Bono Apologizes For 2014 iTunes Album Dump
via Raised On Radio / Youtube
Bono apologizes for the 2014 iTunes album dump, and calls it ‘overreach.’
500 million iTunes users automatically downloaded to their iTunes account U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence, upon its release on September 9, 2014. The band thought it was a genius idea, but making it available to be downloaded for free becomes a disaster.
They were misfired and U2 was accused of a marketing ploy. After that incident, U2 wasn’t able to recover from it that instant. Just recently, The Guardian published a few excerpts from Bono‘s forthcoming memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, in which the disastrous iTunes situation was discussed by the frontman. Bono wrote:
“You might call it vaunting ambition. Or vaulting. Critics might accuse me of overreach. It is.”
As per Bono, the idea was hatched a decade after their initial meeting with Apple founder, Steve Jobs, in 2004. It was when the band offered their song “Vertigo” for an iPod commercial, but Jobs refused U2’s request to be paid in company stock.
When the band met again with Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2014 to discuss a new idea, which is to give its brand-new album for free, the CEO refused the idea. Instead, he suggested:
“I think you pay us for it, and then you give it away free, as a gift to people. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? … I mean, it’s their choice whether they want to listen to it.”
