Announced yesterday, a triple vinyl “collectors edition” of Artificial Horizon is available for pre-ordering now through May 14.

The release features the same tracks as the version sent out earlier this month to U2.com subscribers, but in a new format and with new artwork. Buyers will immediately receive a download of the new “Unknown Caller” remix by Snow Patrol upon purchase.

U2.com used a splash page to announce the triple vinyl, sharing some background on the release and as well as Mixmag‘s thoughts on each of the tracks. The page also lists two price options for Artificial Horizon: $35 for U2.com non-members or $30 for new or returning subscribers.

With those details out of the way, I’d just like to repeat that I’m disappointed with this edition of Artificial Horizon. Although I’m not a member of U2.com, I’m still insulted that what was once a Fan Club Only release is now up for sale.

Granted, it’s not the same exact item. (I suspect there would be a major uproar if those who’d bought a $50 U2.com subscription for the bonus remix album ever saw the CD made commercial.) But there’s a certain principle being betrayed here: don’t give away something and then put a slightly different version of it up for sale.

I’m also irked by how mechanized the production of this version is coming across. According to the splash page, “This collectors edition vinyl release of Artificial Horizon will be pressed up on May 14th 2010, the day orders close, and mailed to customers immediately after manufacturing.”

Regardless of whether or not the process ends up running at this level of efficiency, the fact remains that U2.com is promising customers they won’t have to wait for their purchase. And although Artificial Horizon may be “worth the wait,” subscribers already did quite a bit of sitting around anticipating its delivery this past winter.

Let there be no doubt, this is a collectors’ edition: a time-sensitive pressing of a three-record set. Still, although LPs have seen a resurgence in the past few years, I’m sure those thirsty to hear the album-exclusive remixes will head to Blogspot before they even think of buying with Livenation.com — Snow Patrol remix or not.

(And a side note: why three discs? I’m sure it’s a matter of track time and running order, but couldn’t this have been released on one LP?)

If a triple vinyl of U2 remixes is exactly what you’ve been looking for, I mean you no slight. But obviously, this release is just not for me.

(Related: The Making of “Beautiful Day”)

Director Jonas Akerlund (pictured above) is best known to U2 fans for directing “Beautiful Day” and the Rio de Janeiro version of “Walk On.” However, he’s received some considerable press in the past week for his latest work, the music video / short film for Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s “Telephone.”

Although the controversial sequel to “Paparazzi” has garnered him plenty of attention, it may not be his biggest — or even his most controversial. And while popularity and notoriety have been key in achieving “Telephone’s” level of buzz, Akerlund seems to have little interest in either.

“I’m never on an ego trip doing music videos,” he told Wannahaves. “I always try to figure out what I believe that the artist needs for the moment.”

By positioning himself as an enabler, Akerlund has honed his craft with a variety of acts, including Christina Aguilera, Metallica, the Cardigans, Rammstein and Robbie Williams. His breakthroughs came with the videos for Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” and Madonna’s “Ray of Light.” The former was banned in several markets, offering the group a new degree of attention, while the latter received widespread acclaim and a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video.

Given his facilitator philosophy and the diversity of his collaborations, Akerland’s output has incredible range. “It could be anything from between something really emotional or beautiful to something extremely controversial or different,” he said.

He points to the Caridgans’ deliberately post-”Lovefool” video for “My Favourite Game” as an example of his having helped realize the artists’ vision instead of dictating direction.

“That was a work together with [the Cardigans] and them wanting to get out of that old image,” Akerlund said. “I guess I helped them with that, but if I didn’t do it, they would have done it with somebody else or by themselves anyway.”

You can watch both of his U2 collaborations below. A Jonas Akerlund playlist containing most of his videography is also available on YouTube.

Banner image from The Making of Beautiful Day on YouTube.

(Although he might also be hoisting it up none-too-gingerly in the photo above, I can’t be sure if that’s their “Album of the Year” award instead.)

At some point in the intervening time, the 1988 “Best Rock Duo or Group with Vocal” Grammy U2 won for The Joshua Tree came apart. Whether or not Edge’s handling was a factor remains uncertain, but what is known is that the award’s horn broke from the base in two parts.

