CUPERTINO, CA (Hypebot) – More details are starting to emerge regarding the new digital music format that U2 is working on with Apple. The project which Bono says would assure that songwriters and artists get paid for creating music is about 18 months away from launch. "I think it’s going to get very exciting for the music business," Bono tells Time, "[it's] an audiovisual interactive format for music that can’t be pirated and will bring back album artwork in the most powerful way, where you can play with the lyrics and get behind the songs when you’re sitting on the subway with your iPad or on these big flat screens. You can see photography like you’ve never seen it before."
Time's Catherine Mayer spent the last week with the band, including travelling to Cupertino for their Apple album giveaway and performance. But, as she learned, that's just the start of what U2 and Apple have planned.
U2 makes millions from live performances. But that's not true for all artists, particularly those just starting out. Bono told Time:
“Songwriters aren’t touring people.
Cole Porter wouldn’t have sold T-shirts. Cole Porter wasn’t coming to a stadium near you."
More details were scarce, but Bono told Mayer that the band hopes their new digital music format "will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music – whole albums as well as individual tracks."
