Latest / Jon's WTF Music Moments / Songs of Innocence: The U2 iTunes Invasion

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Songs of Innocence: The U2 iTunes Invasion · Jon's WTF Music Moments

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Welcome to John's WTF Music Moments, the podcast where music
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: gets weird enough that you start to think, wait, did
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: this actually happen? And this story involves one of the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: biggest rock bands on the planet, one of the biggest
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: technology companies on the planet, and a marketing idea so
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: spectacularly misguided that it required a special tool to undo it. Yes,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we're talking about U2. We're talking about Apple. And we're
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: talking about the time Bono and his mates decided that
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  Speaker 1: approximately half a billion people needed to hear their new album,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: whether they wanted to or not. That's right, folks. In
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  Speaker 1: September 2014, U2 gave the world a present. And the
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  Speaker 1: world basically said, thanks, but is there a gift receipt
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  Speaker 1: for this? Now, here's the interesting question, though. Was the
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  Speaker 1: album itself actually any good? Or did U2 manage to
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  Speaker 1: make a perfectly respectable record so bloody irritating that people
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: couldn't stand the sight of it? Because there's a difference
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  Speaker 1: between disliking an album and disliking the way it arrived
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  Speaker 1: in your life. And in this case, the two became
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  Speaker 1: hopelessly entangled. So, pour yourself a pint of Guinness, put
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  Speaker 1: on your favorite music, and make sure your iTunes library
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  Speaker 1: is secure. This is the story of U2' s great digital invasion.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to September 9th, 2014. That's 12
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: years ago, which is crazy to think about. Apple is
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  Speaker 1: holding one of its big product launch events. The iPhone
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: 6 is being unveiled. Tim Cook is on stage. The
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  Speaker 1: tech world is paying attention. Steve Jobs is cracking open
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  Speaker 1: a cold one somewhere in the great beyond. And then,
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  Speaker 1: out come you too. Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry
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  Speaker 1: Mullen Jr. announce their new album, Songs of Innocence. The
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: album is being made available free to more than 500
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  Speaker 1: million iTunes customers across 119 countries. 119 countries. I don't
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  Speaker 1: even know that there are 119 countries in the world.
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  Speaker 1: I thought there were maybe like 75 or 80. I
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  Speaker 1: guess I'm wrong. And here's the kicker. The album appears automatically...
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  Speaker 1: and users' iTunes purchase histories and music libraries. You don't
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  Speaker 1: have to buy it. You don't have to click a
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  Speaker 1: button saying, yes, please, Bono, I'd love some of you too.
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  Speaker 1: It's simply there. Surprise! Now, imagine you're someone who listens
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  Speaker 1: exclusively to death metal or Brazilian bossa nova or obscure
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  Speaker 1: Italian synth pop from the late 1980s. Perhaps you haven't
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  Speaker 1: listened to U2 since With or Without You was played
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  Speaker 1: at a wedding and you decided that was quite enough,
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  Speaker 1: thank you. Doesn't matter. Bono has arrived and he's brought
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  Speaker 1: an album with him. Apple and U2 considered this a
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  Speaker 1: landmark moment in music distribution. And from a technical and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: marketing perspective, it certainly was. But there was one small problem.
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  Speaker 1: Nobody had asked the customers whether they wanted it. It's
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  Speaker 1: the difference between saying, hey, I've made you dinner and
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  Speaker 1: letting yourself into 500 million houses and putting a meatloaf
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  Speaker 1: in everyone's refrigerator. And that brings us to the question
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  Speaker 1: nobody in that room apparently asked. What if people don't
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  Speaker 1: want the damn meatloaf? Now, before we get too carried
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: away with the jokes, let's establish something important, very important,
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  Speaker 1: that I think people tend to forget. U2 was once
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: upon a time the biggest band in the world. I
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: was quite a fan in the 1990s, actually. So up
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: until this point, any U2 album release was a big deal.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And Songs of Innocence wasn't universally panned. In fact, some
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: critics thought it was a pretty good album. The record
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  Speaker 1: was deeply personal for Bono. Drawing on his childhood in Dublin,
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  Speaker 1: his family, the death of his mother, and the music
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: that shaped him as a young man. The band had
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: been working on it for years, and the critical response? Well,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it was a mixed bag. Let's look at the evidence. First,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the good news. The New York Times praised its autobiographical
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: lyrics and its enormous, detailed arena rock sound. Mojo was
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  Speaker 1: even more enthusiastic, calling it U2' s best and most thematically
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  Speaker 1: complete album since 1991's Octoon Baby. So there were critics
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  Speaker 1: who believed U2 had delivered something genuinely worthwhile. And there
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: are some songs worth revisiting. Every Breaking Wave. It's a melodic,
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  Speaker 1: emotionally direct ballad that could easily have found a home
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  Speaker 1: on one of the band's more accessible records. Iris Hold
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  Speaker 1: Me Close is a personal song about Bono's mother. Cedarwood
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  Speaker 1: Road looks back at the street where Bono grew up.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and Sleep Like a Baby Tonight, experiments with atmospheric electronics
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  Speaker 1: that really, really had people going, hmm, this isn't bad,
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  Speaker 1: as opposed to just another charging guitar anthem. So there
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  Speaker 1: was clearly some ambition here. This wasn't a band that
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: had simply wandered into a studio, recorded 11 versions of
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  Speaker 1: Beautiful Day, and then said, oh, let's go home for
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  Speaker 1: a tea. Then we come to the less enthusiastic reviews.
