The Chicago Tribune has an interesting interview with U2 frontman Bono about the band’s ties with Apple.
When asked if associating a song with a product such as the iPod is a good idea, Bono said: “Our being on TV, I don’t have a problem with that—we should be on TV. But OK, associating our music with a product. You’ve got to deal with the devil. Let’s have a look. The devil here is a bunch of creative minds, more creative than a lot of people in rock bands. The lead singer is Steve Jobs. These men have helped design the most beautiful object art in music culture since the electric guitar. That’s the iPod. The job of art is to chase ugliness away. Everywhere we look we see ugly cars, ugly buildings… ugly objects in the work place. Everywhere. And these people are making beautiful objects.”
Bono said being in the Apple commercial helped get their new single heard by new music fans. “We looked at the iPod commercial as a rock video. We chose the director. We thought, how are we going to get our single off in the days when rock music is niche? When it’s unlikely to get a three-minute punk-rock song on top of the radio? So we piggybacked this phenomenon to get ourselves to a new, younger audience, and we succeeded. And it’s exciting. I’m proud of the commercial, I’m proud of the association… But we have to start thinking about new ways of getting our songs across, of communicating in this new world, with so many channels, with rock music becoming a niche.” [via Cult of Mac]
