Apple aren’t having an awful lot of luck at the moment… iOS 8 having two updates pretty much straight away due to glitches, the iPhone 6 is apparently very bendy thanks to it’s slim aluminium chassis, and the sudden realisation that vast majority of people (rather unsurprisingly) do not want free U2 albums forced upon them.
Out of all of these issues the one that seems to have really pressed peoples buttons is the U2 faux pas. I can completely appreciate this as I have a complete distain for U2 – all of their albums sound the same and the music is just not interesting, intelligent or progressive YAWN. Having said this I did find myself in a rather difficult situation… I made room on my iPhone 5S to update to iOS 8 by deleting all of my music. And I really mean ALL of my music. I then forgot that I had done this and went on holiday for two weeks. WITH NO MUSIC. All I had was the option to download a few singles from the Cloud and this U2 album.
I bit the bullet and downloaded the 13th (no wonder Apple aren’t having a lot of luck) studio album by U2 on the premise that it must be better than nothing. I did this in full knowledge that the album only exists because Apple enjoy throwing money at things and it will inevitably mean there will be another massive U2 tour. Yuck. Two weeks of U2 on repeat. It makes me shudder just writing this.
I was expecting to listen to ‘Songs of Innocence’ and gradually lose the will to live thanks to Bono’s awful half rhymes, the repetitive drumming rhythms and the marginally above average guitar riffs but it is actually no too terrible. This got me wondering, everyone is deleting this free album but has anyone actually listened to it? Surely out of the 500 million+ iTunes users there have to be some that like this album? Having scoured the Internet I find no gleaming reviews and there is no one rejoicing the arrival of free U2 spam.
I know people tend not to read technology blogs for music advice but I would like to make a recommendation (I may regret this – It was very hot when I was listening to the album and it may have caused me to lose my mind). ‘Raised by Wolves’ on the album is actually quite good and worth a listen. It has the annoying lyrics, the repetitive drums and the riffs that are marginally above average but it is rather catchy and that’s nice. Isn’t it?
In fact the whole album is worth a listen before deleting it. I mean, if you delete it before listening to it then that’s like adding salt to your food with trying it first and we all know that is a crime.
I must confess, I have now removed the album from my iPhone but have not totally deleted. I have kept just in case I end up in the situation where I have deleted all my music and just need something to listen to right away. I hope next time Apple decide to enforce music listening upon us they choice something maybe a bit more interesting… Maybe a previously unreleased Rage Against the Machine album or a brand new band that no one has heard of just to give them a well deserved boost. But that’s just me, what free music would you like Apple to have gift you (don’t say U2)?