Who needs bathrooms? ([email protected])
Sat, 14 Nov 1998 15:16:15 -0600
Also note that the opening will be carried live via RV at the site:
Live from the Kitchen, Dublin
Thurs. Nov. 12th 23.30 - 03.30 (gmt)
Kitchen Recordings Launch Party
Live sets by
ROB ROWLAND & BASIC
First 12" Release:
GROUND FORCE / NEAR ZERO
by ROB ROWLAND
Buy the Track
+ Watch Etronik Interview with
ROB ROWLAND
Fri. Nov. 13th 23.30 - 03.30 (gmt)
STACEY PULLEN & JOE MCGRATH
-------------
There is a bonus picture in the vinyl Best of; you can find it at
http://hello.to/u2disco
-------------
Best of is #1 in Australia...
-------------
>From Addicted to Noise:
Producer Lillywhite To Start Label
Producer Steve Lillywhite, who has worked with U2, the Rolling Stones,
Phish,
Peter Gabriel, the Talking Heads and, most recently, the Dave Matthews
Band,
is planning to start his own record label, Gobstopper Records, in 1999. "I
have plans afoot to start my own label around May of next year," Lillywhite
said. "Everlasting, just like the music." The name is derived from the
Roald
Dahl novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
-------------
>From Addicted to Noise:
Alanis Morissette May Set Sales Record
Retailers predict singer/songwriter's new release will post better
first-week
numbers than current record-holder Lauryn Hill's did.
Teri vanHorn:
Music insiders and retailers are predicting that Alanis Morissette's fourth
album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, released Nov. 3, may possibly
hit
record-breaking sales numbers in its first week on the market.
Though the actual figures won't be in until Wednesday, there's considerable
confidence that Morissette has topped the first-week sales record for a
female
solo artist. That record currently belongs to rapper Lauryn Hill, whose The
Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill sold 422,500 copies in its first week.
"[Morissette] has put her heart and soul into making an amazing record, and
[we] have to ... [let] people know it's out." -- Howie Klein, president of
Reprise Records
"We sold a heck of a lot more units here than I expected," said Rich
Zubrod,
manager of the Virgin Megastore in New York City's Times Square. He added
that
his store "went in strong" with its initial order of Supposed Former
Infatuation Junkie (Maverick Records) and has already re-ordered.
"Considering
how well it did here, it may do even better than 600,000."
Surpassing the 600,000-unit mark in the first seven days of its release
would
put Morissette's album close to this year's heavyweight champ. The Beastie
Boys' Hello Nasty moved a whopping 681,500 copies in its first week -- the
strongest debut of the year.
With her cathartic songwriting and distinct vocal delivery, Morissette, 24,
has distinguished herself as one of the most prominent -- and successful --
musical voices of the decade. Her last album, 1995's Jagged Little Pill, is
the best-selling debut solo-album in U.S. history, having gone platinum (1
million sold) 16 times over in America on the strength of several hit
singles.
Featuring the hit track "Thank U" (RealAudio excerpt), the 17-song Supposed
Former Infatuation Junkie was released amid one of the biggest
record-release
months of all time. (Nov. 17 will see the most releases ever put out on a
single day in the history of the recording industry.)
Stan Goman of Tower Records' Retail Operations office said Supposed Former
Infatuation Junkie is this week's top release for the chain's nationwide
sales
and that its first-week numbers are 10 percent higher than Hill's
Miseducation. Goman would not provide actual numbers, but he noted that
sales
figures for Junkie also are 10 percent higher than Tower's runner-up best-
seller this week -- Irish rock-band U2's greatest-hits collection, Best Of
1980-1990.
Zubrod estimated that Morissette's sales were approximately 15 percent
higher
than U2's. "The fact that it's all-new material against a greatest-hits
record
seems to give it a lot more credibility," he said.
Elsewhere, however, pop buyers say that Morissette's release was
overshadowed
by U2's greatest-hits album, which includes a limited-release B-sides
compilation. At Tower Records in Chicago, rock-buyer Mark Anthony reported
selling 361 copies of Junkie last week, while U2's album almost doubled
those
sales, selling 645 copies. K-Mart spokesperson Dennis Whigent said that
Junkie
sales are "meeting expectations."
Howie Klein -- president of Reprise Records, Maverick's partner in the
promotion of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie -- would not discuss his
expectations for first-week sales, saying that for this album, his already
have been met.
"This woman has put her heart and soul into making an amazing record, and
everyone at Reprise and Maverick have to work very hard to make sure it
gets
exposed and people know it's out so they [pick it up]," Klein said. "This
is a
record that has the ability to touch people in an intimate way and will
have a
profound impact on people."
As for the possibility of Morissette breaking Hill's sales record, Klein
said
that to compare artists' sales is "grotesque."
