Songs of Innocence

iTunes customers who didn’t watch Apple’s iPhone keynote last month were a bit surprised to discover that they suddenly owned a copy of U2’s new album “Songs of Innocence,” even though they’d never bought it. The band had partnered with Apple to add the album to every single iTunes account for free in what they called the largest album debut ever.

iTunes users were less than thrilled at the arrangement, noting that the album was being automatically downloaded to their devices in many cases and there was no way to remove it from their purchase history. Apple responded soon thereafter by releasing an online tool to remove the album, but thus far U2 has remained quiet on the issue… until today.

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Apple’s controversial U2 album giveaway is about to wrap up as the record is only scheduled to be free through October 13th, and the company is sharing some numbers about the promotion to celebrate.

Apple SVP of Internet Software & Services Eddy Cue told Billboard that more than 81 million customers ‘experienced songs’ from U2’s Songs of Innocence album either through plays or streams over iTunes, iTunes Radio, or Beats Music where the album was exclusively available to users. The Apple exec added that 26 million full downloads of the album were measured by Apple. Cue also shared that U2’s music had previously been purchased by 14 million customers through iTunes since 2003.

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