U2’s bombastic, free Songs of Innocence release is the sort of thing that sort of forces you to have an opinion (the album was forced onto your hard drive, so, why not?). Some people saw it as the way of the future. Some people saw it as a grand gesture from a big band. Some people felt like the music was, well, forced on them. And then there’s Black Keys drummer and noted Belieber archfoe Patrick Carney, who says the giveaway hurt U2’s reputation. Apple’s delivery method, “devalued their music completely,” Carney told The Seattle Times, and said the deal “sends a huge mixed message to bands… that are just struggling to get by. I think that [U2] were thinking it’s super generous of them to do something like that.”
Carney’s opinion isn’t so different from Bono’s, who recently told Rolling Stone that “I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing: [a] drop of megalomania, touch of generosity, dash of self-promotion and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn’t be heard. There’s a lot of noise out there. I guess we got a little noisy ourselves to get through it” …
