U2 Threatens to Release Album Early on iTunes

Uninvited Guest writes "After a rough cut of U2's latest unfinished album was stolen earlier this week, the band has vowed to release the entire album on iTunes if the music appears on P2P networks. Bono told the London Daily Telegraph, 'If it is on the Internet this week, we will release it immediately as a legal download on iTunes, and get hard copies into the shops by the end of the month.' Is this the exact opposite of the Smashing Pumpkins' last album, which the band rushed to release on P2P networks, before it could hit the stores?"

Comments

Wrong about Smashing Pumpkins

[Cyph]

Smashing Pumpkins did not rush to release their last album on P2P before it hit the stores, rather, they used P2P as the *only* way to release the album. They sent out 25 vinyl sets of the album to various community members to get a P2P release going.

Re:Wrong about Smashing Pumpkins

[generationxyu]

Kind of. Not really. Machina II (The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music) was, as the parent said, pressed to 25 vinyl copies and given to family, friends, and members of the community. A few radio stations got them, with instructions to play it in its entirety if they so choosed. A few members of online SP communities also recieved copies in order to promote the online distribution of the album. Very few non-mp3 sourced copies of it are available... I've yet to get my hands on one.

But as several people have said, only a few songs from Machina II ever ended up on commercial release - those were included on the second disc of the SP Greatest Hits compilation, called Judas O.

For more complete information, check here. For a copy of Machina II, try SoulSeek. There's an SP hub on Direct Connect, but they're kind of bastardly about letting people on.

Re:It's a hoax.

[typhoonius]

Who knows; the band has a history of stupid leaks:

• Around 1981, before the release of their second album, October, a suitcase containing Bono's handwritten lyrics was stolen. Apparently, he sort of ad-libbed it in the studio.
• In 1990, a three-disc bootleg of outtakes from the Achtung, Baby sessions was leaked. It contained rough takes that would eventually become the songs on the album
• In 1996 or so, an MP3 of a rough edit of "Discotheque," the lead single for their Pop album, was leaked onto the internet.
• Around 2000, Bono apparently lost a laptop containing rough mixes of songs from their upcoming All That You Can't Leave Behind. It was returned safely, though, and there wasn't a leak.
• Later that year, though, the band decided to post 30-second snippets of each song from their new album. They were going to release one new snippet a week until the album was released. Unfortunately, the clueless webmasters had already uploaded all of the songs and just didn't link to them yet, so fans just guessed at the file names and downloaded all the snippets early.
• In 2002, several different mixes of "Electrical Storm" were played on radio stations and were leaked onto the internet.

In any case, this new album is about three years overdue. Their last album was released in October 2000, and the tour supporting it wrapped up in December 2001. What the hell have they been doing since then? I dunno, I sort of lost track. Kind of sad when you don't know that one of your favorite bands is releasing a new album soon until you read it on Slashdot.

Re:sooo?

[afidel]

Hmm, you forget:
Achtung baby, 1991 #10 on rolling stone readers alltime best albums list 2002, #62 on the editors top top 500 alltime albums
All that you can't leave behind, 2000 #16, #139
Zooropa, 1993 #70, -

All that you can't leave behind is probably too high on the reader list due to the proximity between release and poll time but the other two definitly earned their spots.

Re:All a big publicity gimmick?

[Colonel Angus]

Bands often have many versions of their music on CD as the songs progress. They listen to it for missed beats, bad sound, possible enhancements, whatever. It's not uncommon at all.

Correct, and there's more ...

[zonix]

[...] they used P2P as the *only* way to release the album.

Correct. Billy Corgan stated it was a personal "fuck you" to Virgin Records for preventing them in releasing the album. It was then they stopped as the band Smashing Pumpkins, to which BC said it wasn't because of issues within the band internally, but that they were tired of competing with "all the Britney Spearses out there" (something like that).

All this makes the album title quite interesting: "Machina II - Friends and Enemies of Modern Music".

IMO, what they did was very commendable given the circumstances. Thanks Billy and friends for releasing the album!

z

Re:speaking of that Smashing Pumpkins...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.billy-corgan.com/downloads/mp3/machina2 /index.php

Other good stuff here as well.

Re:What Is The Worry?

[meowsqueak]

mldonkey is good.

Re:What Is The Worry?

[PalmerEldritch42]

Why yes. There is a Linux alternative. It is called Apollon.

Actually there are quite a lot of them- go to sourceforge and do a search of P2P. It will list quite a few.

the pumpkins' last album

[yipyow]

when the smashing pumpkins released machina 2: the friends and enemies of modern music on the internet, it was partly because virgin records wasn't interested in the album (especially not a double album) after the lackluster sales of their previous album, machina: the machines of god. there is a link explaining all about it here, and you can download machina 2 here.