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BONO HAS HIT back at criticism about the way U2 have released their latest album, saying that there’s been:

… some real deliberate misunderstanding of this relationship with Apple.

Songs of Innocence was released on the same day as the announcement of the iPhone 6, and was made available to all iTunes customers at the same time.

The release was met with a huge amount of criticism, with people clamouring to remove the album from their Apple devices.

Speaking to 2FM’s Dave Fanning Bono has responded to that criticism:

The same people who used to write on walls are in the blogosphere. The blogosphere is enough to put you off democracy.

He laughed, and continued:

No… let people have their say. They’re the haters; we’re the lovers. We’re never going to agree. People who would not normally be exposed to our music have got a chance to listen to it. Whether they hold that to their heart or not, we don’t know.

Whether those songs will be important to them, in a week’s time we don’t know. But they’ve got a chance and that’s gotta be exciting for a band who’ve been around as long as we have.. The hardest thing in the world as Bruce Springsteen said to me  – and this was ten years ago – is to surprise your audience or to surprise yourself.

Bono and Fanning also talked through the tracks on the album, including ‘Iris’, about the frontman’s late mother.

He said that to sing about your mother is uncool…

Except John Lennon did it, Kurt Cobain did it, Eminem has done it. What is the point in being in U2 if you can’t go to those other places?”

The world exclusive interview airs tomorrow morning at 10am on 2fm.

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