NOT CONTENT WITH beaming their album, free of charge, to half a billion iTunes users — U2 are back with a new venture.
The project — “Films of Innocence” — will feature motion pictures by 11 artists known for work in city spaces.
The band said the urban artists were given “complete creative freedom to showcase their personal responses” to their latest album “Songs of Innocence”.
According to the promotional bumf:
Taking the political murals of Northern Ireland as a reference point, U2 pioneered the project to celebrate the unique democratic power of urban art.
This time, however, there’ll be no freebies — the package of short films goes on sale from the iTunes store on 9 December.
Artists who took part in the project include Robin Rhode, the South African artist who uses simple but falsely three-dimensional drawings as the base for street performances, and Oliver Jeffers, a Belfast native best known for his illustrations of children’s books.
U2 announced the free release of “Songs of Innocence” as part of a promotion campaign for Apple’s new iPhone 6. It automatically appeared in people’s iTunes accounts, the world over.
After something of a (global) backlash, Bono and the Edge both apologised for the move.
“I had this beautiful idea and we kind of got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing – drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion,” was Bono’s post-release take on what happened.
Edge, meanwhile, acknowledged that it may not have been the band’s finest hour, and said that he understood why people regarded it as “an unwanted gift”.
In the end, Apple received so many complaints that it offered special advice on how users could delete it.
Some fellow artists have been especially harsh of the move, saying that the superstars devalued music.
Most recently, Sinead O’Connor, speaking to the Daily Mail, called U2′s decision an invasion of privacy that was”almost terrorist.”
Additional reporting, AFP.
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