Scattered Thoughts: Thoughts Scattered
More: Showbiz Ireland snapped the band on the way out of the studios after “rehearsals” last week.
Some really scattered thoughts …
The NFL commercial that U2’s music was in during the Super Bowl yesterday (see our post about it here) was oddly subtle. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I doubt many non U2 geeks noticed the commercial let alone the song (which was not identified, only heard in the background). There were many other silly commercials to grab people’s attention, not to mention the down-to-the-wire game and that hamtastic guy that played at halftime.
There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said about the whole “Get On Your Boots” video leak/non-release event from last Friday (see previous post and comments here). It seems like a fumble on someone’s part, but on the bright side, the video leak generated so much buzz in the fan community with people finding it on their own and a large majority of people really loving what they found, it could end up in some weird way being a happy accident of viral marketing in the long run. (Is that too optimistic?)
Their marketing strategy for the album so far has been a little, um… hard to get a handle on. While I found the NFL commercial with U2 to be oddly subtle, I also have to admit that I am happy that U2 aren’t force feeding the lead single to people (a la the iTunes commercial for Vertigo). And the fact that U2 are playing the Grammys, the Brits and the Echo Awards in the next few weeks leads one to believe that maybe they are going to try and sell this thing the old fashioned way – with the power of their live performances. (And really disorganized video launches and leaks.)
Of course, I am probably jumping the gun and an organized, perfectly choreographed in your face marketing push could be around the corner. We’ll see!
In the meantime, I’m trying hard to avoid taking all the album reviews popping up everyday too seriously. Most of these writers have heard the album only one or two times! They are not to be trusted, people 
But seriously, OMG, this one in particular has me salivating.
That’s all.
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Fez-Being Born suddenly makes sense, given what Eno did with Coldplay. This might be like the song combos on Viva La Vida, i.e. Lovers in Japan-Reign of Love.
If that one made you salivate, try this one.
http://perfectlycromulent.tumblr.com/post/75133856/first-impressions-of-the-new-u2-album-no-line-on-the
The new album is probably going to be great. The band knows it, and this ‘non-marketing’ marketing is a tease. Otherwise they wouldn’t have played it in advance for a large crowd of reviewers.
Like you said, U2′s album releases are usually a very big push & maybe it’ll hit us in one or two weeks. But it does seem odd, for them, to be this quiet right now. This is the anti-Vertigo strategy so far.
The reviews are glowing, but it almost seems like they’ve been released in succession. Maybe that’s not the case. The excitement builds despite my rational side throwing grains of salt into the mix.