News

U2 caught in cover non-controversy

11:18 a.m. · January 19, 2009 · by Andrew Winistorfer

There's been some rumblings on the net in the last 12 hours about how the cover for the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon, looks like it was cribbed from a 2006 album by sound artists Richard Chartier and Taylor Deupree. Deupree is pretty pissed--he wrote this blog post trying to make sure everyone knows he used the cover first (both covers use a photograph from Hiroshi Sugimoto).

All of this is reeking of a non-starting controversy, with the lesser known artist drumming up page hits by getting angry at use of a picture that doesn't belong to them in the first place. It's not like Deupree himself did the picture--he just had the idea to use it on a cover first. And it's not like U2 took the same picture that appeared on a Nickelback album--they took the same picture that appeared on an obscure noise-act's album.

This whole thing is lamer than the "Did Ola Podria steal a cover from Interpol, or did Interpol steal a cover from Ola Podria?" fight that happened in 2007. [Pitchfork]