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  Speaker 1: The Guardians' Alex Petridis described the album as listenable, but
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  Speaker 1: not the grand return U2 were evidently hoping for. Pitchfork
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  Speaker 1: was much harsher, giving the record 4.6 out of 10.
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  Speaker 1: The review argued that U2 were imitating the sound of
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  Speaker 1: contemporary bands rather than moving their own music forward. The
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  Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune found the album flat and strangely complacent. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Times offered a fairly blunt assessment. Don't
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  Speaker 1: expect a record as breathtaking as U2 at their best. Ouch.
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  Speaker 1: So where does that leave us? Well, Metacritic's overall score
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  Speaker 1: was 64 out of 100, based on 32 critic reviews.
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  Speaker 1: That's a mixed reception, not a catastrophe. but hardly the
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  Speaker 1: unanimous critical triumph U2 might have wanted. Here's the funny part.
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  Speaker 1: The album wasn't really being treated as the musical equivalent
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  Speaker 1: of a crime against humanity. It was being treated as
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  Speaker 1: a somewhat uneven U2 album. The kind of record that
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  Speaker 1: might earn a few favorable views, generate some debate amongst fans,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually settle into the band's catalog without anybody getting
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  Speaker 1: particularly worked up about it. But U2 had made one
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  Speaker 1: tiny adjustment to the traditional album release process. Yes, they'd
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  Speaker 1: remove the part where people decide whether they want to
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  Speaker 1: hear it. And that, folks, changed everything. Now think about it.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine a restaurant announces that it's giving away free pizzas
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  Speaker 1: People are delighted. There's a line out the door. They
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  Speaker 1: post pictures to Instagram. Everyone loves a bargain. But imagine
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  Speaker 1: the restaurant doesn't announce anything. It simply delivers a pizza
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  Speaker 1: to every house in the country. Some people love pizza.
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  Speaker 1: Some folks are lactose intolerant or they have a gluten
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  Speaker 1: intolerance or whatever the hell that stuff is. Some are vegan.
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  Speaker 1: Some have already cooked their dinner. Some simply don't like
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  Speaker 1: the restaurant. And now... All of them have pizza they
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  Speaker 1: asked for from that restaurant. Suddenly, the pizza isn't the story.
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  Speaker 1: The invasion is the story. That's essentially what happened with
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  Speaker 1: Songs of Innocence. People opened their iTunes libraries and discovered
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  Speaker 1: U2 sitting there. Some were pleased. Others were confused. Some
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  Speaker 1: thought they'd accidentally purchased the album and plenty simply didn't
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  Speaker 1: want it. The band had given away something that was
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  Speaker 1: worth money, but in doing so, it had made the
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  Speaker 1: recipient feel as if a choice had been taken away.
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  Speaker 1: And the irony is that the album's quality was almost
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  Speaker 1: beside the point. If U2 had released the exact same
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  Speaker 1: record through the normal channels, it probably would have received
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  Speaker 1: the usual mixture of reviews, radio play, streaming numbers, and
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  Speaker 1: arguments about whether the band had lost its mojo. But instead,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the conversation became about whether Bono had any right to
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  Speaker 1: decide what belonged in your music library. In the internet,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: it had an opinion. Actually, the internet had about 500
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  Speaker 1: million opinions. The complaints grew loud enough that Apple eventually
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  Speaker 1: created a dedicated tool allowing users to remove songs of
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  Speaker 1: innocence from their iTunes accounts. Think about that for a moment. Apple,
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  Speaker 1: one of the most sophisticated technology companies in the world,
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  Speaker 1: had to build a special escape hatch for you too.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhere in Cupertino, California, an engineer was presumably told, we
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  Speaker 1: have a situation. What sort of situation? People want you
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  Speaker 1: two removed. Removed from what? Their accounts. Ah, can you
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  Speaker 1: fix it? Uh, yeah, give me a minute. Okay, so
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  Speaker 1: I made up that conversation, but you get the idea.
