Losing touch

The rock band U2 stood out in the 1980’s for many reasons. One of them was the willingness to shun to excess of the 80’s. Things like Stadium rock, over produced music, expensive film clips and overdressing. U2 had something to say, rather than something to see.

It all changed at the birth of Zoo TV with the Achtung Baby album which was a brilliant parody of the impact television had had on music politics and consumerism…. Sadly U2 have become the parody they first exposed.

Here’s some quote from Bono himself:

‘Sometime the best way to expose the lies is to live them yourself’

‘All I’ve got is a red guitar, 2 chords and the truth’

It seems his memory has failed him as their latest 360 tour includes 390 tonnes of stage production equipment, 200 tonnes of amplifiers, 248 shipping containers filled with the staging systems and requires 6 Boeing 747 freighters to transport it. They claim the band is buying carbon offsets, but the real kicker is that Bono then has the audacity to ask people to car pool to “cut down on carbon emissions”.

The whole thing just feels very wrong. It’s not the U2 I knew and loved. In many ways the stage is making up for the lack of good songs (They haven’t had a top 10 in America since 2004). Certainly, they’re DNA has changed and its reflected in their record sales which have been reduced. I preferred it when they’re stage shows were simpler, and their music better.

The lesson for startups is this:

The things that made us successful, are probably the same things that will keep us there.

8 thoughts on “Losing touch

  1. +1

    The irony, is that U2 are one of a small club of has been bands from the Halcyon era of the music biz that has enough cash to full a stadium.

    I wonder what the future holds?

    Sam.

  2. I loved U2 in the era of Unforgettable Fire through to Rattle and Hum. As a teenager the first time I heard ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ it was like a call to arms. Though I didn’t fully get who I was supposed to be fighting, or why, it didn’t really matter. U2 built a brand that was political, personal, and riffed on the spirit of rock and roll: Their journeys through American music, their eulogy for Doctor King, the black and white enigmatic rock star poses in the Desert…the whole thing just worked.

    But as the ’80’s drew to a close they must have seen the writing on the wall: If we don’t ditch the leather vests, the bandannas, the Americana tribute thing, the earnestness, people will stop listening.

    I agree with you, Steve, that in many ways they have become the thing they were parodying.

    Maybe the lesson is that evolution and reinvention are vital, but when the leopard changes his spots, he ceases to be king of the jungle.

  3. I guess it comes back to the most basic question for any brand (band?) – Why are we here?

    I’d say the music… but it seems that it has taken a back seat… The whole thing just stinks of everything U2 was against….

    Steve.

  4. Has U2 become Spinal Tap? Maybe.
    Are they more sizzle than sausage these days ? Definitely

    Sometimes what you preach comes back to haunt you.
    The machine they’ve so brilliantly created and built over nigh on 30 years takes a lot of feeding these days.

    I lived in Dublin in the late 90’s and remember they tried to do a free concert in Phoenix Park (a huge park on the city fringe, up the Liffey just past the Guinness brewery) for a projected half a million Dubliners.
    It never happened (read: City vs Bono on who’d cover the public liability insurance) but I was impressed they’d give up a truck load of revenue to give something back to the city that fostered them and which (at the time anyway they all still lived in – artists don’t pay tax in Ireland).
    Part of the reason I was impressed was that I took it that they were still in touch with their fan base and had a feel for where they’d come from and were willing to give back.

    It was a long time ago and U2 seems a different beast now. But probably not a better one.
    As the ‘Gurge put it..
    I like your old stuff better than your new stuff.

    Scott Kilmartin
    foot note:
    I always wanted to stand on stage in front of 100K punters and say:
    “How the fuck is everyone tonight?”

  5. I don’t have much to say about U2 because the haven’t been ‘relevant’ in my time, just a mega b(r)and who sells out areans, sells most of their records at Kmart/Walmart and gets played on triple M a lot.
    In fact my earliest memory of U2 is that in ’95 they made the theme to Batman Forever titled “Hold me Thrill me Kiss me Kill me”….

    There’s a sweet interview with Thom Yorke (Radiohead) floating around on youtube somewhere where he talks about licensing your music for ads. His point of view is that when you sell a tune and it ends up on a Volkswagen ad you’re selling out your fans. He believes the purpose of music is to trigger fond memories. All of a sudden the tune that triggers wonderful memories of reckless youth, the song you played at your wedding, or that summer roadtrip when you were 19, is wedged in between a Tobin Brothers ad and a segment on dodgy salesmen on todaytonight.
    One of my favourite tunes ever, La Ritournelle by Sebastien Tellier has been used on L’Oreal and Gillette Mach3 commercials and that tune is dead to me now because now hear it now and see Pierce Brosnan selling face cream.

    We get the heroes and leaders we deserve and this U2 adulation, so long after they meant anything, is kind of sad.

  6. Please indulge me another comment: As I was saying, as the 80’s drew to a close U2 realised that they had to transform their image, or risked becoming irrelevant to a changing audience.

    Not that this is the first time that they did it. The early fans of ‘Boy’, ‘October’, and ‘War’ were probably equally horrified at the bigger, more polished sound of ‘Unforgettable Fire’. And in 3 years time U2’s current crop of fans may disown them when they decide to return to a simple, stripped back show, but charge $500 a ticket to see them at the Palais or the Enmore.

    So, from a purely branding perspective, theirs is probably a great success story: Being prepared to mutate the DNA of their brand repeatedly, risking alienating their greatest brand advocates, for the opportunity to increasing their market share.

    Where this places them in terms of artistic credibility, and their legacy, is a different matter.

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