'U22' - The Ultimate U2360° Setlist

[Carl]

Every day is beautiful in it's own way~

[hmtmkmkm]

What do people want, then? Just give the vote to people who have subscribed for 5 years or more? 10? Every year instead of every 4 years? I voted for some of the rare ones too but if I voted for all classics, my money is just as good as anyone else's who subscribed and you can't tell me my vote is worth less. And considering the debacle that was Duals, and all the complaints that came from subscribers about being treated like rubbish, and we all know there were plenty, plenty, plenty of posts on forums everywhere about how people were pissed, this idea was an excellent one. How do you satisfy everyone? I think some of us are taking what they're giving us for granted.

[George]

What do people want, then? Just give the vote to people who have subscribed for 5 years or more? 10? Every year instead of every 4 years? I voted for some of the rare ones too but if I voted for all classics, my money is just as good as anyone else's who subscribed and you can't tell me my vote is worth less. And considering the debacle that was Duals, and all the complaints that came from subscribers about being treated like rubbish, and we all know there were plenty, plenty, plenty of posts on forums everywhere about how people were pissed, this idea was an excellent one. How do you satisfy everyone? I think some of us are taking what they're giving us for granted.

First, your opinion is valid: you want what you want.

Now to answer your question, what I want is for people to vote smartly, and in my opinion, that means not voting for songs that have been released live many times.  I did a search for "live" in my music library.  Now only including commercial releases, here are the number of times I have each track that will be on U22:

10   One
 9   Beautiful Day
 9   With or Without You
 9   Where The Streets Have No Name
 8   Elevation
 8   Until The End of the World
 7   Mysterious Ways
 7   I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
 7   Bad
 5   City of Blinding Lights
 5   Out of Control
 4   Walk On
 4   Even Better than The Real Thing
 4   The Fly
 3   Magnificent
 3   Stay (Faraway, So Close)
 2   Moment of Surrender
 5/2 All I Want is You/Love Rescue Me
 1   Ultraviolet
 1   One Tree Hill
 1   The Unforgettable Fire
 0   Zooropa

Now as great as some of those top 11 tracks are, I can't fathom why anyone would choose to have some of them for the n^th time when so many rarer tracks were available.  Excluding those only-for-tickets memberships, I have to believe that anyone who is willing to pay $40 per year just to be in the club and get an annual CD and the occasional download would already own multiple live versions of most of the songs.

To me, it's like a Robert DeNiro fan choosing to own a 10^th version of Taxi Driver because the colour of the box is slightly different and the fan just LOVES that film so much, instead of owning some rogue film of his that was never previously available.

I don't get it.

[dagobah]

The post above is excellent.  One of the best forum posts I have ever read.  However . . . . I'm not aware of any commercial audio releases of live versions of Ultraviolet (Light My Way) and Moment Of Surrender.  Did you acquire your live versions by ripping the audio from the 360 Live At The Rose Bowl DVD?

Hopefully, the U2 camp gets some of the feedback concerning how much many of us wanted live versions of the more rare tracks and more live tracks from No Line On The Horizon.  And maybe it will be part of the next subscription renewal.

Concerning the packaging of the U22 release . . . . . based on the image at U2.com . . . . . . it appears it will not be released in a standard plastic 2-CD jewel case . . . . . which would easily fit on my shelf right next to my other U2 CDs.  I hope I'm wrong, though.

[Carl]

a Robert DeNiro fan choosing to own a 10th version of Taxi Driver because the colour of the box is slightly different and the fan just LOVES that film so much

And how many people on this board have 10 copies or more of a single U2 release.

Raise your hands now... 

I'd suggest it's probable casual fans don't care about songs they don't know and just want their favorite songs on a CD to listen to when driving etc.

[hmtmkmkm]

And I certainly agree with everything said before this. I hope my post didn't come off sounding opposed to that because I certainly wanted the rarer ones, too, myself. It's just unfortunate that your point isn't one shared by everyone. Someone had the idea of U2.com releasing the other songs on another fanclub offer another time. Hell, even charging for it. I'd buy it. It would make a nice companion to this one.

[George]

The post above is excellent.  One of the best forum posts I have ever read.  However . . . . I'm not aware of any commercial audio releases of live versions of Ultraviolet (Light My Way) and Moment Of Surrender.  Did you acquire your live versions by ripping the audio from the 360 Live At The Rose Bowl DVD?

Wow, that's quite the compliment.  I'm honoured, especially given how much valuable information I've taken from here.

Regarding my numbers, yes, DVD audio rips are included.  I did not include the same performance of a track to count twice if was released in both formats.  This means that for those tracks that appear on both the Red Rocks video and the Under a Blood Red Sky album, I only count it for one.

Also, when I said commercial, I also meant to include fan club releases, which pretty much makes no difference since all the U2.com releases have mostly duplicated previously released audio from video tracks.

And how many people on this board have 10 copies or more of a single U2 release.

True, Carl, but you did just seem to miss my key part: I said, "instead of owning some rogue film of his that was never previously available."  I don't think most of us would buy a second copy of any album before owning all its singles' b-sides.

Someone had the idea of U2.com releasing the other songs on another fanclub offer another time. Hell, even charging for it. I'd buy it. It would make a nice companion to this one.

