When Apple released the iTunes Store to the public in 2003, everything about the way music was consumed rapidly changed. A digital space where one could discover and purchase any song they wanted, the iTunes Store made it almost too easy to not serve as the primary method for music consumption. The digital shop launched with 200,000 songs, all affordably priced at 99 cents. It revolutionized the music industry itself, popularizing the sale of singles and directly impacting an artists’ album format. Soon, Apple iPods became the new Sony Walkman, and building out your iTunes library began to slowly phase out the significance of physical media.
Though it had a long run, iTunes has, of course evolved over the years, now being absorbed by streaming’s leading platform, Apple Music. But though Apple announced it would discontinue iTunes on macOS back in 2019, it’s worth reminiscing on what pop culture staples shaped the ecosystem of iTunes reign. Most significantly, acknowledging the fact that U2’s “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” was the top-selling song on iTunes on its first day of sales, which was April 28, 2003. Here’s a deep dive into U2’s impact in the early 2000s and how they managed to land iTunes best-selling song of their launch.
U2’s Reign in the Early 2000s
Back in the early 2000s, it was a near impossible feat to escape U2. Though they were already a few decades into their incredibly successful career, they somehow managed to maintain relevancy as one of the most influential bands in the world. The Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1976, reinventing themselves with every era they moved through. Led by Bono and accompanied by The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., U2’s catalog was larger than life and always in search of deeper meaning. Bono often sung tales that journeyed through spiritual imagery and sociopolitical themes, which aligned deeply with the band’s affinity with charity work and activism. The involved themselves heavily in public action surrounding debt relief for developing countries, HIV/AIDS epidemic awareness, and global poverty. Still, their roles as involved humanitarians never overshadowed the music. Their charting albums and 2002 Super Bowl halftime show all deepened their massive legacy.
U2’s Bono Revealed the Shocking Reason the Band Almost Broke Up Multiple Times
Rock band U2 almost disbanded several times.
“Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” in particular, is one of U2’s most personal and emotionally-charged tracks, as Bono wrote the song as a method of processing grief. The lyrics serve as an imagined conversation with his close friend Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of INXS, who died by suicide in 1997. Touching the many listeners who found their own pain mirrored in the vulnerability of the track as Bono tries to shake his loved one out of despair, this was the very song to make iTunes history.
U2 and iTunes
While Beck‘s Sea Change served as the top-selling album on iTunes launch day, and “Hey Ya” by OutKast served as the top-selling song of the entire first year, it was U2’s “Stuck in a Moment” that held firm as the top-selling song on launch day, April 28, 2003. While over a million songs were sold in the first week, U2 found itself ingrained in the DNA of iTunes’ early goings. Though they had already accumulated immense success, thriving on digital platforms proved that their legacy withstood the competitive music landscape that was rapidly skewing younger and more tech-driven.
And that’s not all: the top-selling song of 2004 was “Vertigo” by U2, and the top-selling album of 2004 was How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb by U2. This led to a longtime professional partnership between Apple and U2, though not every joint venture was deemed successful. In 2014, over 500 million iTunes accounts automatically downloaded the entirety of U2’s album Songs of Innocence, which was met with widespread backlash. Though it was a risky promotional stunt that ultimately intended to be a free gift to users and a way to get U2’s new project across the masses, the public found the unsolicited download to be intrusive.
Nonetheless, even accounting for the less successful blips, U2 will forever be cemented as a part of iTunes’ success and rich history. They helped give color to the iTunes that would soon serve as a staple in every music lover’s daily routine.
