In the past week, I feel like I’ve had U2’s new album marketed to me by every conceivable medium: from video ads in taxis to pre-rolls on Hulu to a week of performances on David Letterman, you’d think their new album was opening in theaters against Watchmen. 

With such a multi-million dollar marketing campaign on the line, I was pretty surprised to find you can download the album for $3.99 from Amazon (as opposed to ten bucks on iTunes, and of course free on BitTorrent). All the corporate marketing aside, the song “Breathe” is worth that price alone, so I’d say go for it. I can’t remember the last time a major new album was on sale for less than five bucks.

My initial take: I think I already like this album a lot better than the last one. I’m not the biggest U2 fan, but at first listen, the melodies are beautiful and clean and yearning in a way I don’t remember since Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby. Let’s encourage this. But not the taxi ads.

[Other albums on crazy discount right now: Incredibad (The Lonely Island) and License to Ill (The Beastie Boys), both $1.99, and Astral Weeks (Van Morrison) and The Joshua Tree (U2), both $5.99.]