Patrick Carney slams U2 over album stunt

The Black Keys star Patrick Carney has slammed U2 for offering their new album to fans for free, insisting the stunt "devalued their music".

The Beautiful Day hitmakers hit headlines last month (Sep14) when they decided to team up with Apple and offer their new album, Songs of Innocence, exclusively through iTunes.

However the band was under fire when the record was installed into nearly 500 million users' music libraries automatically, with many outraged over the stunt.

The Black Keys drummer is among those who were disappointed in the way U2 went about the release, telling the Seattle Times that by making the album available to listeners for free, it "devalued their music completely".

He adds, "It sends a huge mixed message to bands... that are just struggling to get by. I think that they were thinking it's super generous of them to do something like that."

Meanwhile, Bono has already apologized for upsetting iTunes users, and recently said in a question and answer chat on Facebook, "I'm sorry about that. I had this beautiful idea... might have gotten carried away with ourselves."