U2 did some sort of Q&A session on Facebook last week and things got slightly awkward when - to the surprise of no one - they were called out on their decision to force new album Songs of Innocence into every iTunes library on the planet. Here's how it went:
Q: "Can you please never release an album on iTunes that automatically downloads to people's playlists ever again? It's really rude."
Bono: "Oops. Sorry about that...I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves. 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 mightn't be heard."As my emboldening suggests, it's the last part of that sentence fragment in which I'm interested today. I'll admit that I did feel a pang of sympathy for U2 when I first heard Bono's apology - after all, I've written songs, and I know better than Bono what it's like to wonder if anyone will ever actually listen to them.
But yesterday, I found myself re-reading that quote, and my sympathy gave way to annoyance. Now I realise that, if Bono really cared about those songs, he chose the worst possible way to release them.