“I don’t know how it got damaged,” Stuart Allcock, the man who repaired the Grammy, told the Somerset County Gazette. “Apparently it had been left broken in a cupboard for years.”

In late 2009 or early 2010, U2′s management phoned Allcock after googling for “trophy craftsmen” and learning of his business, Alpha Gifts and Awards. (Performing the same search today yields stories about Alpha’s Grammy job.) Direct questioning established that, no, the caller was not Bono, but that the need for repairs was legitimate. Allcock accepted the order and he and his team soon began work on the project.

According to the Telegraph, the restoration took about two weeks and involved welding, gluing and respraying. The damage had been so bad that Allcock said, had it not been a Grammy won by U2, he wouldn’t have paid “more than a fiver” for it upon its arrival in his shop.

“As it stands,” he said, “it’s priceless.”

By chance, Allcock is a longtime U2 fan. He even saw the band in 1987, touring in support of the album that would earn them the Grammy he’d later repair.

Of the process, Allcock recalled, “It was a bit nerve-wracking, especially when I had to give it to someone else to be welded.” He added that he was “pleased with the result.”

Banner image from the U2 Retrospective Photo Gallery at Triple M Brisbane.

This is the first in a weekly series during which the Zooropa Gazette will pick apart a recent event related (obliquely or directly) to U2 and figure out what’s really going on. We’re starting with this piece on Steve Lillywhite, producer of U2′s first three albums and numerous tracks since — among many other projects.

For now better known by the acts he’s produced, Steve Lillywhite is making a name for himself as the passionate heir apparent of the departing Simon Cowell on American Idol. He began a very public campaign for the judging gig last month after a two-minute video stating his case to the show’s producers leaked online.

In the video, he says, “My job is to discover talent. American Idol‘s work is talent.” In other words: I’m your man.

But is he? What can he bring to the show that others can’t? The extensive interview he gave the A.V. Club this week holds a slew of insights into his drive for Cowell’s chair, plus some reflections on nurturing talent, evolving with the music industry and (not) looking back on past work. Needless to say, it’s well worth picking apart.

* * * *

I think I have the credentials. I’ve been pretty successful in the music business for a while, but it’s more my personality that I think I can bring. And also I think I’m a good spotter of talent.

And, as his video told Idol‘s producers, he’s the man who’s been telling Bono what to do for the past 30 years, too.

When X Factor comes out, which has a much broader palette, I think American Idol will have to expand what it’s looking for. As I say, Simon Cowell’s vision of what a star is is very narrow. My version is slightly wider, and I’d try and reflect that in the sort of contestants I would champion for the show.

There’s no doubting that it’s Lillywhite the producer speaking here: he’s recognized the necessary changes ahead and how his collaboration with the show can help bring them about.

This also dovetails nicely with Lillywhite’s belief that complacency is “one of the worst things in the world.” He celebrates artists like David Byrne, whom he sees as “always changing it up and not looking at the charts.” But obviously, Idol is designed to grow and harvest hit-makers, so what does Lillywhite look for in a singer — or hope the audience sees in a contestant?

First off, I’d ask, “Do you want to be in this person’s world?” That’s so important. There’s a couple of contestants this year that, yes, their world looks like an interesting world. I would want to be in their world, and that’s how I would try and mentor them. I would say, “Look, you need to get people interested in you.” You have to fashion your world. You’re a salesman, and for two minutes on stage, you’re selling your vacuum cleaner. You have to make sure your vacuum cleaner is the best fucking vacuum cleaner that you can fashion.

Maybe I’m a bit whimsical, but this sits well with me. Whereas Cowell might grade the performance by dismissing (or crediting) song choice, Lillywhile would seem to cover similar territory then not suggest but ask what direction the singer would like to take next week. (I know I’m projecting a bit here, but I can see this happening.)

And this could be another benefit for Idol. Too often, the five or six days that the singers spend isolated from the spotlight between episodes is obvious in how they hold themselves either during the performances or in the judging segments that follow. Nerves happen, sure. This is a nationally broadcast show. But I like to think that with Lillywhite’s guidance (and with tough-critic Cowell’s absence), the singers might show a bit more confidence in their product, not to mention control over the anxiety that no doubt mounts weekly for them.

