Could the phishing emails come from when ITunes downloaded the U2 album years ago?

Unlikely. As there is no person downloading the album to your account. All apple does is tell the iTunes store everybody has purchased the album so its available on their accounts. Its fairly automated method.

Whoever activated the purchase, would likely not have access to Apple's database of email accounts. Compartmentalization is important in these kinds of situations.

You can go to the following link to remove the U2 album from your account: http://itunes.com/soi-remove

The color of socks I’m wearing right now has as much to do with that as does that U2 album.

Your email address was likely exposed in one of the bazillions of server breaches.

The automated spamming tools have picked yours up among the legions of others.

If you want to see which breaches you’ve been caught up in: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Your passwords from those breaches are also in circulation and being used to try to cram your logins everywhere.

This as various of those breached sites used rotten practices for password storage.

The U2 album is totally irrelevant to the millions of scam emails. Millions of people that have never owned an Apple device get the same email.

I knew it! Tomorrow I’m shopping for a new sock supply.