Bono finally issued an apology to iTunes customers who were forced to download "Songs of Innocence," U2's first new album in over five years, according to a Consequence of Sound report.
The internet was deeply unhappy when the album suddenly appeared in iTunes libraries around the world, ostensibly without a way to delete it.
When the band fielded questions from its Facebook page, one commenter went off on U2 about the album release:
"Can you please never release an album on iTunes that automatically downloads to people's playlists ever again? It's really rude."
Here's what a humbled Bono had to say:
"Oops … I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea … might have gotten carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that thing. A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a 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."
But that "dash of self-promotion" seems to have worked. The entire album was downloaded more than 26 million times since it debuted in September.