Other nominees included Green Day’s “21st Century Breakdown”, Lady GaGa’s “The Fame”, and “Humbug” by Arctic Monkeys. At least U2 weren’t nominated for “Worst Band”, which the Jonas Brothers also took home.
It’s funny to see records like “No Line”, “21st Century Breakdown”, and “The Fame” receive some positive recognition for their content (all three were Grammy nominated, with Green Day and GaGa’s records taking home wins), and then they get nominated for “Worst Album”! But clearly, they weren’t as bad as the Jonas Brothers! Do you agree?
U2 Earns a Whopping $108M
So 
U2TOURFANS FILE PHOTO 2009 If money makes the world go round, then U2’s latest tour, which is dubbed “360 Degrees,” proves this saying true.
The veteran act leads Billboard’s 2010 Money Makers list, earning more than $108 million in 2009.
Bruce Springsteen is second with $57 million and Madonna follows with $47 million. AC/DC and Britney Spears round out the top 5 with $43 and $38 million, respectively.
Just in case if you wanted to know how BillBoard determains the leaders of the money train, here is what they had to say.
Billboard compiles the list from monies earned through tours, CD and digital sales, publishing royalties and more. In compiling these rankings, the editors used proprietary data from the Billboard Boxscore archives (concert grosses), Nielsen SoundScan (sales of physical albums, digital albums and digital tracks), Nielsen BDS (tethered downloads, on-demand streams and noninteractive streaming at Rhapsody, Napster, AOL and Yahoo) and Nielsen RingScan (master ringtone sales), and then applied the corresponding mechanical rates and estimates where necessary for each category to determine the industry’s top-earning artists.
The ranking covers the one-year period from the first week of 2009 (which ended Jan. 4) through the last tracking week of the calendar year ended Jan. 3. It combines an artist’s estimated take from those products with box-office results from concert performances that took place during the calendar year.
U2TOURFANS U2 File Photo 2009 Sales data tallies all available titles for each artist during the tracking period. Artists receive 100% credit for sales of a title if credited as the lead artist or as an equally billed lead artist.
In calculating an artist’s share of revenue from recorded-music sales, Billboard used a royalty rate of 20% for superstars and 16% for newer artists, minus producer fees and the usual packaging and free-goods deductions for CDs.
An artist’s take of revenue from on-demand streams was calculated based on the average wholesale rate paid to labels, while revenue from non-interactive streams was based on SoundExchange’s rate settlement with webcasters. An artist’s share of revenue from tethered downloads was calculated on an average-per-download basis. In instances when the artist is a songwriter, Billboard estimated the share of songs written by the artist.
Our figures do not include revenue from merchandise sales, sponsorships, synchronization deals and songwriter performance royalties. The data used in this report was compiled and calculated by Billboard Research manager Gordon Murray, senior Billboard correspondent Ed Christman, Nielsen Music special projects manager Deborah Schwartz and Boxscore chart manager Bob Allen.
U2's Weekly Wrapup
U2TOURFANS Looking for Followers !
U2 weekly wrap up starts now this has been an interesting week. Take a look at the stories you followed. We have our guest writter program kicking off again, as well as a feature writer, if you would like to be a guest writer let us know. Oh before we forget. Remember we asked for your best U2TOURFANS photo. Its not too late to get in on this. Send it to us via Facebook.
U2’s Bono makes diva demands
“He wanted Perrier, which they didn’t have, so a waiter actually ran across the street to a store and bought him a bottle,” says a patron at the next table.
That wasn’t all. Bono needed his food prepared specially. “He demanded that his salad be chopped,” says the spy. “And he made sure it was when it arrived.”
U2 fans stayed out of the Fray
U2 Guitarist’s Plans Don’t Find Green
U2’s The Edge
MALIBU, Calif. — The house that the U2 guitarist longs to build here would have a copper roof, fashioned to resemble fluttering leaves. Boulders that dot the property would be left in place and assigned charming names like Dinosaur Vertebrae and Cistern. The dirt dug up to build would be reused, when possible.
U2 Producer Steve Lillywhite
OneRepublic to open for U2 in Munich
Remember Dallas ?
OneRepublic to open for U2 in Munich
- Lenny Kravitz:
- The Fray:
- Interpol:
- OneRepublic
Translated from: Ebenfalls am 05. März erscheint die Deluxe Version des Albums „Waking Up“ inklusive sechs bisher unveröffentlichten Bonustracks. Aber es warten noch weitere Highlights auf die deutschen Fans von OneRepublic: Ab dem 24. April ist die Band auf großer Deutschland-Tour und wird außerdem – wie soeben bestätigt – am 15. September als Support von U2 in München dabei sein!
U2 at Bonnaroo ?
