I have wondered this a long time. Artists could submit their own music and set pricing like app developers do and they would get 70% of the profit.
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U2's Bono on Collaborating With Apple: 'They Let Us Into the Labs'
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I have wondered this a long time. Artists could submit their own music and set pricing like app developers do and they would get 70% of the profit.
The whole process seems strange. I would assume that the record company and Spotify enter into a contract that explicitly states the conditions under which the record company can "pull" the music. I guess being unsatisfied with royalties would not be among these reasons.
So I don't understand how the musician can pull this off (unintended pun), because the record company should be in charge of the arrangement (unless it is a private label from the musician).
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Big artists with expensive production needs, concert dependencies etc need the record label processes, marketing and connections to be able to pull all that off - they need big money. Ditch a record label and you will suddenly find yourself not being able to book concert venues etc. These things have happened. Record labels and concert promoters all sleep in the same bed.
I agree.
Plus, Bono is a douchebag in so many levels.
And seriously Apple? you are bringing in a bunch of overrated and overpaid musicians to solve technical questions and strategic issues about your products? Not to belittle any musicians intelligence or creativity, but I doubt they * and specifically these senior-old dudes * qualify as experts or power users to provide any useful advice...
How about bringing in some real customers and real users, and listen to their suggestions for a change? Or do you plan to keep using the reality distortion field (which is starting to work against you, btw)?
If Apple insists on cheap stunts like these, they are going the same way Microsoft did, bringing down its users and customers with it. Unfettered greed and hubris are a dangerous combination.
Cheers!
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Bono, the engineer
They work with Apple
How do they actually work with Apple? What can they contribute?
They are freaking musicians. They play instruments and sing. They are not engineers and / or designers. All Bono can do is say: it would be rad if there were 3d-versions of us displayed in iTunes! Great I could tell a team of engineers / designers what I think would be cool. How they are bringing those things to life is not my concern. I have no clue about programming. I am the creative thinker. Let others do the actual thing, but I take credit for having had the idea. What a great job.
They work with Apple
How do they actually work with Apple? What can they contribute?
They are freaking musicians. They play instruments and sing. They are not engineers and / or designers. All Bono can do is say: it would be rad if there were 3d-versions of us displayed in iTunes! Great I could tell a team of engineers / designers what I think would be cool. How they are bringing those things to life is not my concern. I have no clue about programming. I am the creative thinker. Let others do the actual thing, but I take credit for having had the idea. What a great job.
All kinds of dittos here. Maybe Bonohead can figure out why the Air 2 screen vibrates so badly when you are listening to music on it or playing a game?
Jobs wasn't an engineer. He was an ideas man. Now I'm not saying that Bono is Jobs but I'm sure you get my point.
But I like spreadsheets... Since Apple has been doing its damnedest to bury list view in iTunes, I've been pretty peeved. There's something terribly inefficient about looking at a bunch of album covers and scrolling through a long list of album art when I can simply have a quick glance down a list or type into the search field. I think Bono is off the mark here. Why the hell do I want a 3D model of a musician? Is he really that far up his own arse?
The Bono/Apple collaboration should have eneded with Jobs' passing. Not enough upside for Apple, a ton of free publicity and huge money for Bono (must suck for the rest of the band who serve as props for Bono's ego).
When I listen to good music, my eyes close. Why would I care about wasting computer cycles for no reason?
I work in an environment where daring images are at the least not desirable, and at the worst, "NSFW" (not suitable for work).
In my opinion, Bono's new album cover is NSFW. I don't even need to understand it; I only need to look at it, and it wouldn't matter if it were two men, two women, or a man and a woman. Somebody at work WILL complain to management if they see that on somebody's iPhone while in the office.
Now I'm not too concerned except that some workplaces look down on such things. And they come down HARD. Sometimes people have to be careful about what photos they display at their desk, even if it's just the family halloween pics of the wife and kids!
I find hard to believe any claims about Bono's vaunted design expertise while at the same time being completely insensitive to people who work in the real world, where HR departments, harassment claims, lawsuits, and related penalties and possible job dismissals are all too real.
Maybe U2 should have just made this latest album/cd a simple text-only, black on white presentation.
And they should have spent more time on the music. I give it a "C+", not very good for a band who's been at it for decades.
In my opinion, Bono's new album cover is NSFW. I don't even need to understand it; I only need to look at it, and it wouldn't matter if it were two men, two women, or a man and a woman. Somebody at work WILL complain to management if they see that on somebody's iPhone while in the office.
Now I'm not too concerned except that some workplaces look down on such things. And they come down HARD. Sometimes people have to be careful about what photos they display at their desk, even if it's just the family halloween pics of the wife and kids!
I find hard to believe any claims about Bono's vaunted design expertise while at the same time being completely insensitive to people who work in the real world, where HR departments, harassment claims, lawsuits, and related penalties and possible job dismissals are all too real.
