In a front cover interview with Time magazine, U2 have announced details of a "secret project" with Apple about a new digital musical format which the band hope ensures that all musicians get financially compensated for their work.
U2 will provide the first release for the yet unnamed format with the release of a second new album, “Songs of Experience” to immediately follow up the current “Songs of Innocence”.
“This new format will be an audio-visual interactive format for music that can’t be pirated and will bring back album artwork in the most powerful way, where you can play with the lyrics and get behind the songs when you’re sitting on the subway with your iPad or on those big flat screens” Bono says in a published excerpt from the full September 29th interview.
U2 and Apple hope the new digital music format will prove so irresistible to music fans that it will be tempt them into buying whole albums – not just individual tracks as is the case now.
The idea, Bono says, is for all musicians, regardless of profile or sales figures, to get duly paid for their work. The singer acknowledges that U2 make their money now from live performances but says all who write or perform songs should be paid.
“Songwriters aren’t touring people; Cole Porter wouldn’t have sold t-shirts. Cole Porter wasn’t coming to a stadium near you”.
However, "a digital format" that "cannot be pirated" as Bono has it, sounds contradictory. Since music went digital with the CD format, and coupled with the rise of the domestic computer, illegal downloading sites, legal streaming sites and YouTube have all eroded traditional singles/album sales.
The music business has just experienced record lows in sales this month.
Details of when the second new U2 album will be released on the new format are not provided in the Time interview extract.
Speaking to Billboard music magazine, an industry source questions the U2/Apple announcement saying: “It’s not a new format but rather a new way to package and present an album. This is focused on creative advances, versus a shift in technology. This is not (Neil Young’s) Pono in file form”. Pono is a high-definition digital music company that has produced a portable digital music player and an online store.
U2 and Apple face a difficult task with trying to re-boot the digital music sales model.
Streaming (as in renting a song, not owning it) is now how consumers prefer to receive their music and predictions are that in a few years’ time, streaming will account for 71 per cent of all digital music revenue with digital download revenue to decrease proportionally.
The full U2 interview with more details of the new format will be published in Timeon September 29th.
