14 DAY TRIAL // It's not a war of the words anymore, it's a war of the musical greats, as Pink Floyd has just slammed the free album “Songs of Innocence” that U2 put out with the help of Apple and that quickly became more of a burden than a gift.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the drummer points out that giving away your music automatically makes it less valuable and adds that “music has been horribly devalued by being given away. It's funny they didn't sense some of that. It's been the big story of the 21st century.”
U2 ticked off a lot of people, Pink Floyd included, when they released their free album
The drummer continued his jabs at U2 by saying that their act actually helped Pink Floyd's upcoming release because “They did it the wrong way around and I'm fond of saying that what we did is a very old fashioned musical concept. We're hoping people might actually buy this record. It was so unexpected, I thought, and interesting that people took such umbrage at being given something.”
Mason's hopes might be well-founded as Amazon has recently reported that Pink Floyd's upcoming album, “The Endless River,” is on its way to becoming the most pre-ordered musical album in their history, which points to a high degree of excitement among fans.
Other musicians have said the same thing about U2's latest free album. For example, Patrick Carney from The Black Keys also said that U2 “devalued their music completely” and that they were also sending “a huge mixed message to bands… that are just struggling to get by.”
U2 was later forced to apologize for the album, claimed they were just excited about the music
Bono later issued an apology in a Facebook interview when confronted by fans who complained that they never wanted the album and yet they were stuck with it in what was one of the biggest flubs by Apple in recent times, since their “free” album was supposed to be available for downloading only upon request, but instead ended up on all iTunes accounts and for a time was impossible to delete.
Soon after millions of iTunes account holders complained about the free album that took up precious storage space, Apple came out with a tool that helped people delete it, and Bono apologized on behalf of the band.
“Oops… I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea… might have got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that thing. A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion,” said Bono.
Now he and his band have to face the ire of Pink Floyd and other bands who feel like their music is undermined when other big rock bands start giving their albums away for free.