Same here.  I think the best decision would to have made a 3CD ultimate setlist, something that had all the staples of the two years of touring, and then a forth CD of rarities.  Yes, I'm dreaming.

[Aaron]

Thus it is entirely Aaron's fault, as he has enlisted untold legions of casual fans to join u2.com so he can snag their extra tickets!

Reality is my cousin bought the membership to get her Moncton tickets and couldn't figure out how to use it. She finally got me to buy them for her in the general on sale.  Ended up behind the stage but had a great time.

She's excited she's getting a live cd of all the hits she saw. She sees it as getting something for he money she spent. She wants all the big songs, and has no clue what "Stingray Guitar" or "Your Blue Room" is. Sure there are many others like her.

And as much as I wanted some rarities I picked some tracks I had before as well. Streets!? Love it and yes I'll take it again. Stay? Another fave and taken from Chicgo which may have been a show I was at so yes please.

[morgan1098]

I understand the frustration about not getting more rare tracks.  U2.com is usually to blame for problems like this, but in this case I think they handled things as fairly and democratically as possible.

The real culprit here is "U2 fans," but how can we direct our frustration at such a huge and ambiguous group?  It's much easier to just say, "Curse you, U2.com!  You've screwed us again!"

It's hard to believe for those of us who collect obsessively, but there really is no mass market live U2 CD in existence, aside from Under a Blood Red Sky.  Everything else is fan club CDs, DVDs, and bootlegs.  And I think there are a ton of folks out there who could genuinely be called "U2 fans" and yet don't own every previous fan club CD, DVD, and bootleg.  For them, U22 is a pretty cool release.

[Carl]

As much as I enjoy playing devil's advocate, I agree that just releasing it as an x-disc set would have been a lot nicer.  Then again if they released all the tracks anyways, it would take away from the voting aspect, which was a pretty cool gesture, even if it turned out poorly.  Maybe have extra discs that could be purchased at a reasonable price to augment/supplement the free voted for one?

I'd consider myself a MUSE fan, I have all their albums and even most of their b-sides. But I don't have every live recording/dvd and I'm sure my choices in a MUSE18 or whatever would annoy some hardcore fans. In the end if it was a song I didn't really care for, I wouldn't care if it was something from Showbiz that never had an official live release... I'd want the songs I'd personally want to listen to.

@george I just found the context amusing. I was thinking of Aaron's 17 copies of the Beautiful Day single when I wrote that.

[Aaron]

Now as great as some of those top 11 tracks are, I can't fathom why anyone would choose to have some of them for the n^th time when so many rarer tracks were available.  Excluding those only-for-tickets memberships, I have to believe that anyone who is willing to pay $40 per year just to be in the club and get an annual CD and the occasional download would already own multiple live versions of most of the songs.

But you can't discount those only-for-ticket memberships.  I have every reason to believe they make up the bulk of memberships.  And u2.com is emailing everyone about this CD - current subscribers and lapsed.  Only current subscribers could vote, but that means anyone taking out a fan club membership from November 2010 onwards likely still had a valid membership when voting started.  That would likely include those who signed up for ticket sales in Australia, Africa, South America, and the newer shows for North America.

That likely includes fans who are interested enough to vote in the vote, and maybe, just maybe some fans who might resubscribe if they think they are getting a kick ass CD.  They know the crazy collectors who have every version of every live DVD and all the old fan club cds are going to resub regardless, they don't need a product to entice us...

How'd it work?

Well I was sitting at the mall last night watching the "mall television" which shows little newsclips about what's going on in the world.  And yes, there on the screen, "U2 releasing unique 2 CD set with all of their hits live, chosen by fans, available only by subscribing to u2.com"  I've seen it reported on Much Music here in Canada.  It seems to be getting more publicity than other releases have...

[santiago2u]

:::... and once again we have an official release with the same ol' songs...

We let the youngest fans with credit card spoiled a big chance to do something interesting. 

:::...I said this back in January 21th 

Today Aaron posted this article on @U2:

"...There was plenty of opportunity to put together a CD that was made up of rarer songs, and to even not include any of the staples on this CD. The fans did not vote that way. Seventy-five percent of the staple songs made available in the poll were chosen for inclusion. Twenty-nine percent of the lesser-played songs in the poll were chosen for inclusion, and 38 percent of the rarities made available in the poll made it to the final track listing. It seems that the fans wanted to hear the same songs we heard each night in concert..."

Of course...Aaron and me must be around the same age.

[Aaron]

I wrote the article back when the track list was first announced.  It started out as part of my OTR column two weeks ago, and then was too big to contain in one spot, so I asked to break it out...

Me personally?  I'd have loved to have the rarities.  But I knew going into this one chances were slim, so I didn't get my hopes up, and i'm happy with some of the stuff coming out of this.

I am going to cross my fingers and hope we get the other 24 tracks as a download.  C'mon U2.com stream the full lenght version. 

[dagobah]

OK, today is March 30, 2012.  It appears we won't be receiving the U22 CD Set in March.  I'm not upset or anything . . . . . I'm just itching to get this 2-CD Set.  If anyone knows any updated info about the mail-out date and is willing to share, please do.  I wonder if we will receive it before the end of April.   

[santiago2u]

:::..and now also April has gone by...