• U2's Frontman Bono Apologizes for 'Songs of Innocence' Automatic Download

    by
    Akshay Masand
    Published on 2014-10-15 07:00 PM
    8 Comments Comments


    Popular rock band U2 recently made a video and answered questions fans were asking via Facebook. One of the questions the band members read out loud was in regards to their album ‘Songs of Innocence’ being automatically downloaded to customer’s iTunes account. U2’s frontman Bono apologized about the matter, take a look at what he said:

    Oops. Um. I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves.

    Artists are prone to that kind of thing. Drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard. There's a lot of noise out there. I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it.
    Apple offered the band’s new album at the end of their September 9th event, but received much criticism over the matter because customers who did not want the album had no way of deleting it. Customers were very upset because Apple added the album into their accounts without receiving any consent in doing so first. Due to all the criticism, the Cupertino company went ahead and released a Web tool for those that wanted to delete the album.

    Although there was a bit of backlash on Apple’s end, 26 million users downloaded ‘Songs of Innocence’ and 81 million “experienced” the album on iTunes Radio, Beats Music, and iTunes. Apple reportedly spent $100 million on a worldwide campaign to receive the download and partner with U2. See the whole Facebook session below and jump ahead to 2:22 to see the apology.

    <div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>
    <div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153458076501686" data-width="466"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153458076501686">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/u2">U2</a>.</div></div>

    Source: Facebook (via U2)
    This article was originally published in forum thread: U2's Frontman Bono Apologizes for 'Songs of Innocence' Automatic Download started by Akshay Masand View original post
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    Comments 8 Comments
    1. Ambi_Valence's Avatar
      Ambi_Valence - 2014-10-15, 07:19 PM
      49.5% of megalomania, 1% of generosity, 49.5% of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard.

      Thats what he meant.
    1. bigboyz's Avatar
      bigboyz - 2014-10-15, 07:28 PM
      Lets be honest, nobody even knew these guys were still a band. Now we know.
    1. feidhlim1986's Avatar
      feidhlim1986 - 2014-10-15, 07:59 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by bigboyz View Post
      Lets be honest, nobody even knew these guys were still a band. Now we know.
      Don't be so stupid.
    1. nudge2232's Avatar
      nudge2232 - 2014-10-15, 08:13 PM
      U2 haven't been any good since "With or Without You'.
    1. bry2k2's Avatar
      bry2k2 - 2014-10-15, 11:59 PM
      Blame Apple, its their hardware, they put the music on it. Why are you blaming the artists when they did not actually themselves force Apple to do what they did. Apple simply did it for publicity and it back fired as per usual.
    1. br8thw8's Avatar
      br8thw8 - 2014-10-16, 08:10 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by bry2k2 View Post
      Blame Apple, its their hardware, they put the music on it. Why are you blaming the artists when they did not actually themselves force Apple to do what they did. Apple simply did it for publicity and it back fired as per usual.
      Yeah, it back fired alright - they lost so many in sales of the iPhone 6/6 plus...
    1. NewD's Avatar
      NewD - 2014-10-16, 03:09 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by br8thw8 View Post
      Yeah, it back fired alright - they lost so many in sales of the iPhone 6/6 plus...
      Surely you're not implying that the success of the 6/6+ had anything to do with that silly U2 CD.. R u? I have nothing against U2 by the way. Could take them or leave them musically .. But Apple didn't need any stunts to sell their phones .. Their phones sell themselves.

      Quote Originally Posted by Ambi_Valence View Post
      49.5% of megalomania, 1% of generosity, 49.5% of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard.

      Thats what he meant.
      Just be careful.. There's no band in the history of modern music that's done more charity. U2 has single-handedly over the last 15 years funneled more into world hunger and African malaria and AIDS relief than other relief organizations combined. Get educated and wise up before making such capricious comments - even in jest.
    1. pulsecub's Avatar
      pulsecub - 2014-10-18, 05:01 AM
      As someone who didn't get the download automatically (yes, it didn't work as it was supposed to for me) and who had to contact tech support to get it downloaded, maybe the takeaway -- and lesson for Apple -- on this is if you're (Apple) going to offer an artist's album free (after paying for it yourself), maybe you should just let people who want to download it from iTunes (after publicizing the hell out of its free-ness) do so by leaving the Purchase button in iTunes as is and just not billing for its download.

      Chances are you'll still get as many downloads, and thus the distribution you want, without all the bad karma...

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