Pretty soon, I will be buying the Super Deluxe Edition box set of Achtung Baby. But in the meantime, I wanted to see what the iTunes Store (US) offered for the 20th Anniversary of Achtung Baby. I typed achtung baby in the search box and the initial results screen showed some unusual results. There were two digital albums that I don’t know anything about. Here they are:
Album Title: Plays U2 Absolutely Live
25 live tracks; released September 30, 2011; $10.99
on the album image, it says “Tribute Festival”
Album Title: Plays U2 Live 2006
10 live tracks; released October 21, 2011; $6.90
I couldn’t find anymore info (on the iTunes Store) about these two digital albums. For the album titled Plays U2 Absolutely Live, there was one comment, but the comment didn’t have enough info for me to understand what’s up with this digital album.
I listened to some track samples. It doesn't sound like Bono and the music doesn't sound like U2. I guess this is some sort of tribute band. Questions:
1. Why doesn't the iTunes screen explain what these two digital albums are?
2. Does U2 authorize iTunes to sell these two digital albums?
3. Does U2 get any money when either of these two digital albums are purchased?
4. I didn't buy these two digital albums, but I could easily see someone else buying them with the understanding that it's actually U2 playing the music. Bono appears to be crowd surfing on one of the little album images. And even though the other album image says "Tribute Festival", The Edge appears as the dominant image. Having written all that, I could still see iTunes refusing to give refunds to people who felt these were misleading album titles. iTunes might argue that people should have listened to the song samples before making their purchases. What do you folks think?