U2's sneaky, guerrilla-style release of their 13th studio album, Songs Of Innocence, has done wonders for the band's back catalog.
Rolling Stone points out that after the band released the album on Tuesday (Sept. 9) for free in partnership with Apple, multiple of their previous albums started to climb back up the album charts on iTunes. As of about 8 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 14), the band's singles album, U218, was all the way up at 23 (the deluxe edition was at 27) with 1991's Achtung! Baby right behind at 24. 1988's bluesy release Rattle And Hum sat at 32 while 1983's War and 1984's The Unforgettable Fire held strong at 33 and 34, respectively. All That You Can't Leave Behind, Boy and Under A Blood Red Sky all made it under the Top 50 as well.
Songs Of Innocence was released after Apple's huge iPhone 6 announcement and the album uploaded directly to users' iTunes, reaching millions of listeners instantly.
"We wanted to make a very personal album," Bono told RS before the release. "Let's try to figure out why we wanted to be in a band, the relationships around the band, our friendships, our lovers, our family. The whole album is first journeys - first journeys geographically, spiritually, sexually. And that's hard. But we went there."
David Fricke gave the album a glowing review writing "Songs of Innocence - U2's first studio album in five years - is a triumph of dynamic, focused renaissance: 11 tracks of straightforward rapture about the life-saving joys of music, drawing on U2's long palette of influences and investigations of post-punk rock, industrial electronics and contemporary dance music."
Pitchfork scored the album with a 4.6.
