Adam Clayton chats about their HBO music special "iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE"

U2 band member Adam Clayton chats about their HBO music special "iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE" with Gold Derby editor Chris Beachum.

http://www.goldderby.com/

The loss of innocence: A unique insight into the last year of U2

'This is the big sound," says the Edge. He rattles a basement rehearsal space with three monster chords from a vintage Epiphone Casino guitar, dunked in distortion so ferocious that his black baseball cap seems in danger of flying off. Bono is right beside him, listening hard, squinting at the fretwork through pale-blue aviator shades. The singer is wearing a hat of his own, a jaunty, black-banded Panama-style number that makes it look like he's in disguise, on holidays, or both.

No matter how huge a noise they make, U2 are, for once, playing in a little room. They've hauled an unreasonable amount of equipment and a half-dozen-plus crew members into a purple-carpeted, wood-walled studio at a TV station on the French Riviera, where Bono is leading them through rehearsals for radio and talk-show performances.

On this October evening, Larry Mullen Jr is at his drum kit, in head-to-toe black, running through a clickety-clacking song intro with uninterrupted intensity. Adam Clayton, in a sparkly purple shirt, bass guitar hanging at his waist, is flicking at his iPhone. He's probably checking his email rather than, say, looking for his free U2 album (or trying to delete it).

They're working up a live arrangement of their current single The Miracle (of Joey Ramone). The Edge's jagged "big sound" isn't quite working, even though it's exactly what he used on the version from their latest album, Songs of Innocence. "Songs are never finished," Bono says. Like almost all of their music, Miracle crawled out from a relentless process of forced, hot-house evolution - in this case, over four years, with three different producers. It started as a drum-loop-and-acoustic-guitar-based tune called Drummer Boy, from 2010 sessions with the producer Danger Mouse. Then it turned into a rock-ier larval-stage thing called Siren (one line compared the Ramones's music to a siren song) with heavy input from OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder and Adele producer Paul Epworth, before developing its definitive melody and lyric over two months of sessions with Epworth. But even now, it hasn't quite settled into a final shape.

"You've got a digital-sounding distortion," Bono tells the Edge. "It's not a sound that can lift. In the pre-chorus, is there a mezzanine level? You got a little brown sauce, so we need it more funky, more like Mysterious Ways. Try it with the Mysterious sound; see if it works." The Edge, stoic Spock to Bono's voluble Kirk, duly dials up that Achtung Baby track's wah-wah soup.

"All right, once more," Bono says, and Miracle shape-shifts once again, into something slinkier and more brash than the album version: Mullen overdelivers on Bono's request for "more cymbals, more dynamics"; Clayton nails what Bono describes as "a bass part so great you could build a house on it," with an occasional glance at a chord chart; Bono emotes at full concert volume into a hand-held mic, shaking his hips a bit, sounding implausibly youthful. "That was some numskull fuckin' business," says Bono. "Really good!"

As the Edge fiddles with his gear, Bono wanders over to offer some director's commentary. "We just need another colour," he says. "Because we're using a swing beat. Making this album, we went back and listened to all the music that had brought us into ourselves, then we said, 'Now let's misremember it.' The Ramones never used a swing beat in their lives - but the New York Dolls, they were glam: they did. People say, 'That song doesn't sound like the Ramones!' But that would not be a compliment, to pastiche them - we're trying to do something more interesting."

The Edge will stay here on his own for hours tonight, working out a new secondary sound and modified guitar part for the song, in hopes of "not going numskull all the way through." "The Mysterious Ways thing was the wrong idea," he'll say over breakfast the next morning, "but it led to the right idea."

The Albums That Defined 2014: U2′s Songs of Innocence release reveals the true master of your music collection

500 million people downloaded U2's newest album, whether they wanted to or not.

The Albums That Defined 2014 explores how this year's most influential records have shaped and reflected the wider music landscape. Today, how U2's brand partnership disguised as an album release revealed a future where corporations determine what you listen to and who gets paid for it. Or, rather, a present.

