U2 apparently on a mission to turn cold reception of new album into full-on pitchfork rage

Guy Oseary, current U2 manager, isn't brooking any criticism of the flopped U2 album stunt. He tells Mashabale:

"It’s a gift from Apple," Oseary said. "If someone doesn’t like the gift, they should delete it. ... There are people who are going to be thrilled to get a gift. There are people who are not going to care to have this gift. We knew all of that going in. No surprises here. If someone doesn’t like it, then great, that’s OK, delete it. ... We just want to share it with as many people as possible. If you don’t want it and you don’t need it, delete it."

If it was just as simple as deleting it, this would still grate - because why should it be incumbent upon a person to have to clean up the firm turd left on their living room carpet? True, you can just pick it up and throw it away, but it might have been nicer to be asked in the first place - 'Do you want a free U2 album' - so we could all say 'is it one from the early 80s?' before going 'no'.

But it's not just a case of simply deleting it. Because it's not a firm turd; it's a runny one, and you either can at best "hide" the thing, or have to go to Apple and use a special tool to get all the dribble off your carpet.

A gift you can refuse is one thing. A gift that you have to invest time and effort into just pushing out of sight is another.

Something else interesting from the Mashable Q&A. When asked about how the release had been received, Oseary has a bright side:

A lot of people, from the look of the iTunes chart, are clearly rediscovering the band’s catalog or discovering it for the first time.

But then, asked about if it was disappointing that the record wasn't yet eligible for Billboard:

It doesn’t bother me because I haven’t even wrapped my head around it yet. I’m not looking at the charts as high on my list of concerns.

I mean, who cares about charts, right, unless the information they're giving us is useful for the purposes of spinning the biggest backsplash PR disaster since someone wrote 'New' on a flipchart at the Coca-Cola Company?