For U2 and Apple, a Shrewd Marketing Partnership

From left, Timothy D. Cook, the Apple C.E.O., with the Edge, Bono and Larry Mullen Jr. of U2 on Tuesday in Cupertino, Calif

The first time a came across U2 is when I used to visit Dublin's Dandelion Green on a Sunday , It was more or less like a market day on the Costa but a lot smaller. U2 where the resident band and I loved them. After that it was Captain Americas Cook House Grafton Street for a hamburger and here a young Irish singer bang out his tunes for a few tips his name was Chris de Burgh. The next time I came across the band was when they first recorded New Years Day and we sat around listening to the final cuts etc.

The band formed in Dublin on 25 September 1976. Larry Mullen, Jr., then a 14-year-old student at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, posted a note on the school's notice board in search of musicians for a new band


The rest as they say is history and U2 whent on to become one of the worlds greatest rock bands. U2 have released 13 studio albums and are among the all-time best-selling music artists, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, and in 2005, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. Rolling Stone ranked U2 at number 22 in its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" and has labelled them the "Biggest Band in the World". Throughout their career, as a band and as individuals, they have campaigned for human rights and philanthropic causes, including Amnesty International, the ONE/DATA campaigns, Product Red, and The Edge's Music Rising.

U2 IN ACTION, ARE ONE OF THE WORLDS BIGGEST TOURING BANDS

As part of what Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, called “the largest album release of all time,” the company released U2’s new “Songs of Innocence” free through iTunes on Tuesday, just after the band performed a new song, “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone),” at the close of Apple’s product announcement event in Cupertino, Calif.

To release U2’s album free, Apple paid the band and Universal an unspecified fee as a blanket royalty and committed to a marketing campaign for the band worth up to $100 million, according to several people briefed on the deal. That marketing will include a global television campaign, the first piece of which was a commercial that was shown during the event.

The Album Songs of Innocence is, for me, up there with there very best and here it is. Enjoy