I had a conversation today with someone on the state of popular music, specifically the new U2 album, just released today. The person I was talking with insisted U2 have sold out, reaching out to the lowest common denominator to sell more copies and make more money. If they really want to squeeze out the dollars, would they be doing deals like this?
Anyway, I have read and re-read this searingly honest piece by Dave Eggers on the very idea of “selling out” and what utter nonsense it is. Especially if you look over U2’s catalog and track the risks they’ve taken. For one thing, a 25 year career with only 11 albums doesn’t suggest a group looking to rip off their fans. For another, take a listen to Pop and Zooropa: those hardly sound like sales-driven releases. I’m listening to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb now and I’m hearing echoes of their earliest releases, but nothing that sounds like a radical departure or contrived “smash hit” sound.
Any band that sold over 30,000 albums was a sellout. Any writer who appeared in any mainstream magazine was a sellout. I was a complete, weaselly little prick, and I had no idea what I was talking about, and goddamn if I don’t wish I could take all that back, because I knew nothing then, just as you know nothing now. You simply cannot judge someone, especially someone whose work you have respected, when they disappoint you, superficially, once or twice. Think of the f*ckheads who turned their back on Dylan when he started using electric guitars, for Christ’s sake. What kind of niggardly imbecile would call Dylan Judas when he plugged into an amp? What kind of small-hearted person wants an artist to adhere to a set of rules, to stay forever within a narrow envelope which we’ve created for them?
I recommend reading the entire profane but illuminating rant: I was no better than that myself. As we learn, in life as well as in art, “no” is the easiest answer but not always the right answer.
Unrelated to this, but worth mentioning is the fact that the entire inner CD booklet is included as a PDF file. There have been some well-placed misgivings about digital files and their lack of context, specifically jazz recordings where the performance and the players are what aficionados are interested in. Without that information — players and liner notes — the performance isn’t as informative and can’t be understood. I look forward to seeing more artists make it possible for fans to experience all the components of a given release, rather than have us hunting up album artwork or making our own.
Now playing:City of Blinding Lights by U2 from the album “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”