Hey, did anyone get the standard version of the CD in a jewel case? What is the booklet like? Just the band photo surrounded by white, type-written pages? I'm beginning to think that the iTunes digital booklet is really the winner out of all of this because at least it had cool portraits of each of the four band members.
It has a front image (Larry and son) and a back image (U2 walking toward us - the same image from the gatefold of the other) other than that the pages are all white, with the lyrics, Bono's essay, credits etc. No additional photos. Just type-written pages.
For all their talk about how an album needs to be an immersive experience (hints at new format for media, etc), this album has been surprisingly bare on the artwork front. They've not had a good set of album artwork since Pop. Well, ATYCLB has a few gorgeous photos, but they're so few and most of the photos are blurred, so it's still mostly a miss in my mind. Pop was the last album where I really enjoyed sitting down with the book and flipping through it and examining all the pictures and the artwork layout.
In fact, even though the music on SOI album have been really strong, it's probably been my least exciting experience with a new U2 album. Normally I hold out until I have the CD in my hands, and sit and look through each page chronologically along with the songs as they play. But this time, my first experience was with iTunes with the sparse digital booklet with only four or five photos. Then they released pictures of the physical album and I could see there was practically no artwork (less than the free iTunes version to boot). Then the deluxe songs were available on Spotify before my physical CDs arrived in the mail. I had already heard the main album, there wasn't any artwork to be expected in the physical format, so I really had no incentive to wait. I listened to the deluxe songs on Spotify before I got my CDs in the mail. By the time I got the actual CDs, I just opened it to confirm there really was no additional art work, and then stuffed it in my drawer. I've never cared so little about the physical CD before.
I get they probably wanted to keep it simple and pure with this album - make it about the music. But I really hope for the next album they go all out and splatter the album sleeves with artwork like they did in the 90s. Or they better hit a home run with this new album media format they're talking about.
