to Apple. To celebrate the ten year anniversary of our iPod commercial, they bought it as a gift to give to all their music customers. Free, but paid for. Because if no-one’s paying anything for it, we’re not sure “free” music is really that free. It usually comes at a cost to the art form and the artist… which has big implications, not for us in U2, but for future musicians and their music… all the songs that have yet to be written by the talents of the future… who need to make a living to write them”.
Also, U2 have announced a second album – Songs of Experience – to be released ‘soon’. Whatever you may think of U2, they’re seldom boring…
Thanks to Alan Cross for the heads up.