I got a free album, and U got one 2!

There has been a considerable backlash at the news that, along with launching the new iPhone 6 the the iWatch (more on those to come) and killing the only version of the iPod worth having, the iPod Classic (the heartless bastards - more on that, also, to come), Apple have given every iTunes user a free copy of the latest album by U2 - Songs Of Innocence.  But I can't, for the life of me, think why.

There has been such a tremendous fuss about this that I've found myself wondering whether there's some nasty small print detail I've missed which allows Apple and U2 to harvest your organs if any of the band's members need a transplant at any point in their lives.  There isn't.

You're being given something free-of-charge.  Something for nothing.  It may not be something you wanted, or something you like, but you'd have to be a serious churl to claim that owning it diminishes your life in any way.

Claims that the album is being 'forced upon' you are, of course, hyperbolic nonsense in every sense; you don't have to listen to it - you don't even have to download it, if you don't want to!  The choice is yours.  That makes about as much sense as saying you're being 'forced' to use a stopwatch because your phone came with one as one of its set of 'stock' apps - or saying you're being 'forced' to eat raspberry jam because your housemate left a jar of it in the fridge before going away on holiday.  It is complete rubbish, in other words.

As for the album itself…?  I actually didn't mind it.  I know it's 'fashionable' to disdain U2 - as it is Nickelback, Coldplay, Jamie Cullum and Justin Bieber - but if you care more about whether it's 'fashionable' to like a band or not than whether their music is any good then you're an idiot.

Instead of instantly feeling aggrieved at the whole incident, I actually downloaded and listened to Songs Of Innocence before deciding how I felt about it - and I found it not in the least bit objectionable.  Who knows?  I may even listen to it again.