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  Speaker 1: The company that had spent years making technology feel effortless
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  Speaker 1: now had to explain how to get rid of an
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  Speaker 1: album people hadn't requested. And that is the moment when
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  Speaker 1: a promotional campaign becomes a proper WTF music moment. The
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  Speaker 1: giveaway was supposed to be an unprecedented act of generosity.
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  Speaker 1: But instead, it became a cautionary tale about what happens
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  Speaker 1: when a company has access to your digital life and
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  Speaker 1: a rock star decides that access is an invitation. Now,
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  Speaker 1: to be fair, the album's appearance in an iTunes account
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  Speaker 1: didn't mean it had necessarily downloaded onto every single device
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  Speaker 1: or filled everyone's storage. But the distinction didn't change the
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  Speaker 1: basic complaint. People wanted control over their own libraries. And really,
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  Speaker 1: can you blame them? Your music collection, folks, is personal.
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  Speaker 1: It's intimate. It's a reflection of your tastes, your memories,
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  Speaker 1: Your embarrassing teenage years, your wacky college years, and that
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  Speaker 1: one album you bought because you liked the cover and
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  Speaker 1: the artwork. You don't just throw a stranger's record in
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  Speaker 1: there and expect everyone to applaud. But now, now we
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  Speaker 1: arrive to the moment we've all been waiting for, October 2014.
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  Speaker 1: The backlash had been going on for weeks. And Bono
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  Speaker 1: addresses the controversy during a Facebook question and answer session
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  Speaker 1: with U2 fans. A fan named Harriet Madeline Jobson asks
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  Speaker 1: whether the band can please never again release an album
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  Speaker 1: on iTunes that automatically appears in people's playlists. And then
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  Speaker 1: she adds three words that get to the heart of
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  Speaker 1: the whole fiasco. It's really rude. Ouch. Really rude. Not controversial.
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  Speaker 1: Not a little annoying. Not perhaps an imperfect implementation of
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  Speaker 1: a bold new distribution strategy. Not I really wish your
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  Speaker 1: 1997 album Pop was worth the four-year wait. It's really rude. Bono,
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  Speaker 1: he responds. And to his credit, he doesn't simply dismiss
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  Speaker 1: the complaint. Bono apologizes. His opening words are beautiful in
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  Speaker 1: their simplicity. Oops, I'm sorry about that. Oops, there it is.
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  Speaker 1: One of the biggest rock stars in the world apologizing
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  Speaker 1: for a marketing stunt that got completely out of hand.
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  Speaker 1: And Bono doesn't stop there. He explains that he'd had
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  Speaker 1: a beautiful idea, but that the band might have gotten
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  Speaker 1: carried away with itself. And then comes the line that
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  Speaker 1: belongs in the Music Marketing Hall of Fame. Bono says...
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  Speaker 1: A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash
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  Speaker 1: of self-promotion, in deep fear that these songs that we
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  Speaker 1: poured our life into over the last few years mightn't
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  Speaker 1: be heard. Let's appreciate that for a moment. Megalomania, generosity, self-promotion,
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  Speaker 1: fear of being annoyed. That's a pretty remarkable piece of self-analysis.
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  Speaker 1: It also proves practically summarizes the entire story in one sentence.
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  Speaker 1: Bono acknowledges that the band wanted people to hear the music,
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  Speaker 1: that they wanted to cut through the noise, and that
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  Speaker 1: they had perhaps become a little too noisy themselves. He concludes,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of noise out there. I guess we
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  Speaker 1: got a little noisy ourselves to get through it. And
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you know what? To his credit, that's actually a pretty
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  Speaker 1: good line. It's self-aware, it's funny, and it acknowledges the
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  Speaker 1: central problem. The band had mistaken its desire to be
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  Speaker 1: heard for everybody else's desire to listen. Now, I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to be too hard on Bono and the fellas here.
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  Speaker 1: Artists spend years making music, and they want that music
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  Speaker 1: to reach people. That's perfectly understandable. And he did apologize.
