U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence, has come under fire, yet again, only this time it’s neither from their fans nor their critics. A Russian Duma deputy has accused one of the world’s biggest rock bands of distributing “gay propaganda,” a consequence of their 2014 album cover which shows the band’s drummer, Larry Mullen Jr, embracing his 18-year-old son, Elvis, shirtless. According to the liner notes, “It is a visual metaphor for the album and its theme of how holding on to your own innocence is a lot harder than holding on to someone else’s.”
But that’s not how Alexander Starovoitov, a member of the rightwing LDPR party, sees it. According to TheGuardian.com, Starovoitov says Apple spammed youths with illegal content when it released U2’s latest album, Songs of Innocence, to more than 500 million iTunes customers worldwide in September 2014. He says the U2 album art promotes sex between men, and the newspaper Izvestia, known for its pro-Kremlin reporting, quotes Evgeny Tonky, a lawyer, who says he’s ready to sue Apple for compensation for moral damages on behalf of his own son.
Yet, despite a possible 90-day ban on the sale of the album and up to a $20,000 dollar fine if found guilty of disseminating so-called “gay propaganda,” some lawyers are dubious. Roman Alymova, a partner with the Russian firm Yurlov and Partners, observes: “True, it is difficult to prove that this cover is just [the] propaganda of homosexuality. Also, it may be difficult to redress. [The] Prosecutor’s Office would be extremely difficult to get compensation for moral damage to an unidentified group of people: it will be necessary to collect some initiative [from a] group of parents who still have to prove that their child has suffered from this cover.” He added that because U2 has clearly stated the purpose of the photograph and because of the familial nature, it adds another layer of challenges to the claim.
Besides being roundly criticized for voluntarily downloading Songs of Innocence into about 500 million iTunes listeners’ libraries, the album has received mixed reviews and was barely able to remain on the charts after only a couple of disappointing weeks of sales.
