U2 single ‘Invisible’ downloaded 3m times – US$3m raised for (RED) charity

4 Feb 2014

U2 members (left to right) Larry Mullen, Jr, Bono, Adam Clayton, and The Edge

Irish rock band U2’s new single Invisible has raised more than US$3m for the (RED) charity in just 36 hours after it was downloaded by more than 3m people worldwide.

Bank of America paid US$1 for every free download to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria.

This came to a total of US$3,138,470, surpassing the original pledge of US$2m.

As a result, Invisible has now been available to purchase on iTunes for US$0.99, with all proceeds going to the Global Fund.

(RED) has already generated more than US$250m for the Global Fund since being founded in 2006 by U2 lead singer Bono and activist Bobby Shriver in order to drive corporate donations toward the fight against AIDS.

The video for Invisible has been directed by Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go, One Hour Photo) and will be made available later this week. A 60-second segment of the video was shown during the Super Bowl broadcast last Sunday, which saw in excess of 1m people download the track in one hour.

Danger Mouse produced the track, which has been mixed by Tom Elmhirst.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com