U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence, is about par for the course with what one should expect a U2 album to sound like in 2014. By all accounts, there really should be nothing controversial about it at all. However, the manner in which the album was released ignited a firestorm of criticism levied both at the band and at Apple. The album was released on September 9th during an Apple event and appeared in all iTunes customers’ libraries and accounts. The album was available to be listened to by all users of iTunes, and could then be “downloaded” to their libraries proper. However, for most customers, the album was still visibly showing in their iTunes libraries even if they never actually downloaded it.
Thinking of this on behalf of U2 and Apple, it was a very shrewd move for Apple to allow literally their entire customer base the ability to listen to the new U2 album, particularly since the prospects of this album doing as well as previous U2 records was very slim. U2 benefits simply from the exposure the move gives them, perhaps affirming their status as the most popular arena band in the world to be able to have the presence to pull off a move like this, and Apple gains exposure for iTunes and the ability to team up with a hugely successful band.
There is a certain presumptuousness to the move, however. Simply put, many did not want a new U2 album. Some music fans, like myself, have a rather extensive, curated iTunes playlist, and the thought of Apple forcibly placing one of their albums in my account is a rather annoying concept. I likely would have listened anyway, as I am a fan of some of U2’s older records, but why make that listen seem almost mandatory? Why not just make the album free to be streamed at one’s leisure in the iTunes Store? I also think the move is rather unnecessary and sort of unfair to less established artists. U2 is not a band that desperately needed everyone to listen to their album. Their tours alone make an absolutely absurd amount of money, to the point that their albums are almost supporting their tours rather than the other way around. There are bands much more desperate to be heard than U2, whose hits are still played on the radio to such an extent that they probably never need to record another note of music again and still make a very healthy living out of just performance royalties. My main problem with the move is that it doesn’t really seem to serve the music itself at all. It only serves U2, the “Biggest Band in the World”. In all of the discussion I have read about their new album, very little of it has been devoted to talking about the music. When Radiohead released In Rainbows, with its pay-what-you-want distribution method, the stunt itself gained plenty of attention, but it all served to emphasize the album itself. With U2, they could have released a whole album of cat sounds, and it wouldn’t have mattered. They were only concerned with making sure everyone who didn’t know who they were recognized their presence. It’s a rather invasive method of distribution, and while I don’t think U2’s intent was necessarily malicious, it is not a model that I think will prove to be successful.
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