The Story of The Letter U, and the Numeral 2

The year is 1991. U2 is about to release their "Achtung Baby" album. That's when Negativland, known for their hatred of mainstream advertising, release their U2 EP. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem, but they put "U2" in big pink letters on the front, so a lot of people thought it was the new U2 cd and bought it. What they found was something completely different. Negativland had taken copies of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", messed around with it. They covered the music and played it differently in the background, while one of their personas "The Weatherman", recited the lyrics just by talking. Inserted at different points in the song were snippets they grabbed from a radio station of Casey Kasem swearing and talking about how he hates U2.

Needless to say, this is when all the trouble began. Negativland was sued by U2 (polygram), Casey Kasem, and by their own label. Despite this major setback, Negativland continued to put out even more daring music.

Actual copies of this single are extremely hard to find, either on LP or CD. Part of the settlement with (then) Island Records (U2's label) was to have all copies recalled and destroyed.

Ironically, it's said that U2 themselves really didn't have a problem with it--it was the record company that were being the jerks about it.

Of course I have one. It in fact was one of my first experiences with musical piracy--in 1992 we stripped WAV files from the CD and put them out on the Internet somewhere. Somehow, I figured the band wouldn't mind.

If you ever see this in a music store, snap it up. Even if you don't want it, there's someone on eBay who does.