On September 9th of this year, U2’s 13th studio album, Songs of Innocence, appeared on the computers and mobile devices of 500 million people, released as part of a branding tie in with Apple for the launch of their Apple Watch and iPhone 6.

It was hardly the first time we’ve seen an artist enter into a major branding effort with a corporation (Bono described this release as a “[celebration] of the ten year anniversary of [U2’s] iPod commercial”) or even the first time an artist has tied an album release to a vaguely sinister overreach by a company that makes cell phones (recall the give-away-cum-underhanded-data-mining-operation that Jay Z orchestrated with Samsung around the release of his 2013 album Magna Carta Holy Grail), but the Songs of Innocence release felt like a raising of the stakes. And that includes the backlash against it.

In retrospect, Apple and U2 are perfect partners. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that a band and a brand with long track records of outsized self-regard and penchants for grandiose gestures would lead the charge in the continued blurring of marketing and popular music, but the near universal opprobrium heaped upon them seemed to catch them off guard. Apple was sufficiently embarrassed into creating a link that would allow users to reject their unwanted “gift,” while Bono displayed as much self-awareness as he could muster: a passive-aggressive apology delivered during a Facebook-branded Q&A session.

Bono says his main regret was that Apple’s unsolicited gift-giving was “rude.” It was, but the criticism frequently cast it as something more insidious. In thinkpieces and Twitter screeds the move was hyperbolized as an almost Orwellian intrusion, one that implied, in the words of journalist Chris Richards, “the utopian philanthrocapitalist democracy that Bono is always stumping for will also be a place where your belongings are chosen for you.” What Apple CEO Tim Cook called, “the largest album release of all time” was objectionable not because a major rock band and a major corporation engaged in a self-aggrandizing co-promotion, something we’re surely all used to by now, but because two major players in the music industry displayed just how far their reach extends.

On some level it’s perhaps unfair that Apple and U2 have been subject to such intense criticism. Just over the past year we’ve seen a broadening recognition that major brands have almost entirely annexed SXSW, the continued ascent of Spotify, a company that offered significant equity (reportedly close to 20%) to the major labels in exchange for allowing the streaming service to expand their market share while depressing royalty payments, and a protracted lawsuit in which Google-owned YouTube attempted to strong arm independent labels into accepting a cut rate deal to avoid being shut out of its new streaming service. Apple’s mistake wasn't leveraging their power and money to determine what music gets heard and by whom, but by doing so without enough guile.

In spite of all of this it seems likely that both Apple and U2 will ultimately count this exercise as a success. For U2, whose last two albums, 2004’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and 2009’s No Line On The Horizon, sold 9 million and 5 million copies respectively, the 500 million people exposed to their latest effort represents a big step up, and the $100 million they were reportedly paid by Apple is likely more than they would have made from the album with a more traditional distribution model. For Apple, $100 million is a small investment, small change for the media attention it drummed up for their product launch. It doesn't hurt that it aligned them with a band who, if Rolling Stone’s recent designation of Songs of Innocence as the best album of 2014 is any indication, at least remain on the cutting edge of relevance as far as older white men are concerned.

We might not see a campaign quite like this again, but  it seems all too likely these kinds of efforts will become more common in 2015.

http://www.chartattack.com/

'Remember Us?' A letter from Bono, on the arrival 'of our new baby' - Songs of Innocence.

Hello, bonjour, ciao, hola, hallo, zdravo, dobar dan, Dia duit, hæ, hej,hei, cześć, olá, ćao, namaste, sawatdee, jambo, pozdravi, Γεια σου, привіт, שלום, مرحبا, こんにちは, , سلام, 你好, Привет….

Remember us? Pleased to announce myself, Edge, Adam and Larry have finally given birth to our new baby… Songs of Innocence. It’s been a while. We wanted to get it right for you/us. We just finished it last week and thanks to Apple and iTunes it’s with you today. That’s already amazing to me as it normally takes a few months to turn this stuff around.

