Hot News: Ten things to do with an unwanted U2 album

As any fule kno, the iPhone 6 was unveiled last night in a blizzard of anticipation, malfunctioning streams and vague disdain, and one of the more intriguing/horrifying add-ons for potential customers was the fact that it effectively comes with a free U2 album as standard - indeed, as the album has been downloaded straight into all iTunes accounts everywhere across 119 nations, it has basically become the biggest music release of all time. Great if you're U2, great if you love U2. Less great if you, quite reasonably, think they are a bit rubbish and about 20 years past their sell-by date. So allow us to suggest 10 Things To Do With An Unwanted Songs of Innocence.

1. Make it the basis of an ice bucket-style charity challenge, in which you film yourself having the songs unceremoniously dumped into your ears, to raise awareness of whatever Bono is bleating about at the moment.

2. Section off a room in your house and pipe the album into it, which you can probably do nowadays via Wi-Fi or something, on a continuous 24-hour-a-day loop. You can then use this as a sort of 'sonic naughty step' for your children.

3. When you are feeling low or uninspired, simply take a moment to look at the Songs of Innocence icon and its play count of zero, and remind yourself that things could always be worse.

4. Use it as a legal justification to mercilessly troll Bono across all major social media platforms. He may not want to receive your annoying, offensive material, but, hey, he started it.

5. Use one of the standout songs, assuming there is one, as a custom ringtone for incoming calls from anyone you don't like.

6. Use it as a conversation starter with other iPhone 6 owners in social situations. If you have both heard it, you should be able to get a good half an hour to an hour about how ghastly it is and how it actually sounds nothing at all like Kraftwerk.

7. Suggest to Apple that if it can do this with a U2 album, then it should be able to provide exclusive access to things we actually need, such as Candy Crush Saga ripoffs and promotional codes for Millie's Cookies.

8. See if you can, via a Twitter campaign, persuade one of the other mobile phone giants to attempt a similar endeavour with someone actually half-decent.

9. Have the compositional notes to all the songs printed on rice paper, and then track down Apple CEO Tim Cook so you can literally forcefeed Songs of Innocence back to him.

10. Listen to it all the way through, several times, before forming a ... Ha ha ha! Only kidding!

Post By http://www.theguardian.com/music/shortcuts/2014/sep/10/ten-things-to-do-with-unwanted-u2-free-album-apple