To me, "free album" is like a person handing out free CD's on a busy sidewalk.

This is more like my landlord going into my living room and putting a CD on my shelf.

(Now someone will tell me about how my analogy is flawed, I don't care, that's how analogies work. It's not the same, it's an analogy.)

Politics fans were miffed because at the time Bono was bitching about how the Irish Government wasn’t spending enough on foreign aid, while the band had just bought a skyscraper in Dublin and had offshored their business affairs so they no longer paid tax in Ireland. They’re the PETA of gobby musicians.

They’re also aggressively mediocre, so most music fans would find no value in the album. There was a reason the band took the payoff.

Tech fans were outraged because the album turned up on every iTunes-connected device without consent, and there was no way to remove it until the avalanche of complaints led Apple to make an update specifically to allow this.