苹果CEO蒂姆·库克和U2的头号人物博诺本周宣布，乐队的新专辑将免费分发给拥有iTunes账户的约5亿人，这是一个大消息。但是正如博诺在舞台上所说的，有人不得不弥补这个差异。”“首先你得付钱，”他告诉库克，“因为我们不想在这里免费买音乐。”

“我们不想在这里享受免费音乐。”

那么现在5亿张唱片要花多少钱呢？根据一些报道，苹果公司至少花费了1亿美元来推广这张专辑，另外还有一笔未公开的总额，作为直接支付给U2。对于一张专辑来说，这是一笔巨大的促销预算，但对于苹果来说，这张专辑的价格很容易让人接受。

首先，苹果的营销活动很可能与自己的产品紧密相连。因此，尽管它在张贴广告牌、电视广告和播放纯真歌曲的广告，但它也可能在推广iTunes及其新款智能**和手表。第二，苹果在银行里有一笔不虔诚的钱——1500亿美元，而且还在计算中。整个U2的花费构成了几天的利润。

如果说真的有什么，这一亿美元的数字，虽然一开始令人瞠目，但它确实凸显了音乐贬值成为商业商品的重要性，特别是与我们用来听它的设备和软件相比。在Pitchfork，RobMitchum出色地展示了唱片业的衰落状态和自由的提升，作为艺术消费的主导范式。

Time was, the recipe for a superstar artist to create a Big Event Album was well known—a few teaser ads in the music mags, a lead single for radio, some late-night talk show appearances, then sit back and watch the fans line up at the record store on release day. But now that basically every entity in that sentence has been culturally marginalized, and the propeller churn of social media refuses to tolerate slow-burn marketing, the best—and, perhaps, only—way to get everyone talking about your record at once is to release it with no warning. U2 being U2, they’ve taken that strategy one step over the line into indisputably queasy territory, aligning with their old friends Apple to insert their new album, Songs of Innocence, into all of our libraries without c***ent. By updating the old Columbia House Record Club scam to the digital age, U2 and their Cupertino buddies have created a new avenue of opt-out cultural tran**ission, removing even the miniscule effort it takes to go to a website and click "Download."