Online retailers saw evidence of the demand for Junkie well before it was
released. Larry Burnett, music editor at America Online, said his company's
advance-order promotion of the album proved so successful that AOL quickly
followed it with similarly designed promotions of future artists.
Beginning on Oct. 23, America Online offered downloadable, 30-second clips
of
four Junkie songs. (The promotion was first offered only to AOL users, then
was expanded to the Web.) Approximately 700,000 separate Internet users
visited the promotion page between Oct. 23 and Nov. 4, Burnett said, adding
that AOL has followed with similar specials for the Rolling Stones, Whitney
Houston and Jewel.
Since the song excerpts were put up in clip format, it took the average
user
about three minutes to load each one. "We had about 300,000 users download
the
tracks," Burnett said. "That definitely shows that people were willing to
put
some time into hearing the songs."
Record buyers also said that the Rolling Stones' live album, No Security,
and
Beck's Mutations were among this week's top sellers in addition to
Morissette
and U2.
-------------
Thanks to Pang for the following:
Playlist for MTV Asia's U2-day:
Non-stop hits (2.30-4pm)
Angel of Harlem
If God will send his angels
Please (Popmart version)
Discotheque (David Morales Remix)
Where the streets have no name
A sort of homecoming
The Fly
Numb
I still haven't found what I'm looking for
Sweetest Thing
Lemon
Even better than the real thing (ZooTV version)
Mysterious ways
Stay (Faraway, so close)
With or without you
All I want is you
Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me
MTV Interactive (5.30-6pm)
Gloria
Unforgettable Fire
When love comes to town
Numb (Edge at the Video music awards)
Last night on earth (ended abruptly)
MTV Classic (10-11pm)
Gloria
Sunday Bloody sunday
A sort of homecoming
Unforgettable Fire
New Year's Day
Pride (In the name of love) (recording studio)
With or without you
I still haven't found what I'm looking for
The Fly
One (Bono in bar)
-------------
>From Dotmusic:
Irish Charity Record Bombs Out
A new charity album is bringing together some of the biggest Irish acts
of the past couple of decades for the first time. Across The Bridge Of
Hope, which is being released on November 30 in aid of the victims of
the Omagh bombing, features tracks from U2, Boyzone, The Corrs, Ash and
Enya. Sinead O'Connor has also specially recorded a version of Abba's
Chiquitita for the project - which will be distributed through 3mv/Sony
in the UK and Sony in Ireland - while the Omagh Community Children's
Choir and Ulster Youth Orchestra (pictured) have collaborated on the BA
Robertson-penned title track. Project co-ordinator Ross Graham, a former
head of Island and MCA in Ireland who now runs his own independent label
freerange, says the album is an appropriate response from the music
industry to the August 15 massacre. "There are some political songs in
there, but it is also an enjoyable record," he says. An album featuring
US artists and supporting the Omagh fund could follow, adds Graham.
-------------
>From Polygram.ca:
U2 The Best of 1980-1990: Island releases U2's first
retrospective album and new single
On November 3rd, U2 The Best Of 1980-1990 will be released in
Canada. For a limited time, the album will feature a second disc with
15 B-sides. The original ship target was 75,000. Due to
overwhelming demand, the number has been increased to 175,000.
In Canada, this strictly limited-edition format will be numbered in
sequence and will be removed from the catalogue immediately
following shipment to retail on Friday October 30, to ensure its
exclusivity.
Disc #00001 will be given away via a MuchMusic promotion which
will air from November 23 through December 13. The grand prize
also includes the Ultimate U2 Fan Experience. The winner and a
friend will receive free round-trip airfare to Dublin, accommodation at
the luxurious Clarence hotel (owned by Bono). During their stay
activities will include visiting various U2 haunts such as: Windmill
Studios,Docker Pub, the castle ruins featured on the cover of The
Joshua Tree album, strolling the street where the "Sweetest Thing"
video was shot and much more.
The single and limited-edition version of U2 The Best Of 1980-1990
includes the new hit single "Sweetest Thing", produced by Steven
Lillywhite, currently Top 5 at Rock Radio, Top 10 at Top 40, and
climbing. The single disc version will be released Tuesday,
November 10.
(Thanks to Sanjay for the above)
-------------
A few of you have noted that in the AOL article posted at the
reviews page, there is an obvious mistake:
"Now, let's be fair. The package is Solomonically split between
what the pre-CD world used to call the A-sides of 14 singles
(the first disc) and 15 tracks that began their sonic shelf lives
as B-sides (the second). "Spanish Eyes" appears twice, owing
to the original B-side version having been remixed rather
significantly into a later A-side."
