Hey everybody, remember when U2 put out an album for free? It’s true! It happened, like, three days ago!
The Irish rockers put out an album called Songs of Innocence that automatically went to every iTunes subscriber’s library, whether they wanted it or not. The reviews were… pretty much what every U2 album’s reviews have been since their All That You Can’t Leave Behind comeback. Everyone kind of hemmed and hawed about how it was fine, but wasn’t quite the greatness of U2’s early output, while Rolling Stone shamelessly gave it five stars.
I agree with the hemmers and the hawers. The record is fine, it’s probably got two or three songs I’ll keep in my iTunes and go on. I say this as someone who mainly enjoys U2 for comedy purposes (which, if you’ve never heard Adam Scott and Scott Aukerman’s U Talkin’ U2 to Me?, you are missing out on) but I do have an appreciation for much of their catalog.
But the more important question lingers… why does no one care that a group that made $750 million on a tour just three years ago gave 500 million iTunes subscribers an album for free?
Well, there’s the obvious thing: Nobody really needs U2 for new music anymore. This is the problem we refuse to admit with every veteran band that can still fill stadiums, yet comes out with a new album that mostly gets ignored. Bruce Springsteen makes his album releases relevant by appearing with Jimmy Fallon, poking fun at his persona, and always remembering to play the hits. That said, I haven’t listened to High Hopes or Wrecking Ball since a cursory day-of-release listen.
With Songs of Innocence, there isn’t any of that, partially because of its release, but partially because U2 could’ve mapped this whole thing out a lot better. Seemingly tacked on to the end of an Apple news conference where a new watch was announced seemed… well, tacked on. They released an interview with Rolling Stone (five stars!) and Bono posted a note to the band’s website, but nothing else. No appearances on talk shows, no Twitter Q&As… we just have the album and our continued perceptions of U2 as the megalomaniacal rock corporation they’ve been for about 15 years now.
It didn’t used to be this way for U2. Sure, they were a band that played the Super Bowl, but before Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Fallon made it cool, U2 sort of invented the “band taking over a late night show” sub-genre when they did an entire episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 2004. Hell, as recently as their previous record, No Line on the Horizon, they were doing multiple dates on Letterman. U2 used to do hostile takeovers. The Songs of Innocence roll out has been more like an S.O.S.
Even if U2 had gotten all this stuff out there, is there really an artist that this works for in the current musical climate?
There are lot of reasons why Beyonce’s surprise album release worked, but the main crux of it is that 1) People still desperately want to hear new music from Beyonce and 2) Beyonce offered an immersive visual media experience within the record. Everyone who bought the record bought into all the videos for the album too. For an artist that many music fans desperately want a piece of, this was brilliance. The Netflix-like release was just a part of it.
No artist really dominates the internet with their presence like Beyonce does, not in music anyway. We saw a similar reaction to Jay-Z’s partnership with Samsung. You go down the list of names of big artists and you wonder… would anyone have the same impact?
The only name that really comes to mind is Justin Timberlake. He basically did everything that a Beyonce-type release takes without actually doing the all-at-once release. However, his 20/20 Experience records — while well-received in their release — have been largely forgotten since.
Who else, though? Kanye? Too divisive, no one would actually listen. Springsteen? Would get lukewarm reception to actual music. Lady Gaga? Meh, time has passed.
I guess the moral of the story is that nobody is Beyonce but Beyonce. Still, it’s kind of interesting to see that — on only its second real attempt — that yet another idea concocted to fix the “big event album release” has yet again failed.