Record Store Day—a hip holiday that only a handful of people in the world can celebrate due to the rarity of record stores—was this weekend. And while most people were able to grab their limited-edition whatevers without incident, a few U2 fans brought home their new vinyl copies of Songs Of Innocence only to discover that the band had somehow transformed from a group of socially conscious Irishmen to a bunch of artsy metalheads who hate giving interviews. It was another one of those classic Bono moves that don’t make any sense to anyone but Bono.
Or, more accurately, that’s not what it was at all. As reported by Death And Taxes, there was some kind of mixup at wherever vinyl records are made (The C+C Music Factory?), and a small number of copies of the Songs Of Innocence vinyl were replaced with Tool’s Opiate EP from 1992. This, as anyone can see, is funny on a few different levels. First, Songs Of Innocence is the album that U2 shoved onto everyone’s iTunes accounts without asking, so these people found themselves in the ironic position of being unable to buy an album that had already been given to them. Truly comical! Second, Tool is a band that some people like, and U2 is a band that some people do not like, which means, for those people, laughing at the misfortune of U2 fans is fun. A little mean, but still fun! At the moment, it’s unclear where the missing U2 albums are, but hopefully this can be the setup for another National Treasure movie.