Apple and U2 are working together again, this time on what they hope will be a revolutionary new music format that will encourage people to buy music once again.
Speaking to TIME magazine, the Irish band revealed that they are with Apple on a (not so) “secret project” that will hopefully put money back in musicians’ pockets.
Apparently, the idea is to make “a new digital music format in the works will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music—whole albums as well as individual tracks.”
This isn’t just aimed at helping out world-straddling rock bands like U2, but to help smaller artists who find themselves unable to make a living out of the insignificant rates offered by streaming services like Spotify.
“Songwriters aren’t touring people,” says Bono. “Cole Porter wouldn’t have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn’t coming to a stadium near you.”
There’s no specific information on the form this new format will take, nor is there any clue as to how it will prompt people to spend money on individual tracks rather than paying a low fixed rate for unlimited music.
Hopefully this partnership between Apple and U2 will be better received than their last one, which saw the Irish band’s new album being forcibly inserted into every iTunes user’s library to mark the launch of the iPhone 6.
Of course, despite the widely perceived negative feedback of the stunt, it actually succeeded in propelling the band’s back catalogue back into the charts.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