Maybe U2 should have just made this latest album/cd a simple text-only, black on white presentation.
And they should have spent more time on the music. I give it a "C+", not very good for a band who's been at it for decades.
Streaming / renting music for some seems to the best thing ever, however when Adobe try the same thing it's the worse thing ever.
After seeing the new cover art for the first time just now after reading your post, I would agree with you for the most part. I would have had no idea who those two guys were on the cover. I am wondering why U2 even chose that as the cover.
Back in the early 80s, U2 was considered to be a Christian rock band and they could be found in all the bible book stores in the album and tape section along with Stryper and all the other Christian rock bands. Had this cover been on an album back then, I wonder if they would have carried it.
Well... if you consider getting almost every music magazine and most news outlets - including the most serious ones - to call your new album ****** and mediocre, AND got the same bad rap from every technology magazine, blog and website... plus making a lot of people angry to the point that their lead figure had to come out and publicly apologize... then yes, their cheap stunt was a huge "success" from a publicity standpoint.
And "the greatest band in the world"? who says? is that still a thing? is that even possible?... but most importantly, who cares? if people don't want their music (not even for free!!!), they can hardly still be called relevant. They do put on a very good show on their concerts, I'll give you that, but that's about it. They came into relevance when as artists they stood for something other than money, but now they have nothing relevant to say, other than "give us more money" (they even are despised in their own home country for tax evasion!). And that makes them as irrelevant as every cheap saturday entertainer - not artists. Maybe their old albums are still relevant from a historic perspective, the same way good albums of old retired musicians are. But they don't carry that message any more. They became a product. Just another registered brand. That hardly makes them "the greatest band in the world".
Cheers!
Heard these rumours so many times I simply don't believe them anymore.
How on earth that clown Eddy Cue keeps his job is beyond me.
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Because Adobe's move to the cloud is a cynical money making exercise rather than a genuine attempt to provide a better value money alternative. Once we're all tied into their subscription model just watch how they'll reduce the frequency and scope of upgrades because they don't have to convince anyone to buy the latest version.
What
He wants an album oriented iTunes because he makes money that way. Realistically no one likes even a quarter of the songs on an album unless they are a hard core fan which is a very small portion of people.
Album's were mandatory in the past because it wouldn't be worth shipping out a physical copy for only 1 or 2 songs, in modern times the next logical step would be to release a single song only when its good & not make "placeholder" songs in the name of justifying an album for $10-$20.
We think this spread sheet like interface is bad because spread sheets are boring but in reality it is the most logical step. We should ditch albums all together and just list all songs by an artist in release date order.
He wants an album oriented iTunes because he makes money that way. Realistically no one likes even a quarter of the songs on an album unless they are a hard core fan which is a very small portion of people.
Album's were mandatory in the past because it wouldn't be worth shipping out a physical copy for only 1 or 2 songs, in modern times the next logical step would be to release a single song only when its good & not make "placeholder" songs in the name of justifying an album for $10-$20.
We think this spread sheet like interface is bad because spread sheets are boring but in reality it is the most logical step. We should ditch albums all together and just list all songs by an artist in release date order.
Well, artists only went to streaming because #%)(#% people pirated everything and stopped paying.
News flash.... if studios dont make money, they don't sign artists and put out music. Ever wonder why the number of releases and number of signed artists and variety today sucks compared to 10 years ago? For ever 10 releases a decade ago, there are like 1 or 2 today.
Wonder why a concert ticket that used to be $50 is now $150? The only money artists bring in now is on tour. Can't pirate seeing a live show.
I'm not innocent. I loved me some Napster, and Kazaa and all sorts of download sites, but I also always bought the albums (and still do) of the artists I love because if people don't, they get dropped from their contracts and few artists seem to pull off going the indie route.
Taylor swift probably gets about a buck for ever CD sold.... and a nickel when you listen to it on Spotify if you play it enough times.
What would you do? Exactly.
iTunes solves the issue of wasting $13 on a cd that sucked and had 2 good songs.... it did put pressure for artists to cut all the filler or studios to sign someone for one good demo, belt out a full album in 2 months, and ride the one hit wonder train. But it also backfired and only slowed the bleeding of piracy. Now, even digital sales have tanked and are dropping at an unstoppable rate.
This world people live in where they feel everything should be free or damn near close is what has ruined entertainment. The video game industry is about the only entertainment industry that's cranking in money, and that's starting to drop for freemium mobile games.
One day, there will be crap for entertainment, and people are going to wonder why. Even the book industry has collapsed.
I think bands also hurt themselves when tickets started being that expensive.
Back during the Pop Mart tour, I wanted to go see U2 when they came to Denver but once they told how expensive the tickets were on the local news, I couldn't go.
Sadly, the ZooTV tour was the last time I was able to see them live.
I'm still pretty upset about the forceful way they pushed their album onto our devices. Just not cool from either U2 and Apple.