U2's Manager Paul McGuinness talks about the potential for digitalrevolution ignited by Apple's i-Tunes - and what U2 and their new producerare up to in the studio.
Apple's online-music store sold more than 3 million songs in its firstmonth. Among the 200,000 songs available at 99cents each, all three of U2'sexclusive offerings have been among the most popular: "I Will Follow," and"Beautiful Day," from the 2001 Elevation Tour DVD, and an acoustic "Stuck ina Moment You Can't Get Out Of."
For a music industry which saw sales fall eight percent in the first fourmonths of 2003, compared to the previous year, many believe Apple's venturefinally shows the way forward. While the I-Tunes service is limited to Macusers in the US at present, the company plans to launch a Windows version bythe end of the year and also make it available outside the US.
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www.apple.comU2.Com asked the bands' manager Paul McGuinness for his reaction to thedevelopment.. oh, and while we were talking, how the band are getting onwith their latest recording.
Has the success of Apple's online-music store i-Tunes taken you bysurprise ?It hasn't surprised me. I thought it was potentially very successful whenthe band and I attended a demo of the system at Jimmy Iovine's house when wewere in the States for the Oscars. Some people from Apple came over toexplain it to us.
Jimmy and I had been talking about the possibility for some time and we hadlots of questions, the biggest being how widely available it would be whenjust 3% of computers are Apples. Also, while those users are a veryinfluential group - creatives, artists, writers - perhaps they are also anunrepresentative community and we wanted assurances that the service wouldbe going out more widely to PC users.
In the end we felt there was no decision to take but to go with it. Othermajor artists like Madonna and the Beatles have declined partly I thinkbecause they don't like the idea of individual tunes being downloaded. Wetook the view that when an industry is sick, and penicillin is available,they should start taking it as soon as possible.
The fact that we were able to supply some rare material, much of it new to aUS audience, has turned out well. Those special items are doing extremelywell.
Are there other U2 tracks that you are considering making available ?We will let it sit for now. I didn't want to put out so many that it wouldappear like we were releasing a new album online. Three tracks seemed right.
Will the success of i-Tunes for Apple users be repeated with the Windowsversion later this year - and with European availability ?The signs are good, I think it could be enormous with Windows. Of courseApple build these great machines, their objects look so good, and when theservice is available to PC users it won't necessarily be with an I-Pod. Theywill need to make it easy for technophobes like me but we wish them well, wewant this to work for the sake of the music industry.
What has gone so wrong for the music industry in recent years ?Record companies have been so intent on controlling distribution andmanufacture that they have only very slowly come round to the idea ofelectronic distribution. The kind of technology behind i-Tunes has beenaround for a while but while the record companies have done nothing toutilise it, a generation of people have become accustomed to stealing music- in the absence of a legal way of getting it.
But the Apple model illustrates that people are not inherently dishonest,that they would like a simple, easy way to pay for their music online.
Take a city like New York where people can now hook up illegally to cableservices and avoid paying their monthly charge. In fact the vast majoritystill prefer to pay because not only can you guarantee quality but you cancall someone to fix it if it breaks down. Until now there has been no legaland simple model for downloading music because the subscription version isunappealing to most music fans.
I also think it is the wrong approach simply to prosecute - for example,universities, where students have been illegally downloading music through abroadband net service. But the pity is that in many university towns now,the best retailers, the 'mom and pop' stores, independent retailers, havegone out of business because students are burning off CD's they havedownloaded from the net. The solution is to fight technology withtechnology, to make legal downloading simple, efficient and cost-effectivewhich is what the i-Tunes model is promising.
Is this the revolution the industry has been waiting for, can it changethe way ordinary people buy music ?I hope this proves to the recording industry that they must go down thisroute. The majors only have a one year contract with Apple, it is a 'suckit and see' approach but I would be surprised if it isn't a wild success bythe end of the year. I look forward to being able to buy new music throughi-Tunes from Ireland.
Talking of new music, you must have heard some of the band's new material?I have heard a lot of new stuff, they seem to have about twenty tunes onboard at moment. I always say I'm no judge in the early stages. I'm betterat hearing it when it's nearly finished. That said, it sounds veryexciting to me, very rock and roll, very direct as you would expect withChris Thomas producing. The band keep making him tell them Beatle stories!
Every now and again Bono goes off to do political work which provides anatural break. He and Edge have also just spend a week in France writinglyrics. Our studio set-up in Dublin has worked very well over the years andalthough we are sanguine about moving on, we would have been happy to staythere for ever.
So when do you imagine the new album will be released ?Well I know Bono has been mentioning this year, and it would be great tohave it out by the end of the year but I've no idea really, I am justreminding everyone that we must learn from past mistakes and not release itbefore it is finished.'
And the tour ?Well, that I would expect for next year !