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  Speaker 1: But there's something wonderfully ironic about a band that had
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: spent decades making Singing about humanity and connection, having to
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: be reminded that other human beings might not want an
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  Speaker 1: unsolicited album in their music libraries. You could be Bono.
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  Speaker 1: You could sell out stadiums. You could perform for presidents.
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  Speaker 1: But you still need to ask before you put your
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  Speaker 1: record in somebody else's collection. Let's return to the original question.
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  Speaker 1: Were Songs of Innocence actually a bad album? Well, the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: evidence suggests something more interesting than that. It was a
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  Speaker 1: reasonably well-reviewed, sometimes ambitious album from a band whose best
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: work had set extraordinarily high expectations. Some critics admired it.
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  Speaker 1: Others thought it was too polished, too familiar. It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: the Joshua Tree. It wasn't Akutunga Baby. And it certainly
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  Speaker 1: wasn't going to unite every music fan on earth. But
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: it didn't need to. It only needed to be another
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  Speaker 1: U2 album. Instead, the release strategy turned the record into
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  Speaker 1: a referendum on Bono's ego, Apple's power, and the limits
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  Speaker 1: of free stuff. And that may have damaged the album's
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  Speaker 1: reputation more than the music itself deserved. Think about the
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  Speaker 1: people who never listened to it because they were annoyed
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  Speaker 1: by the way it arrived. Think about the people who
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: dismissed it before even hearing a note. Think about the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: fact that 12 years later, we're still talking about how
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the album was distributed rather than what it actually sounded like.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on, folks. When was the last time
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you heard a song off that album? This is not
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: necessarily the kind of achievement a band wants, but it's
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  Speaker 1: an achievement nonetheless. Perhaps the real tragedy of Songs of
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Innocence is that the marketing campaign became so much bigger
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: than the music. A record that might otherwise have been
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: remembered as an uneven but occasionally interesting late-career U2 album
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: instead became shorthand for the dangers of corporate overreach and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: rock star self-importance. And that is a very strange legacy
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  Speaker 1: for an album that was supposed to be a gift.
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  Speaker 1: So here we are, late 2026, and U2 are preparing
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  Speaker 1: to release Carnival de Luz, their first full-length album of
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  Speaker 1: new material in nine years. So this gives us a
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: great opportunity to revisit the great iTunes invasion of 2014. Because,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, the music industry has changed enormously since then.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: We went from buying CDs to downloading MP3s, from downloading
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: MP3s to streaming, and from carefully curating our music libraries
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  Speaker 1: to letting algorithms recommend what we should hear next. but
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: one thing has not changed. People still like to choose
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: their own music. If U2 wants to give away that
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: new album, by all means, go for it. Put it
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: on streaming services. Make it available for free. Give fans
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: a reason to celebrate. Just don't put it in my
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: account without asking. I want to be able to make
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: that decision myself. And if the band has learned anything
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: from Songs of Innocence, Surely it's that generosity works best
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: when the recipient actually wants what you're giving them. Otherwise,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: it's not really a gift. It's an obligation with a
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: nice album cover. Just imagine you're driving home listening to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: your favorite music when suddenly the stereo switches over and
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Bono's voice comes through the speakers. Hello, John. We've got
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: a new album for you. No, Bono. No, we don't.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I've got a music collection of my own in my car.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: And absolutely no interest in turning my car into a
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: U2 listening station. Unless, you know, it's anything up until
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: maybe 2000 or so. That's when they were really good.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So you can keep the album. I don't want it
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: forced on us. And that, my friends, is the story
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: of how U2 and Apple tried to give the world
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a gift and accidentally taught everyone a lesson in unsolicited generosity.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: The album wasn't universally hated. Some critics actually kind of
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: liked it. Others thought it was a perfectly ordinary record
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that fell short of U2' s best work. I think it's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: one of the band's lesser works, but what do I know?
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: It's the marketing stunt. Well, that was something special. The
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: band wanted to cut through the noise. Instead, the band
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: became the noise. So here's my question to you. If
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: U2 offered you their new album for free today, would
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you happily accept it, or would you immediately start looking
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: for the delete button? And here's a second question while
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: we're at it. Have you actually listened to Songs of Innocence?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Was it a decent album that got buried under a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: ridiculous publicity stunt? Or did Bono and company deserve the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: critical kicking? Let me know. And if Bono happens to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: be listening, mate, you're more than welcome to send me
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: a copy. Just ask first. This has been John's WTF
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Music Moments. Until next time, keep listening, keep questioning, and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: for the love of music, keep your iTunes library under
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: your own control. Thank you.