Can you hear that? It’s the sound of Bono laughing uncontrollably as he counts the reported one hundred million dollars his band U2 were paid by Apple in exchange for releasing their latest album Songs Of Innocence to all 500 million iTunes members for free, as part of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus announcement.
If you have an iTunes account, you’ve been “gifted” the album from U2, congratulations. Whether you want it or not, it’s there right in your iTunes account, enjoy.
When Jay-Z released his twelfth album Magna Carta Holy Grail in 2013 in partnership with Samsung to give away 1 million free copies of the album (of which we was paid tens of millions), many called it a genius marketing move, one that netted Jay-Z a high spot on the Billboard charts as the campaign counted as album sales.
This move by Bono and co trumps Jay-Z’s marketing efforts and is probably by the far the largest audience an album has ever reached. When you break it down, U2 made $5 per copy (which probably isn’t a bad in this musical recession).
But the question remains: Is what U2 and Apple have done a genius marketing move or spam? Considering the album which I listened too sounds horrible, the songs are all shitty and lack any kind of creativity, I would be willing to lean towards the spam side of things. I am sure some people out there will enjoy it, but are they really people?
GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ITUNES ACCOUNT, BONO.
