Commentary by Matt McGee

It's great that we now have two years of survey answers to compare. On most of the questions, this year's replies changed only 2-3% or less from the 2005 survey. I won't bother discussing changes like those, since that degree of change is to be expected.

When there are questions/replies that change 5% or more, I'll mention that below, along with any other interesting thoughts that come to mind from looking at the survey results.

Section A: About You

This section is all about trying to describe the typical U2 fan, as if such a thing exists.

A1. We got a bit older this year. The 36+ crowd made up only about 23% of the 2005 respondents, but about 31% this year.

A3. We began to achieve one goal, which was to get more respondents from abroad. 55% of our 2005 respondents were in the U.S., but only 46% were this year. We added a bunch of countries to the main list this year, and we'll do so again next year with countries that are still missing.

One of the problems with this question is that there were close to 10 people who used the OTHER field to write in "England" or "Scotland" or "Wales," perhaps not seeing (or not knowing? hehehe) that they should use the "United Kingdom" answer.

A4. Are we listening to U2 less often? Only 48% said this year that they listen to U2 every day, down from 54% last year.

A8. We added a lot of artists to the list of choices, so the percentages are much lower for each artist. But, the top three remain the same as they were in 2005: Coldplay, The Beatles, and Bruce.

In the "Someone Else" list, artists like Snow Patrol, Muse, Interpol, Foo Fighters, and some guy named Elvis Presley had a lot of mentions.

Section B: U2 Fandom

B1. We asked "When did you become a U2 fan?", and 16-21 years ago is still the #1 reply. But the #2 reply, 22+ years ago, jumped from about 16% in 2005 to more than 21% this year.

B2. 31% of our 2005 respondents were former Propaganda members, but only 25% said that this year.

B3. In 2005, 48% of respondents were paying members of U2.com. This year that dropped to just 34%. Yikes.

B11. The number of fans claiming to own bootlegs dropped from 75% to 68%.

Section C: U2 and the Web

C1. 48% of this year's respondents say they discovered the U2 online fan community within the last four years, i.e. - 2002 to present. That's way up from 39% in the 2005 survey. And this is the first of several stats that give me the impression this year's survey was taken by a higher percentage of new fans (i.e., from the last two albums) than the 2005 survey was.

Along those lines, the later questions about how many mailing lists, message boards, etc., you read all showed big increases in ZERO as an answer.

C3. Here's another one: the percentage of former WIRE members dropped from 19% to 14%. (For those who don't know, WIRE is/was the very first U2 fan mailing list on the internet, dating back to about 1991, as I recall.)

C9. I was pretty surprised last year when 51% of respondents said they spend 30 minutes or less per day visiting U2-related web sites. This year that number jumped to 62%! You folks are obviously in a hurry and want your info. right away. As I said last year, "slow loading web pages are evil." We hate them here at @U2, and will always try to make sure the site loads as quickly as possible.

Section D: The Band

D3. Upset of the Year: Bono eclipses Larry and becomes your vote for 2nd Best Musician in U2.

D9. U2's best decade ... the results are pretty much the same as they were in 2005. We love the '90s by a pretty wide margin. Yet U2 only drops two songs from the '90s on U218 Singles? Go figure....

Section E: Albums

E2. Achtung Baby beats The Joshua Tree handily again, but the margin is closer this year. Of note is that both All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb both scored better this year than in 2005, perhaps proving that U2 keeps adding news fans ... and adding to my theory that more of those new fans took our survey this year.

E8. Achtung Baby 's lyrics wins, but gets less love from voters. Meanwhile, both ATYCLB and HTDAAB do better this year than in 2005.

E9. Ditto the comment for E8.

Section: Songs

F1. We have a new winner: "I Will Follow" is now your favorite song from BOY. It was "Out of Control" in 2005.

Other than this, the "favorite song from (album)" results are all pretty much the same as they were in 2005.

F18. Another new winner: "Helter Skelter" is your new favorite cover song, replacing "Unchained Melody."

F19. Talk about overnight success: "The Saints Are Coming" immediately becomes your favorite collaboration with another artist, getting more than 20% of the votes.

F24. I'm almost shocked that the album version of "Streets" is now your favorite version, replacing the live version from the Boston Elevation DVD. The album version of "Streets" is the worst of the choices, isn't it? I think so.

F25. And you also now like the album version of "Walk On" best? For real?

Section G: Tours

G1. Just like the 2005 survey, this result -- combined with the results from question B1, How long have you been a U2 fan? -- prove that the vast majority of U2 fans see one show per tour and that U2 is absolutely right to include all the big hits and popular songs in the set list, not a bunch of rarities for those of us who see them 4-5 times (or more) every tour.

According to this year's results, about 64% of you have been fans for at least ten years. (see B1) And here in G1, you see that 1-2 concerts is the most popular answer for How many U2 concerts have you seen?. In fact, more than 71% of U2 fans have seen six concerts or less in their lifetime. Yet they've been fans for 10 years or more.

Here's my commentary from last year on this topic in case you missed it.

G5. Pretty big change in how we feel about U2's concert ticket prices. The "too high, but I don't mind paying" crowd dropped about 5%, while the "fair" replies went up by the same amount.

G8. We still prefer U2 in an arena, but the stadium votes went from 31% to 37% -- and that's probably directly related to having more replies this year from outside the U.S.

G9. A new winner here, as Slane 2001 replaces the Zoo TV opener as the show we'd most like to go back and see in person.

Section H: Final Thoughts

H5. One of a couple new questions we added this year, and I'm a bit surprised by the responses. That 12.7% who voted "hypocritical" must all be active in our forum. :-)

H9. Another new question, and no surprise that U2 by U2 is the favorite book. What I think is cool is that every book on the long list got some votes.

H12, H13, H14, H15 ... if one person leaves, should the others continue? Just like in 2005, you guys voted Edge as the most indispensable member of U2, followed by Bono, Larry, and Adam. What's interesting to me is that the more of you want the band to continue if one member leaves than you did a year ago. The "no" reply on all four band members was a lower percentage this year.

H16. And following that logic, more of you "probably would" buy a new U2 album if one of the band members leaves, and fewer of you said "no way" you would buy a new U2 album in that situation.

Thanks to everyone who took the survey!

BACK TO THE 2006 FAN SURVEY RESULTS