How to embrace an economic time bomb

Can U2 adapt to the new rules of the music biz?

All eyes will be on U2 in 2008 as the Irish veterans return to the fray with their 12th studio album.

There have been wholesale changes in the music industry landscape since the band's last album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was released in 2004.

You can be sure that the band have followed with interest such recent developments as Prince giving away his most recent album for free with the Mail on Sunday, Radiohead asking fans to set the price for In Rainbows (with the band setting premium ticket prices for their tour to make up for the shortfall) and the shrinking volume of CD sales.

Over the years, U2 have developed a reputation for shrewd music business dealings. In 1985, for example, they took a stake in their then label Island in return for waiving unpaid royalties. Four years later, that stake turned out to be worth $30 million when Island was taken over by Philips.

As manager Paul McGuinness explained in a 2006 interview, after their 30-year career, the band members "know as much about the business as most record executives and most concert promoters and most recording engineers and even most T-shirt distributors".

It will be interesting to see how the band use such knowledge when it comes to releasing and promoting their next album.

As U2 are still signed to one of Universal Music's many offshoots, it's highly unlikely that they will be able to adopt the same approach as Radiohead and give away the new album for free.

They probably could, however, copy Bruce Springsteen, who gave away Radio Nowhere as a free download with a number of newspapers, including this one, to plug the release of his Magic album.

Another tour is definitely on the cards as this is where U2 have always managed to trouser large amounts of cash. The Vertigo tour to plug the last album was the second most lucrative tour of all time, racking up to $389 million (€270 million) in ticket receipts plus other large sums in merchandise sales.

All the band have to do now is to make sure that their new album is actually worth listening to in the first place.

Ticket Gig of the Week

Although her new image - some would say character - resembles a stern Victorian governess awaiting her silhouette portrait, PJ Harvey can still make an invigorating racket. Matching the abrasive heft of her guitar-heavy back catalogue with the eerie pastoralism and piano of her haunting new album, White Chalk, Harvey's solo show at the Olympia on Wednesday combined raw vulnerability and fierce independence. Tracing the full sweep of her career, gamely responding to every heckle and only once suggesting her audience lynch a journalist, this was a gripping display from a formidable talent. Peter Crawley .

New line-up of new year gigs

The Christmas season may be the nadir when it comes to quality live music but you can't say the same about the beginning of 2008.

Once the quietest months of the year, January and February were already bursting at the seams with must-see gigs before these latest additions were added to the mix.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, creators of Thou Shalt Always Kill, are one of the first off the blocks, playing Dublin's Crawdaddy on January 18th.

One of 2008's most intriguing prospects, Southend's These New Puritans, hit the same venue on February 20th.

New York singer-songwriter (and holder of a recent Ticket CD of the Week accolade) Jaymay plays upstairs at Whelan's in Dublin on February 11th.

And if you have just got a 2008 diary full of blank pages, you can put "The Breeders live in Vicar Street" on the space reserved for April 7th.

Drum roll for a blog poll

Stuck for a last-minute present for The Ticket reader in your life? Check out blogger Nialler9's Irish Albums of the Year Top 20 poll and get buying.

While there are problems of accountability with any public poll, it's a good indicator of those Irish albums worth checking out from the year nearly gone by.

Super Extra Bonus Party topped the poll which also featured high placings for Cathy Davey, Delorentos, Mumblin' Deaf Ro and Dry County.

Check out www. nialler9.com to see the full poll.

Mix and earn

Mixaloo may be the 33,078th new music business model which On The Record has heard about in 2007, but it's one which may make you, the music fan, some cash. Users browse Mixaloo's catalogue of three million tracks to create a digital mix-tape which visitors can then check out and even purchase.

When a sale goes through, the person who put the mix together gets half the profit from each sale (between eight and 20 cents per track). www. mixaloo.com