You’d think that by the way people reacted, Apple forced iPhones users to listen to 60-minutes of their parents having sex. Instead, the company treated customers to U2’s new album, “Songs of Innocence,” as a free gift, and CEO Tim Cook, who looks a little like Mr. Dewey from Saved by the Bell, got to awkwardly high five Bono for this wonderful idea. The only problem was that a lot of people were really pissed that they received a free album, so much that they complained like crazy across every corner of the Internet, despite the fact that it’s a pretty good album.
Tyler the Creator likened it to “waking up with herpes,” for which I’d dare him to try both and then report back on his findings, while Apple quickly reacted by explaining that people could simply delete it, and when people still complained, Apple showed everyone exactly how to remove it. So what did the band think about all of this negative feedback (presumably while each member counted his cut of $100 million)? Bono, the Edge, Larry and, um, the other guy took to Facebook yesterday to answer real fan questions in a video that clocked in at just under six minutes, and Harriet Madeline Jobson asked the following:
Can you please never release an album on iTunes that automatically downloads to peoples playlists ever again? It’s really rude.
First, congrats to Harriet for having a chance to ask one of the biggest bands in the world a question and wasting it on this. I sincerely hope she’s not first in line when we get to ask the super computer the ultimate question, otherwise it might be 42 all over again. Anyway, Bono’s response:
Oops. I’m sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea, but I kind of got carried away with it. Artists are prone to that kind of thing. A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion, and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years might’n be heard. There’s a lot of noise out there, I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it.
A simple “CHA-CHING!” would have done it.
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