Bono Admits U2’s Notorious iTunes Album Giveaway “Went Too Far”

It’s hard to believe it’s been 12 years since hundreds of millions of us woke up with U2’s Songs of Innocence sitting in our iTunes libraries without asking for it. With ample time for reflection, Bono has a pretty clear assessment of the now infamous move: “I went too far on that one.”

Speaking alongside The Edge in a new interview with The New York Times, Bono revealed that both Apple CEO Tim Cook and U2’s longtime manager Paul McGuinness had questioned the idea before the 2014 rollout. McGuinness, Bono recalled, gave him essentially the same warning as Cook: “You spent your whole life getting people to pay for music. Why would you want to give something away free?”

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For Bono, the thinking was partly economic and well-intentioned. “We were experimenting,” he explained. “We wanted to see if we could get Apple or another company to pay for our music and then they distribute it.” He added that the experiment grew out of concern over how little many musicians earn from their work.

The execution, of course, was an issue. Apple made Songs of Innocence available to more than 500 million iTunes customers, automatically placing the album in users’ libraries and prompting enough backlash that the company eventually created a dedicated tool to remove it. Asked whether the stunt damaged U2’s reputation, Bono took responsibility, saying, “That was all on me.”

The Edge had a little less remorse. “We take risks. We have to,” he said. “So you fail, you fall on your face at times. That’s part of the gig.”

Bono has apologized for the rollout before, including in the years immediately following its release and again in his 2022 memoir, Surrender, which is available for purchase on Amazon. But more than a decade later, the lesson seems to have boiled down to this: making music free was one thing; making everyone want it was another.

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