And while this may have been well-wishing at the beginning, it sounds like it may not be well-wishing after all.
According to Alex Young, CEO of online music publication Consequence of Sound, Bonnaroo officials have not ruled the band out, an about face from 2008’s ‘Roo when promoters came out of the wood work to kill Led Zeppelin rumors.
While the U2 buzz may not have reached Zeppelin heights it still proves that the ‘Roo promoters are not afraid of squashing rumors.
Young states: “U2 feels more and more like Springsteen last year — it was hard to imagine, but in the back of our minds, we knew it was going to happen.
U2 is certainly capable of hitting Manchester even despite the fact they’ll be in the west coast. Bruce & Co. flew from Europe last year. I do not have any specific word of them being confirmed yet, but I have not got one blatant “no” from the people I’ve talked to.”
Big Questions: Is U2 starting a ‘festival trend’ in 2010, and will Bono show up at the Bonnaroo Festival?
Threre’s one problem with this rumor. U2 are locked into an exclusive agreement with Live Nation to promote their concert performances until 2020. They can play glastonbury because Live Nation co-owns the festival.
Bonnaroo is owned by AC Entertainment, thus making it impossible for them to play there. Maybe, yet it seems the buzz has gotten louder.
Rumors are not yet facts until the contract has been signed. We will keep you updated - Let us know what you think - Do you want to see U2 at Bonnaroo ?
U2 Producer Wants Next American Idol Judge
He tells Idol Tracker:
I love the show … So I’d like to make it a bit more interesting. I don’t base my opinion on whether someone can sing in tune or not. And there’s the question of could you find the next Bob Dylan or Neil Young on “American Idol”? It’s a weak point in the show, and if there was anyone with those sorts of talents, I would be able to recognize it.
Also, when asked what best qualifies him for the job:
Possibly my work with Rob Thomas and Matchbox Twenty, they had great pop sensibilities. Certainly Bono is one of the greatest singers and any record I’ve made with U2 is pop music. Jared Leto is another great star who’s a pop singer.
We appreciate both Lillywhite’s verve in publicly campaigning and his seemingly genuine appreciation of Jared Leto’s singing voice, but is he really up to the task? (Cowell, for one, wonders if he’s handsome enough.) Either way, we’re going to go ahead and support this, because maybe without Lillywhite around U2 will stop making albums?
Read more: U2 Producer Steve Lillywhite Wants to Be Your Next American Idol Judge — Vulture http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/02/u2_producer_steve_lillywhite_w.html#ixzz0gMLz0Qrf
The Edge Fights for California Project
U2 guitarist The Edge publically defended his 156-acre development on the California coastline this week, denying charges his plans will be an environmental disaster.
 The Edge |
“We just had this dream of building a house that was in perfect harmony with these hills,” Edge told the New York Times. “We see it as something that could be a bench mark of sustainability.”
Unfortunately for the legendary guitar hero and Bono sidekick, many of his neighbors in Malibu see theproject as a bench mark for destroying habitats and view corridors.
Edge’s plan calls for five homes ranging from 7,317 square feet to 12,004 square feet, including a 1,600-foot long road snaking up the hillside. Neighbors and conservationists are irritated by several aspects of the project, but the idea of the 20-foot wide road draws special criticism.
“What is so silly is they say it is so green,” Paul Edelman, the chief of planning and natural resources for a neighboring nature conservancy, told the NYT. “But every time you drive up there, any savings you would have are shot by fossil fuel.”
The struggle over the plan has gone on for two years. “For somebody so revered even to be orchestrating this type of development in such a sensitive area is hypocritical,” Malibu councilman Jefferson Wagner told the Los Angeles Times last year.
Pristine hillside land is rare on the California coast, and construction is strictly controlled and always hotly debated. Any new development faces a lengthy, vitriolic battle.
To his credit, Edge—which the NYT calls the “nom de guitar” for David Evans—seems typically relaxed about the whole experience. While some celebrities run from such controversies, he’s occasionally granted interviews and personally engaged his neighbors.
When people see the actual plans, “they completely mellow out,” he assured the Times. Edge and his wife, Morleigh Steinberg, bought the property in 2006 with Irish developer Derek Quinlan, paying $9 million for the five lots, the Times reports. He’s “maintained a residence” in Malibu for decades, he told one interviewer.
Far from raping the landscape, the houses will be shining examples of green building, he says, with special consideration to preserving the fauna and reusing dirt. He told the New York Times the criticism is “overblown,” and noted that Malibu already has its share of ugly hillside development.
“There is this myth about how this road is going to be an eyesore, but it is so much better than anything up here,” he told the Times.
The plans are scheduled to go before California’s notoriously mercurial Coastal Commission this summer.