And my notions about Lillywhite’s sense for collaboration aren’t unfounded:

When people ask, “What is a record producer?” I always say that it’s a lot like a film director, but not as dictatorial because I’m collaborative. I like to talk to my artists. I like to find out what they want and help them realize their vision. So I will say, “I want it this way,” they will say, “We want it that way,” we’ll knock heads, we’ll talk for hours about the various ways we could do it, about what supports the lyrical content, and at the end of the day we’ll come to a compromise. We’ll find a way of making it work.

Enough said.

I do question, though, how much Lillywhite can help the contestants develop, given the judges’ limited interactions with the singers and each season’s time constraints. He does recognize that the music industry in general isn’t built to foster gradual talent development as is:

Sometimes people aren’t ready yet to sell their big album. The Joshua Tree was U2’s fifth album. They built themselves up to that point. But it’s also a lot cheaper to make records now. If you’re fearless and you go for it and you have a great idea, people will buy it. We have great tools at the moment to make great music. Sometimes people are scared of those tools. They think those tools rule them. You have to rule your tools and you have to do it yourself.

(Twitter user @Peaches66 recently wondered what Bono might think of the NPR article, “Who Needs Labels When You’ve Got ASCAP?” I’m wondering what Lillywhite might think of it.)

Still, his knack for noticing and highlighting talent, I’m sure, would be key on Idol. Lillywhite told the A.V. Club of feeling compelled to produce a band because, despite hearing some awful demos with their manager, he saw their potential live:

So anyway, we went to the gig and if I’d based my opinion on the demos he played me in the car, I never would’ve done the record. But I saw the band live and I got it. I saw something there. I saw a passion in that lead singer. Again, this can tie back to my ability to discover talent at a very early stage, because what I saw in Bono was no different to what he has now. He was just a diamond in the rough and I can find those diamonds still on American Idol.

* * * *

Midway through the interview, Lillywhite discusses his brief tenure as an exec at Columbia, touting his having brought MGMT aboard.

“That’s the sort of artist who doesn’t only make you a profit, but [makes] other people want to sign to you,” he says. “Nirvana signed to Geffen because Sonic Youth were on there. MGMT is that sort of band. They’re a magnet band.”

Although Lillywhite claims anyone he’s worked with will insist he doesn’t have “the ego” other producers do, I’m sure he still realizes that, like MGMT, he’s a magnet himself. Should he become a judge on “Idol,” others will want to sign on — new viewers, sure, but also new talent. And this will be good for everyone involved: after all, new talent is Lillywhite’s raison d‘être.

As of this writing, the producers of American Idol have yet to respond to anything Lillywhite’s put forth — but I don’t take this silence as skepticism. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re waiting for the positive vibes surrounding his campaign to reach a fever pitch. That way, they could offer him the job with the reassurance that America has voted…

Banner image from “More Cowbell” at maxwax.

To second Miss Vox over at Scatter O’ Light, I think he can handle it.

For the occasion, atu2 have listed a full 50 things to love about Adam. I’d like to add another — or, at least, elaborate on one — for good luck.

At number 17, we have: “He lived in the building where The Joshua Tree was recorded.” Not just any building, though, Danesmoate House is a mansion — and in 1986, after having recording portions of The Unforgettable Fire in the spacious Slane Castle a few years earlier, U2 no doubt found it a familiar, motivating atmosphere.

Danesmoate was even more than that for Adam, who had, for a time, attended St. Columbia’s, the boarding school just downhill from the mansion. Given the boot for his poor grades, he started at Mount Temple and met Bono, Edge and Larry. (As with his hangover-induced absence from a 1993 show that helped him recognize a need for sobriety, this is a “failure” that eventually worked out in his favor.)

He did return to St. Columbia’s at least once, smuggling himself and Bono over the school walls to visit a few of his old friends. The administration was none too pleased. I’ll let Bill Flanagan (U2: At the End of the World) take it from here:

The headmaster found out about Adam’s nocturnal reappearance and sent to his parents a polite but subtly threatening letter, which now sits framed above the toilet in Adam’s mansion, the mansion that looks down on St. Columba’s and whose walks and garden abut the school property and that stands as a glorious middle finger to the faculty that expelled him and a stirring example to all the kids stuck there of at least one alternative to the perpetuation of the British class system that the school by its policies espouses.

