Robbie Robinson ([email protected])
Mon, 31 Aug 1998 19:53:25 -0700
Jeez, you have a lot of faith in the press.
They don't follow the public, the public follows the
press. Everybody knows that. The media can force any
crappy band like the Spice Girls/Hanson (the usual expamles)
down the publics throat with heavy hype. Think of all the
bands that suck that are in the charts. They're there because
the press hyped them, not because the people discovered them
and the press followed the people's lead. It's been well known
for years that a favorite game of the British music press is
building up some mediocre little band for a while with hype and
then doing a hatch job on them just as a little power exercise.
Shows 'em whose boss.
The press knows they can sell a lot of paper by tearing down
popular celebs and bands. Sell a lot while building them up and
sell even more by tearing them down.
If they'd decided to continue to support
U2 as much as they support bands like, oooh, Garbage, the
record sales would have been higher and the press would have
been lickin' their boots like they have for the last 10 years.
I think they were ready to do the hatchet job when AB came out,
but U2 threw them such a curve in their drastic change in
music and staging, they couldn't.
There were really a lot of things going on that
I didn't put in the post because we were just talking
about the media and I didn't want it to be too long.
It's been talked into the ground on Wire over the past
year or so.
Basically, the press are lazy bastards. They
see which way the press bandwagon is going after the first
three or four shows and everybody else jumps on it.
The agenda was set that for 1997, the American press was going
to bash U2.
The tour sold more tickets than any other tour in the USA
in 1997 and it was the biggest tour in the world last year.
We all know the shows were great. Did anyone in the press
ever change their tune later? I strongly suspect the negative
press was part of the reason the album sales were lower last year.
The negative press about the U2 tour bled over and affected
the willingness of people to try out the album. Less people
were buying the album, so the ultra-conservative radio stations
in America were leery of playing the singles. Little single play,
less albums bought. For some reason, Island wasn't promoting
hard enough. It would have been a lot better if they'd figured
out a way to get the press on U2's side somehow.
Case in point about the people that review the concerts.
These jokers are usually assigned to review shows.
It's very unlikely they are a fan.
They usually know little about the band.
Usually just enough to (maybe) get the names
of the bandmembers right.
They have to leave the show to write their
review and phone it in in time for the next
edition about 3 songs into the show.
They are very likey to have check previous
reviews of the shows to plagiarize, uh, I mean
to get an idea of what other reviewers thought.
Of course, most of the previous reviewers did
the same thing, so there was a pretty consistant
bashing of U2 going on. Hey, it's easier than risking
writing you own ideas, bsides, how can you form any
ideas of the quality of the show from 3 songs anyway.
Oh, this is enough! In fact, it's probably too much.
Robbie
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