Entertainment For Lively Minds
U2 album - disappointing sales
Posted by Johan on 6 March 2009 - 8:26pm.
According to this morning's Times, the U2 album has only sold in its first week about half as much as Coldplay did.
Now why is that? So-so reviews? Mediocre single? Credit crunch? Well, maybe. Or, perhaps, it could be the public reacting badly to having U2 shoved down their throat by an unrelenting PR campaign which has made Bono and co hard to avoid for the past few weeks.
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Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Finally! The world admits they're crap!
Maybe...
The word is spreading...
...the movement is growing
http://www.ihatebono.com/
(I notice that wwww.bonoisacock.com is still available)
Reviews
have been pretty good, one went as far as to say it is the best U2 album yet! Sign of the times I guess
3/5
in the Independent, Guardian and Times. NME 7/10. Not great, really.
I think the album is superb
I think the album is superb so lower sales will just be to do with people prioritising other things. I'm sure over time it will sell loads.
As has been discussed here recently, it's because...
Bono is a cock (tm)
Fully agree
Fully agree
Isn´t the messiah-thing a bit ironic, though?
I think Bono´s rock star act is rather entertaining, but I haven´t bought the album. And I don´t mind his politic activism, actually. I prefer that to the ones drinking and marrying/divorcing/whatever the Pamela Andersson-type. Maybe I´m just getting old.
No, he is just a cock.
No, he is just a cock.
Is it not just where every band ends up?
How much U2 do you actually need?
They've been the 'biggest/best rock and roll band in the world' [(c) U2 Industries], for the last 20 years. So you enjoyed Joshua Tree & Achtung Baby, maybe you bought the last two as well, do you really want another one (especially one with a lead off single that's a bad pastiche of too many other songs), it's not really going to surprise you is it?
There will always be a fanbase that will buy all the new stuff, believing that it's the best since the whichever is the last 'great' album. The public will keep buying tickets on the back of the their affection for the back catalogue, but new stuff? Play some old
I give you Sparks
I think your theory generally holds up but it's not a given. A very good example is the way that Sparks have matured, mutated and probably most importantly, experimented over the years. Perhaps the problem with U2 is that they've simply run out of idea(sic).
Dedicated fanbase
Wouldn't Sparks fall into the dedicated fanbase category?
They know they will sell a certain amount of records but wouldn't expect to be bothering the upper reaches of the charts. Not sure what the average supermarket music buyer, the sort of person that propelled U2's previous albums into multi million sellers, current view of Sparks would be.
U2's album will be flung absent-mindedly...
into shopping baskets, nestling between the crisps and bleach.
Yes.... but....
My point was really that they do actually attract new fans along the way because they've changed their style over the years. I'm not suggesting that they're going to be bothering the charts. Certainly the cross section of the crowd at recent Sparks gigs seems very different from a crowd say 10 years ago. I would say that the average age has reduced considerably whereas I would guess (and I'm not about to go anywhere near a U2 record let alone a gig to find out) that the average age of a U2 concert audience has gone up.
Could be
because it was leaked online, then available on Spotify to preview. I didn't like it much at first, but played it again last night and it sounded much better. I agree with Shankly (with a name like that, how could I not) over time it will sell loads.
sales can't be lower that the first week's sales of the last 2
U2 albums i'd wager. blame the artwork. coldplay's was ace!
Yeah, that guy who did the Coldplay cover...
has talent. Might have a future in the art world...
Perhaps
Coldplay have usurped U2 as the new U2, and who needs 2 U2s? Or maybe the highly influential Word massive have made the public realise the error of their ways in their admiration for Bono and his chums through multiple blogs deriding this bloated behemoth of rock? Actually I think it's more likely that the first single has not set the world alight. Whereas the likes of 'Beautiful Day' really whetted appetites and stood out, even though in the long run', like much U2 output, it hasn't endured particularly well.
U2
are a lot of posturing wankers who ceased to be relevant after Joshua Tree and to be frank are not even good musicians. Take away the effects pedals and i doubt The Edge is any better than the average teenager who has been playing for about a year. And yes Bono is a cock.
U2
Ah, very true, BUT when they were good, they were very very good.
Does not "I Will Follow" still reach out and grab your ears and shout LISTEN UP HERE?
And "Angel Of Harlem"? Or "Bad"? Or "Sunday Bloody Sunday"?
And is not "The Joshua Tree" a stonewall cast iron 101% f~ckin' fantastic album?
Let us be gratefull for what they have given us.
Hear hear
Three (edited) paragraphs from Barney Hoskyn's U2 article in NME, June 1985 (full transcript at http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/rocksbackpages/9079/flags-and-penance-u...)(and I hope I'm not majorly transgressing international copyright laws): -
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The thing that works: is this what so upsets pop's cognoscenti about U2? Is it this notion that, underneath, the boy Bono is no less cynical a manipulator of the mass herd than any of megarock's other prime culprits? Or is it the mere fact that anyone should try to turn this addled rock machine to good and generous and positive ends that we deem so distasteful?
I suspect the former protest is really a cover for the latter. I suspect that we are, as an in-crowd critical establishment, so jaded and confused and dispirited by our popular music culture that the only thing we feel safe doing is carping at those who would bring a little beauty into the world. [...]
This writer [has] taken more than a couple of potshots at the band in his time but is an older and wiser creature today. To the extent that he can take this rock 'n' roll business seriously anymore--or convince himself that writing about it is any more worthwhile than writing about golf or gardening--he knows that U2 do for him the most that any pop music can do, which is to fill the head with glorious noise and CELEBRATE LIFE NOW. For "I Will Follow," "Gloria," "New Year's Day," and "Pride," perhaps the four most ingenuously uplifting anthems in the history of pop, he takes U2 "seriously."
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OK, this was before Bono's political shenanigans became as huge as they are now, but I can't help thinking some of Mr Hoskyns' points still stand 23 years later. And yes, despite thinking that 'Zooropa' is the last U2 album that comes anywhere close to being 'vital' I am, by a large, a fan.
23 years?
Fucking hell.
4 anthems
I agree with Barney's assessment of those four songs, that kind of anthem is their forte, not neccesarily a positive influence on bands that followed though - not that it's their fault. New Year's Day is one in particular that still sounds great to me when it comes on the radio. I do think The Joshua Tree is overrated though, apart from a couple of tracks. With Or Without You is a soppy old hackenyed thing, for example. Their best moments are comparable with some of the best moments of the best, as it were. What was this thread about again?
Its a new U2 album
... its sounds like a new U2 album. They have been going for 20 odd years - they have a "sound" - they have experimented more than most bands - they are having fun. They are rock stars - elder statesmen of rock -and they behave as such - providing a certain enigma and cool.
I can remeber seeing them in the early 80's at Gateshead Stadium - I watched them this week on the Letterman Show - they "rocked" on both occasions - Bono always has acted like a star - thats why we love him AND hate him - but he can lead a band. This all seems a little inarticulate - but the posts here do seem to be complaining that the new U2 album is U2 ish?? - hey - dont like - dont buy - dont complain.
There - glad thats off my chest!
The album cover could be to blame.
The casual music purchaser is in Tesco. Remembers that the BBC might have mentioned that there is a new U2 album out. Goes to pick it up. Looks at the cover. Thinks, "If that's what the cover looks like, what about the music inside?!". Puts CD back down.