What a tangle of contradictions it is to be U2 in 2014. The Irish rock group has a "plan to save the music industry," according to Time, but hasn't managed to produce a solidly great record since 2000. The band revisits its youth on its latest album, Songs of Innocence, but ditches those long-abandoned indie sensibilities by teaming up with one of the biggest corporations in the world.
The band says it's working with Apple to develop a new music format that "will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music"—thoughSongs of Innocence was given away for free on iTunes, in an unprecedented move that's drawn a significant amount of backlash on the Internet.
In an interview forTime's cover story, the band makes clear that it isn't blind to that criticism. "It's like everyone's vomiting whatever their first impression is," bassist Adam Clayton muses.
Meanwhile, a video interview reveals that U2 approached Apple for the album release idea rather than vice versa. Bono describes the thought process as: "What do we really want for these songs? We want to get them to as many people as we can. Could we talk somebody into helping us with that?" Bold talk for a band that spent much of the 1990s parodying mass media and advertising, but the band got what it wanted—Songs of Innocence has been reportedly accessed, meaning downloaded or streamed, 38 million times.
Though Apple reportedly paid $100 million for the album, U2 is now said to be working on a way to help artists who don't have access to nine-figure paychecks. "Songwriters aren't touring people," Bono tells the magazine. "Cole Porter wouldn't have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn't coming to a stadium near you."
Watch a video interview with the band below, via Time.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Zach Schonfeld is a senior writer for Newsweek, where he covers culture for the print magazine. Previously, he was an ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
