Remember When: Apple’s Free Download of a New U2 Album Led to Massive Customer Backlash

Back in 2014, Apple Music made the bold move to team up with U2 to offer their 13th studio album Songs of Innocence as a free download to all iTunes customers. It sounded like a great idea—one of the most popular rock bands ever was giving people free music from the then-largest digital music service. But it was not the gift that everybody wanted. Like those terms and conditions that streaming subscribers have to automatically agree to, this marketing gimmick felt like an imposition on one’s privacy and led to customer backlash.

A little history rewind: U2 had released a string of global No. 1 albums since 1987’s The Joshua Tree. Only All That You Can’t Leave Behind in 2000 did not hit the top spot in America, but still went to No. 3. The band’s previous album, 2009’s No Line On the Horizon, represented a slump for them, selling a third of the units of their previous release in America and garnering about half of its global take.

The Ironic Solution

Part of that problem could have been the music, and part of it could have been the reality that streaming had strongly cut into artist’s album sales. So the ironic solution was to give away the album to people for free—but still make money. Under the guidance of CEO Tim Cook, Apple paid U2 a set fee for the exclusive rights to release Songs of Innocence for five weeks, and the company reportedly pumped in $100 million of promotional funds. It seemed like a win-win for everyone—U2 could conceivably expand their following and Apple would look cool. It also offered the company the chance to improve their public image given that paid digital downloads had dropped about 14% from the start of the year. The scenario promised great press.

But by not offering customers an opt-in option for the release, Apple generated intense friction with many of its 500 million iTunes users. It was not the press “bonanza” that U2 expected either.

Released in September 2014, Songs of Innocence had been years in the making and was a pivotal release for the Irish band. The project had gone through multiple incarnations, not to mention that frontman Bono and guitarist The Edge had been busy composing songs for the troubled musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. For Songs Of Innocence, U2 initially collaborated with musician and producer Danger Mouse on a collection of tracks called Songs Of Ascent, but they were dissatisfied with the final result. Then retained some of the tracks, then worked on others with producers Paul Epworth, Declan Gaffney, and longtime collaborator Flood, along with OneRepublic member Ryan Tedder. Songs of Innocence was the final result, with some unused songs ending up on the next release Songs of Experience.

Plummeting Sales

While not considered among their best albums, Songs of Innocence was reportedly heard by over 33 million iTunes customers in its first week. That made it seem like a big streaming success even as the album sales plummeted from their previous studio release. The No. 1 No Light on the Horizon had gone Platinum in America, but Songs of Innocence barely got past 100,000 copies here and charted at No. 9 on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart. And a week after its iTunes debut, Apple gave irate customers instructions for how to remove the album from their accounts. Many musicians were also bothered by the Apple/U2 deal because they felt it further devalued music in an already volatile streaming environment. (It was also an easy payday other artists couldn’t get, regardless of how much work had gone into the album.)

Regardless of the reaction, U2 was financially secure through the deal that they had cut with Apple Music. They are one of the few bands who could have attempted to pull this off. No long-lasting damage was done to their career; the Innocence and Experience Tour was a massive success, grossing over $150 million. Although the next two U2 albums were not as notable sales-wise, that is a quandary facing many classic rock bands today who chart high on the first week of release but do not retain consistent sales. Besides, U2’s recent string of concerts at The Sphere in Las Vegas have been massively popular with Billboard estimating final grosses over $300 million.

iTunes, on the other hand, has faced stiff competition from the likes of Amazon Music and Spotify, whose streaming services have made paid song downloads a far less enticing proposition for many consumers. The company now ranks third in the streaming hierarchy.

One certainly can’t fault an artist for trying to profit from their work as much as possible, especially in a modern world where recorded music has become increasingly devalued—and where more artists are forced to tour longer and longer to sell concert tickets and merchandise to make up for the dearth of album revenues. But one wonders what would have happened to the album if U2 had just released it normally and let the music stand on its own merits rather than attempting a fail-safe countermeasure. Then again, we now know that the album certainly has racked up a very impressive number of Spotify streams since then, far more than the previous album. “Every Breaking Wave” has nearly 85 million, which is a few million shy of the total listens for the first five tracks of No Line on the Horizon combined.

There’s always risk involved in art. Not everyone is going to have a hit album, even veteran rockers, and U2 have certainly had a longer and bigger run than most bands. One could argue there was no reason to ever make Songs of Innocence available the way they did. Because in the end, people love plenty of their other albums and are still going to see the acts live anyway.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images for MTV