Bono Defends Apple’s Giveaway of U2 Album ‘Songs of Innocence’

U2 lead singer Bono has defended Apple’s giveaway of their album “Songs of Innocence.” The Irish rock band has been getting flak over the free release of its new album on iTunes, but the singer reasoned out that the band’s job is to “stir things up a little bit.”

At the unveiling of the new iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iOS8, Apple Pay and the Apple Watch earlier in September, Apple boss Tim Cook and U2 announced that “Songs of Innocence” would be given away to iTunes users.

However, the move, which reportedly cost Apple U$100 million [$112 million], wasn’t well received by its 500 million users. Some users have complained that the album was automatically downloaded onto their Apple devices without their permission.

Bono appeared on Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 2 show on Thursday to explain the Apple giveaway of their album, saying that it’s not exactly a bad thing that some people are not reacting positively.

“That’s always been the way. It was the same on our first album. That was kind of why you got into a band, to stir things up and annoy people,” he told the presenter. “That’s the whole punk rock thing... the only thing that could have gone wrong would have been being ignored.”

With 38 million people listening to their album in the last week, it’s a winning situation for the band.

“If you’re a songwriter, if you’re in a band, that’s all you can ask for. Whether they take them to their heart is something else.”

As for people wanting to delete their album from their Apple devices, Bono answered, “Oh for God’s sakes... Really and truly – we get people who might want to delete it but nobody has deleted more U2 songs in the last five years than U2!”

Apple recently released a one-click removal tool that can delete U2’s album.

“Some customers asked for the ability to delete ‘Songs of Innocence’ from their library, so we set up itunes.com/soi-remove to let them easily do so. Any customer that needs additional help should contact AppleCare,” Apple spokesman Adam Howorth told the BBC.