TORONTO – When Apple teamed up with Irish super-group U2 to give away their new album to every iTunes user for free, it’s safe to assume the tech giant never imagined free music would make users so angry.
But less than a week after giving away the album – by way of automatic download – Apple has released a tool that allows users to remove Songs of Innocence from their iTunes library, likely due to the growing chorus of angry users who never wanted the album in the first place.
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“If you would like U2’s Songs of Innocence removed from your iTunes music library and iTunes purchases, you can choose to have it removed,” reads the webpage.
U2 released the album for free to all iTunes users during Apple’s iPhone 6 keynote last week.
The problem is, any Apple user who had the “Automatic Downloads” feature in iTunes turned on saw the album pushed to all of their devices automatically.
Social Media has been flooded with complaints about the album’s release since the Apple event. But over the weekend many hashtags, including #U2Virus and #U2Gate, began popping up on Twitter as anger over the forced-fandom grew.
Even columnists have taken aim at the marketing stunt.
“A U2 album that some would have taken seriously was instead turned into an album that seems as pointless as it probably is,” Music critic Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in The New Yorker.
“Lack of consent is not the future.”
Even celebrities have called out U2 for forcing their music on people – Sharon Osbourne called the group “a bunch of megalomaniacs” in a tweet Monday. Rapper Tyler the Creator also told front man Bono how he felt in an expletive-laden tweet.
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In an interview with Mashable published Sunday, U2’s manager Guy Oseary defended the move saying, “It’s a gift from Apple. If someone doesn’t like the gift, they should just delete it.”
However, because the album was pushed to users via iCloud, it shows up in users’ Music App or iTunes library no matter what. If you don’t have automatic downloads turned on, it won’t be stored locally on your device, but the album title still appears.
Users who want to rid themselves of the U2 album for good can click here to remove the album from their purchase history altogether.
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