Yes -- it should be "Sweetest Thing". Oh well...it is AOL,at least they
spelled "U2" right... ;)
-------------
>From Undercover:
Two of the years most anticipated albums were released on the same day
last week and fought for the number one spot on this weeks chart. U2
released their first ever greatest hits package while Alanis Morissette
followed up the biggest selling female album of all time. Mid last week,
the battle for sales began in stores around the world and by late last
week, it was obvious that U2 would win round one. By Friday, some
Australian stores were reporting the U2 album outselling Alanis 10 - 1
in some areas, while in the UK, stores had U2 in front by at least 2 -
1. However, in the UK, a surprise left wing has come in and wounded
Alanis. Oasis The Masterplan debuted at #2 ahead of Supposed Former
Infatuation Junkie. Not surprisingly, Alanis is slightly out in front of
U2 in the USA with early sales predicting she will sell around 500,000
copies in her week in America.
That being the case, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie will set new
first week sales for a female artist, beating current champ Lauren Hill.
(Prarit's note: I had mentioned this interview a few weeks ago --
I think in the Halloween digest...thanks to Amy for letting me know
it was online)
-------------
>From CMJ:
The Edge
On The Best Of U2 And College Radio
story by Colin Helms
"The college stations were crucial to U2 becoming known in the American
radio world. We
were really delighted to discover that there was this network of
underground stations that had
been playing a lot of music from the U.K. and from Ireland and that people
knew about our
records through college stations. I think that was a turning point for us.
You have some of the
most progressive, most interesting radio in the world in the form of
college and public stations.
To see it as a commercial world is only to see one side of it." -- The Edge
ON NOVEMBER 3, Island Records will release U2: The Best Of 1980-1990, the
first hits collection from
one of the most popular rock 'n' roll bands in the world. But before U2
became an international pop
sensation, the Irish quartet was considered one of the seminal post-punk
bands of the '80s,
establishing a place for itself in the history of college radio with such
classic recordings as Boy,
October, War, Under A Blood Red Sky and The Unforgettable Fire. Fueled by
the group's politically charged
ideology and equally incendiary rock sound, the band created anthems such
as "I Will Follow," "Sunday
Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" that inarguably helped
shape the face of modern
music. In an exclusive interview, U2's guitarist The Edge speaks with CMJ
about the new double-disc
collection, his thoughts on non-commercial radio and his favorite U2 era
so far.
How involved were you in selecting tracks for the best-of record?
When we first started talking about doing a best-of, really the question
in our mind was "Should we do
one at all?," and that took up quite a lot of time. In the end, we
realized that a lot of people out there
probably don't have the early records; we thought that it would be a good
thing to have a definitive
collection of the first 10 years. In fact, I think within a half hour we
pretty much decided what we wanted
to put on the record. There were one or two tracks that we considered
early on that we eventually didn't
put on -- a live version of "11 O'Clock Tick Tock," our first single, and
"Bullet The Blue Sky." But we
just thought [the collection] was starting to get a little too long. We
wanted to keep it fairly condensed.
Were you involved in the sequencing of the tracks?
I ended up doing quite a lot of work on that. We decided early on that we
weren't going to do it in any
chronological order because we wanted just a great record, we didn't
really want it to be any sort of
history book. We wanted it to be a record that people would just enjoy
playing at home. So that was our
first consideration, and that's why also we ended up choosing, in some
cases, the original 7" edit of
some of the songs. We felt that they made more sense in a collection like
this.
How did you choose the B-side tracks for the collection?
We had quite a few to choose from, but we thought we chose the best
B-sides from the '80s. There
were at least another 10 that we could have put on that we felt were not
quite up to it. That was more
difficult than the A-sides really, because the B-sides are quite diverse
and the variation in the sound
quality is vast. Some of them are very lo-fi, and some of them could have
made the album they were
recorded during. I was actually quite blown away by some of them. Just the
freshness of them was
something that I really found appealing. In most cases, these tunes were
produced and recorded very
quickly, [so] there's no sense of them being belabored, there's no
double-thinking.
Why was "Sweetest Thing" never chosen as a single?
It was a combination of not having time to finish it and also because when
that was first written, it was
a tune that Bono wrote as a gift for [his wife] Ali. I think it was her
birthday, since he couldn't think of
something or hadn't had time to buy her something. [He decided] he would
just give her 24 hours of his
inspiration and he wrote this song. When we decided that we'd try it as a
B-side, even at that stage, it
was like, "Well, can we do that? Is Ali into that?" It's her song in a
way. When we had finished it and
had a chance to think about it we realized that we had actually turned in
a really good version of it.
What's nice is that it's now getting the recognition that it could have
had at that time. Ali still owns that
song, and I wouldn't be surprised if [the money generated by it] doesn't
go towards some very good
causes.
Why did you decide to re-do "Sweetest Thing" for a 1998 single?
