Apple Links U2 Album to iTunes Accounts! Removal Update

At the end of the recent Apple media event U2 performed a song from their new album “Songs of Innocence” and were then joined on stage by Tom Cook to announce that the album would be available free of charge in iTunes! Nice if you are a U2 fan but what if like myself you are not? I thought that by not downloading the album that would be the end of it but low and behold there it is in Music on my iPhone!

How did that happen? Has Apple taken over my iPhone 😉 The simple answer is that the album is sitting in iCloud.

If you can see the album in iTunes or on your iOS device, that means you’ve enabled the option to view all music, including music stored in iCloud. In iTunes, the option is under the View menu – “Show Music in the Cloud.” On your iPhone or iPad, the option is in Settings – Music – “Show All Music.” Turn off the option to show all music, and the “Songs of Innocence” album should disappear. But then any album you’ve stored in the cloud would also vanish, not really a great solution.

In iTunes,right-click the album and select the Delete command from the menu. Apple will ask if you want to hide it. Say yes. But there is no similar option to hide an album stored in iCloud on your iOS device, at least none that I’m aware of. You can download the album directly to your device where you can delete it locally, but it will still show up as one of your iCloud items.

 

UPDATE

Apple today, Monday 15th Sept 2014, created a help page to explain how to remove the album from users’ iTunes libraries and their purchases list. Check it out here