GEN
Active topics
  1. Yes, but he has a point.
    But there is no point in putting so much effort in something minor that happened 8 years ago.

    But he sure knows that he will get a lot of traffic - I regret watching it....

  2. Disagree there, it's not "something minor". For us fans it was just an innovative way to release a new album, but for millions it meant an intrusion into their iTunes accounts, a violation of their "music privacy" (however exaggerated it might sound, they really felt like that).

    Whether we like it or not, after U2 retire, the SOI release incident will remain as one of the infamous landmarks of their career.

    The band that broke to the world with their epic Live Aid performance, the band that wrote WOWY, the band that broke the rules of live shows with Zoo TV, the band that "healed" USA after the 911 attacks, the band that got Apple to download an album to hundreds of millions of phones, the band that opened the Sphere.

    That band.
  3. It’s their legacy for the masses. It’s that simple.
  4. Everything's okay, you're right, and you have a point, but over time, Bono officially apologized for that pushiness. He took it upon himself not to fucked up the whole band's reputation. He realized that ultimately it wasn't a good move.
  5. it still amazes me that no one at Apple saw the backlash coming...

    I still find that whole incident pretty interesting, as it shows a huge failure that no one involved, not U2 nor Apple, expected the 'free gift' to be.
    One can learn from that.
  6. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]


    Whether we like it or not, after U2 retire, the SOI release incident will remain as one of the infamous landmarks of their career.

    The band that broke to the world with their epic Live Aid performance, the band that wrote WOWY, the band that broke the rules of live shows with Zoo TV, the band that "healed" USA after the 911 attacks, the band that got Apple to download an album to hundreds of millions of phones, the band that opened the Sphere.

    That band.


    It's sad to see that unfortunately for the majority of the people that's the only thing they remember and they hate the band with a burning passion. To the masses, it completely overshadows all the legendary moments of arguably one of the all time greatest bands. They will always associate U2 with that.
  7. I still don't get what the backlash is lol. If someone downloaded a free album into my iTunes I wouldn't moan.
  8. I think that the masses weren't moaning about the download itself, but were moaning about they couldn't delete it.

    BTW: i was moaning about i didn't receive the album
  9. I’d be pretty peeved if the new Doja Cat album suddenly appearing in my library, was popping up on shuffle, and I couldn’t delete it

    It should have just been made available for free, opt in. The intentions were good, but they were always onto a hiding with it.
  10. Originally posted by iamcrazytonight:[..]


    It's sad to see that unfortunately for the majority of the people that's the only thing they remember and they hate the band with a burning passion. To the masses, it completely overshadows all the legendary moments of arguably one of the all time greatest bands. They will always associate U2 with that.
    Yes, absolutely. In 30 years time when U2 are no longer making music, if one asks a random person what they remember about U2 the Apple thingy will be one of the 5 top answers for sure.
  11. It's a setback for both U2 and Apple. The idea was to test an "innovative" way of bringing music to the masses and of making money differently fot both parties. In order to make a new model. And that failed.
    Just imagine if it worked, people would get music daily on their phone library, and 9 times out of 10 they wouldn t have chosen it.

    Instead, Deezer and co. developped and people give a few euros / $ every month to get even much more music on their phone, including the ones that they... don't want...!
  12. Forget this was possible 9 years ago and say Taylor Swift became the first to do the exact same thing today; would it get the same reaction? I'm thinking it would be more of a polite "Thanks honey, but I'll pass" rather than the angry F-off that U2 attracted. As she sings, the haters are always gonna hate and many took umbrage simply because it was U2, or more specifically Bono.