[Ed. note: Marylinn is filling in for Matt McGee this week, as he is busy completing U2 Diary].
Today is the last day of 2007, and personally, I am happy to see it go. It's been such a disappointing, heartbreaking year for my family and me; we are all ready to ring in the New Year with hopes that it can only get better from here. This is a time for reflection, as a way to move forward. I don't normally make resolutions, but I do have one for the coming year. My goal is to stay in the moment. It doesn't sound hard, but I wear many hats simultaneously, and it gets increasingly harder to focus on the task at hand when my mind is so scattered with lists of what I could or should be doing. Yesterday I had the opportunity to test out my new resolution when my 8-year-old daughter wanted to teach me to play chess, which she is just learning herself. We got my 6-year-old son occupied with some new toys, and we sat down to play. The laundry and the dishes sat waiting while she coached me on how to move my pieces around the board. If I'm still playing at 80 years old, I'll never forget that first game with her, and to me, that's entirely the point.
It was an interesting year for the music industry. Major labels continue to hold on to old ways of thinking and lose money for it, blaming the Internet and file sharing for their woes. When U2 was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Bono made a pointed statement to the executives in the room, saying, "The way things are now, there never would have been a U2." He meant that new bands have no room to develop, and are often dropped if the first album doesn't do well. On the other side of that coin, huge names in the music world (Madonna, Paul McCartney) are leaving the major labels in droves, opting to start their own labels or jumping to smaller labels that seem better able to adapt to their artistic visions.
In what can only be described as a coup in social experimentation, Radiohead left its label behind and stunned the music industry when they announced that their new independently released album, In Rainbows, would only be available via download, and consumers could choose for themselves what to pay for it. By eliminating the middleman, the band was able to get the music to their tech-savvy fans on their own terms and in their own time. (A hard copy is available for the rest of us.) It's a throwback to the days when music was passed on directly from the artists to their families and friends, who then took it out to the rest of the population, before recordings were available and record companies mucked it up for everyone. Did it work? The band isn't talking money, but this recent article seems to hint that they are happy with the results.
While Radiohead used the Internet to its advantage, Prince decided to wreak havoc on the web by threatening to sue his own fan sites -- much like this one -- over the right to use his image without his permission. We watched this carefully, a little worried about what it could mean for fan sites across the board if he were to succeed. His reasoning? He wants to "protect" his fans from bogus websites that are raking in the money from advertising to the detriment of said fans. What's bogus is this argument. Either Prince doesn't give his fans enough credit to decide when they are being taken advantage of, or he is so short of cash that he needs to put the squeeze on his most loyal followers. Didn't he give away his last record in a British Sunday paper? None of it makes any sense, other than he feels the need to control every little thing. I think of this situation every time I hear this lyric from Wilco's "What Light":
And if the whole world's singing your songs/ and all of your paintings have been hung
Just remember what was yours/ is everyone's from now on
And that's not wrong or right/ But you can struggle with it all you like
You'll only get uptight...
Prince, lighten up. As a U2 fan once said to me, "It's all about the love."
Closer to home, we've had a great year here at @U2. On top of following the band members' (especially Bono's) globetrotting antics, we had some terrific interviews, like this one by Scott Calhoun, and this one by Matt McGee, early in the year.
Laura Page gave us a rundown of how U2 fans were inspired to give back in this article and Scott showed how just one person can make a difference here.
U2 fans from opposite sides of the spectrum got to celebrate two landmark releases this year. First, we celebrated 10 years of Pop, with the release of PopMart Live from Mexico City in DVD form, and Kelly gave an awesome review of it here.
Khoa gave us a retrospective and I did my bit by contributing the first "Like a Song" installment about my favorite U2 album.
If you missed this "Popcast" you can still listen here.
Secondly, we celebrated 20 years of The Joshua Tree, with special guests and a special "Treecast" version of our @U2 podcast.
The staff and fans alike have been enjoying our newest feature, the "Like A Song" series we started this year. The feedback has been wonderful, and we already have a list of songs lined up for next year, so keep your eyes open, and maybe your favorite U2 song will be represented.
Sadly, we lost a few staff members to other commitments, but we also expanded our staff with a fresh crop of writers, artists and bloggers extraordinaire joining us from around the globe. Get to know them better here.
And finally, just last week, we were bestowed with the great honor of being listed at #4 in Entertainment Weekly's Best of the Web 2007, 25 Essential Fansites.
Rather than let this get to our collective heads, we view this as an opportunity to welcome new readers to our site and to thank our loyal readers for their support over the years. Prince notwithstanding, the reason we're all here is because we are passionate about our band, we're passionate about what we do, and we strive to give our fellow fans our best efforts. To paraphrase the Edge, there are 28 Mofos in this group, and we all have our own ideas on how to make the site better. We promise to continue to fight and claw and respect and love each other so that you will continue to visit us. A great big virtual hug to our leader, Matt McGee, who has been quietly toiling away on his new book much of this last year.
Matt is the one who brought us all together, and has given us the reins to do as we see fit in his absence. While we sometimes disagree (and bitterly at that), we all feel privileged to be a part of Matt's vision.
Here's wishing peace, prosperity, good health and happiness to all in the New Year.
© @U2/Maione, 2007.
