Are there worse things in the world than getting a free album from one of the world’s greatest rock bands to ever walk the face of the planet? Yes.
There are plenty of things worse than iTunes pushing a free album download to your purchased music bin. You can get hit by a bus tomorrow. Someone can mug you. You can lose your job. You can get a divorce. Your 12-year old can storm out of the room screaming, “I HATE YOU!” You can get kidnapped by terrorists and killed for the whole world to see, in the middle of a desert, which is then broadcast on YouTube. No, I’m not making light of that last one. I’m saying that is one of the worst things that can befall anyone. It’s horrific. But while we’re all texting and driving and complaining about Apple pushing a free download to your iPhone and computer, horrible things are going on around the world that are far more important.
Okay, so it was an inconvenience for you. Sure, it sucked up some bandwidth on your mobile device. Sure, it wasn’t easily removed. You needed a tool that Apple quickly provided after the backlash to remove it from your library. Yes, it’s taking up some room you thought you had and now you don’t, which prevents you from downloading some other crap that you think you really wanted, but you actually didn’t and you’ll rarely ever play whatever that was anyway. It’s really not you that I’m targeting with this post. It’s the media who are drumming up drama to simply direct attention to them and not the fact that Apple spent $100M to give away millions of downloads of a fairly good album to its customers as a thank you.
Let’s just take a chill pill and relax. No one died. Bono was close to Steve Jobs. Remember, Bono convinced Jobs to make a red iPod for his global AIDS project. Getting a free U2 album should be no f**** surprise then. Let’s all take a deep breath now. Inhale. Exhale. Good.
Okay, so you don’t like Bono or U2. You love the throat singers from Tuvalu. You cringe when you hear a U2 song. Well, you’re in the minority. If U2 is offensive, President Obama is Chinese. Right. U2 is not offensive and President Obama is not Chinese. Well, he’s a terrorist according to some Republicans you talk to, but that’s a story for another day.
Maybe Steve Jobs wouldn’t have pushed the album. He probably would have made it optional or done something else. Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs, but he’s no slouch either.
Can we just get over this U2 stuff today? Take a listen to the album. You might even like what you hear.