Although this does smack a bit of arrogance, Adam is “actually a really down-to-earth, homey guy,” according to his brother, Sebastian.  “He loves rock & roll and living the whole rock star thing,” he tells Flanagan, “but then again he likes planting an oak tree by himself on a sunny Sunday morning.”

Adam is more than just a little enigmatic, even when he has nothing to hide (see above). As a part of U2, he can’t help the spotlight, but instead of shying away or lunging at it, Adam just inhabits his space to the Larry’s left. Much the same sentiment goes for his playing: it offers few frills, just loads of foundation. And without Adam coming in at his own angle (and key), songs like “Mysterious Ways” and “Please” just wouldn’t be the same.

Going into this post, I felt that Adam was overdue for a starring role in one of the band’s videos. Edge had “Numb,” Bono had “Sweetest Thing” five years later, and Larry had “Electrical Storm” in another four. My math suggested “City of Blinding Lights” should have been all Adam.

But then I realized I’d been looking at it the wrong way: instead of three years after the “Electrical Storm,” how about six before “Numb?”

For “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” Bono broke out of his “With or Without You” dourness, Edge played his straight man and Larry agreed to mime the chorus. But I’d argue that Adam upstaged even his car-climbing frontman by botching his lip syncing, laughing it off then hailing a cab and ducking out of the shoot altogether.

Could be that he thought wandering Vegas for however long that video took was a bit like keeping music and politics apart? Regardless: Happy Birthday, Adam.

Recommended Reading: This Much I Know: Adam Clayton

Banner image from U2 Discotheque HD, care of Dutch MacPhisto.

“U2 1987 Madrid Candid Photograph” is among the 10 items that went without bidders in former U2 stylist Lola Cashman’s auction of band memorabilia. The tour itineraries pictured above, however, make up one of the six lots that sold for a combined total of just over $11,000 yesterday.

While that’s no small figure, the Evening Herald reports that the projected draw had been around €40,000, or about $55,000.

The top earners include one of Bono’s rosary necklaces ($6336) and a polaroid of the singer that had been signed by the photographer ($1800). A set list U2 had used for a 1987 concert was the most fought over lot, going for $1548 after four bidders. (You can view all the offerings at GottaHaveRockAndRoll.com.)

So what killed the auction? Was it the bad buzz that hovered over Cashman and her memorabilia after some very public legal wrangling with U2 over the items’ ownership? Inflated minimum bid prices? Maybe a lack of interest in these particular lots? There was no lack of interest elsewhere in the site’s Rock and Roll Auction: a few Elvis and Michael Jackson items earned tens of thousands.

Whatever the cause, after nearly a decade since Cashman first tried selling off these and other goods, her long-awaited auction has yielded underwhelming results.

Banner image from Joshua Tree Tour Itinerary Books at GottaHaveRockAndRoll.com

There been no word as to whether or not Mysterio will appear in the ever-upcoming Broadway show, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. However, confirmation came yesterday that the cast won’t include Evan Rachel Wood.

Producers acknowledged in a statement that the actress, who had been cast as Mary Jane Watson last year, had left due to a scheduling conflict. As Variety reports, re-casting is already underway.

Wood’s departure doesn’t strike me as all that surprising. Yes, the production has big names (Bono and Edge, Julie Taymor, Alan Cumming and until recently Wood) and a big budget ($50M+). But then there’s the big budget issues, the numerous delays and the big names’ potential success in non-Spidey fields. It was only so long before the show would become less an opportunity and more an entanglement for one of the leads.

Although no small setback, I doubt this will herald the end for the musical. All the money going into this project would seem to ensure the show will go on somehow. But more than that, there’s still a ton of talent involved. Whether it’s “realizing her creative vision” or more humbly “putting on a good show,” director Taymor has earned her superlatives. Plus, the capped and begoggled songwriters adopted a “no singing in tights” rule very early on.

As for how new-for-the-musical villain Swiss Miss will fare — or, for that matter, how Taymor will escape lawsuits from a certain cocoa corp? Hard to say. But if quality content can redeem a title as head-scratching as “No Line on the Horizon,” I’m sure the same can happen for Swiss Miss.

Banner image from Peter Parker Takes Texas! at Theatre Under The Stars.