We'd always wanted to have another go at it, and this opportunity
presented itself. When we were
thinking about what we were going to put on the collection, this seemed
liked the obvious time to try
and finish it off [and] give Bono a chance to re-sing it, because he was
always upset about his vocal.
The day he originally sang it he had lost his voice and it was quite an
unusual vocal. Listening back to
parts and sounds that you used in the mid-'80s there was a bit of
nostalgia in hearing what we were
doing then. I think having a bit of distance and some objectivity gave us
a fresh insight as to where to
go with the song that we may not have had at the time.
Did you consider doing a kind of "greatest hits" tour to support the
album?
No, that never actually came up. I don't think we would want to put so
much time right now into the
best-of record, when we're, at the moment, starting to write some songs
and consider going into the
studio for our next studio album.
What can you tell us about the new songs? Any new direction or sound
you're trying out?
Well, I don't know yet, because a lot of our records take shape during the
recording process. It's kind of
impossible to crystal ball gaze at this point as to how it's going to
sound. But I do know that going into
the last record we unfortunately didn't have Larry [Mullen, Jr.] there at
the beginning, because he was
out of action with a bit of a back problem. Thankfully, at the beginning
of this record, everyone is
fighting fit. We're not going to be writing songs and then trying to do
band arrangements, we're going to
be writing all together and working in a kind of rehearsal room approach.
So hopefully the songs will
come out of band performances as opposed to the other way around. I think
we're going to be using
Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois as producers. It's fun for us to work with
them again. It'll be our fourth
record with them as a team and the other three records have been really
successful creatively for us,
we've really enjoyed the process.
Is there any U2 era or record that stands out as your favorite?
I'm very proud of the whole collection, but if I were to single out any
one era, I'd have to say [that] The
Unforgettable Fire through The Joshua Tree was the most creatively
satisfying for us. We really had set
our sights on achieving certain goals as a band, creatively in terms of
songwriting, in terms of
production and sonic experimentation, and took quite a few risks. People
at the time of The Unforgettable
Fire really thought that we had made a major commercial mistake. Everybody
was telling us that we
were poised, ready to conquer the world with the U2 sound of the War
album. What on earth are we
doing running off with Brian Eno, this sort of art-terrorist who was going
to ruin our sound? We put up
with a lot of flak at the time, and I remember when the album came out it
was not reviewed very well.
Looking back on it now, we really managed to create a sort of special
record with Brian and Danny.
That same sort of spirit carried through to The Joshua Tree, by which time
I think people were starting to
give us a little more respect for knowing what might be right for us as a
band, so I think The Joshua Tree
was given a bit more initial credit and the reviews were more favorable.
Rattle And Hum, weirdly enough,
I think there are more songs from that album than any other on this
collection. As odd a record as it is,
being a mix of studio and live and hi-fi and lo-fi recordings. The new
songs that we wrote and recorded
for that album have really stood up very well. Even in some ways, as
they're U2 experimenting with
roots music forms, I still feel like we've kind of made them our own. I
don't think we've lost our identity
completely [by] experimenting with forms like the blues and more folk
styles.
Looking back over that period, was there anything embarrassing?
I think allowing Paramount Pictures to airbrush my stubble out of the
promotional pictures for Rattle
And Hum. That was actually the moment when I realized things might be
going a little too far [laughs].
Talk about the early days, experiencing American college radio for the
first time in 1980. What were your
impressions during that first tour?
Coming from Dublin there was no commercial radio [in Ireland], so there
was really only one station
that was playing rock 'n' roll. It was a national station, so everybody
could get it. But that meant that if
you got your song on the prime time show, you got the entire nation tuning
into you. Cut to us taking a
look across the water to America and how daunting that was, realizing what
a vast country it was. And
radio in America at that point seemed completely impenetrable to a young
band [that] had never toured
in America and were really just starting out. So when we did manage to get
over and start to do our
first-ever shows, they were in these tiny clubs and bars around the East
Coast -- some of them, in fact,
were support gigs for other groups. So, when we got there, we were
astonished to find that in some
towns, people knew about us. We were really delighted to discover that
there was this network of
underground and college stations that had been playing a lot of music from
the U.K. and from Ireland,
and that people knew about our records through college stations. I think
that was a turning point for us.
That gave us the foothold and the will to really put our shoulders to the
door and persevere. The
college stations were crucial to U2 becoming known in the American radio
world and in general. We
could actually look up the cities that had a college radio station that
was playing our album and be able
to predict what it would be like in that town. We could really make a
distinction between those venues
in those towns and the other ones where, for whatever reason, there was no
college station or we
weren't getting played.
-- Prarit....[email protected] U2 news: http://www.members.home.net/u2-news/u2.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Sat Nov 14 1998 - 14:20:34 PST