There was a special surprise at Apple’s long awaited conference back on September 9, 2014. That surprise was legendary rock group U2, the collaboration between Apple and U2,? and they had a surprise for the public.
Apple is giving away U2’s next album, exclusively on iTunes and coming out sometime in October 2014. In the days since that conference, the U2 album “Songs of Innocence” has been downloaded approximately two million times. That’s the equivalent of an album going double platinum in a few days. This doesn’t include the people who are sampling the songs by streaming them through iTunes or iTunes radio. And if that isn’t enough, their 1987 historic album Joshua Tree ranks #12 on the iTunes top 100 charts.
This is interesting to me, and it goes to show the music business is changing. But I thought it would have been better if they had given away only one or two million and then stop the giveaway. My concern is that by October, people won’t get this album because they already downloaded it. And U2 is one of the most respected bands of our generation, if not all time. I’m almost certain other musicians will follow their example. It’s just a question of when. Who will be the next musician to partner with Apple in this way?