Part of the DNA of this band has always been the desire to get our music to as many people as possible. In the next 24 hours, over a half a billion people are going to have Songs of Innocence… should they choose to check it out. That is so exciting. People who haven’t heard our music, or weren’t remotely interested, might play us for the first time because we’re in their library. Country fans, hip hop afficionados from east LA, electro poppers from Seoul, Bhangra fans from New Delhi, Highlifers in Accra… might JUST be tempted to check us out, even for a moment. What a mind blowing, head scratching, 21st century situation. Over 500 million people… that’s a billion ears. And for the people out there who have no interest in checking us out, look at it this way… the blood, sweat and tears of some Irish guys are in your junk mail.

You’ll have noticed the album is free to U2.com’ers from the band. It’s also free to everyone on iTunes thanks to Apple. To celebrate the ten year anniversary of our iPod commercial, they bought it as a gift to give to all their music customers. Free, but paid for. Because if no-one's paying anything for it, we’re not sure “free” music is really that free. It usually comes at a cost to the art form and the artist… which has big implications, not for us in U2, but for future musicians and their music... all the songs that have yet to be written by the talents of the future… who need to make a living to write them.

We’re collaborating with Apple on some cool stuff over the next couple of years, innovations that will transform the way music is listened to and viewed. We’ll keep you posted. If you like Songs of Innocence,  stay with us for Songs of Experience. It should be ready soon enough… although I know I’ve said that before…

I hope after listening to our new long player a few times, you’ll understand why it took so long. We really went there… it’s a very, very personal album. Apologies if that gets excruciating… actually, I take that back. No apologies if it gets excruciating. What’s the point in being in U2 if you can’t go there?
There is no end to LOVE.'
BONO

www.u2.com

U2's 'Songs of Innocence': A Track-by-Track Guide

U2 took the stage at Apple's product-launch press conference in Cupertino today and surprise-released their new album Songs of Innocence with a mere five seconds of warning. The album, which was delivered free to all of Apple's iTunes users (a half billion of them), is "very personal," Bono tells Rolling Stone 

1. The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)
Produced by: Danger Mouse, Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder
More than any U2 album before it, Songs of Innocence goes deep into Bono and the rest of bandmembers' teenage years in Dublin in the Seventies. The first song captures the big bang of Bono's musical awakening: the first time he heard the Ramones. "Everything I've ever lost now has been returned," Bono sings. "The most beautiful sound I ever heard…We were pilgrims on our way." It sounds like the band are very purposefully not trying to sound like the Ramones here, though – instead, the track starts with powerful, almost "Mysterious Ways"-like burst of guitar from the Edge, and is driven by a lilting Bono melody and an overdubbed vocal refrain.

2. "Every Breaking Wave"
Produced by: Danger Mouse and Ryan Tedder
The biggest classic-U2 ballad on Songs of Innocence. "Wave" was originally slated for Songs of Ascent (the abandoned follow-up to No Line on the Horizon); the band played a radically different, stripped-down version a few times in 2010. They've since fleshed it out dramatically, completely re-written the chorus and tinkered with some of the verses. Songs of Innocence isn't a full-on concept record about the band's youth – the lyrics to "Wave" appear to deal more adult concerns: a long-term relationship, distractions, and the struggles that come from both: "Are we ready to be swept off our feet?/And stop chasing/Every breaking wave"

3. California (There Is No End to Love)
Produced by: Declan Gaffney, Paul Epworth and Danger Mouse
A bright, mid tempo anthem that begins with layered backing vocals that sound like a homage to the Beach Boys. It's about the group's first trip to California in the early 1980s. "California, blood orange sunset brings you to your knees," Bono sings. "I've seen for myself/There's no end to grief."

4. "Song for Someone"
Produced by: Ryan Tedder and Flood
A tender song of awkward first love that sounds like it's about Bono's wife Ali; the couple first met when Bono was 13 and Ali was 12. If there is a kiss I stole from your mouth," he sings. "And if there is a light, don't let it go out." "Song For Someone" begins with gentle acoustic guitars before gradually building into a "Walk On"-style crescendo. 

5. "Iris (Hold Me Close)"
Produced by: Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder
The most emotionally raw song on the album, "Iris" confronts Bono's loss of his mother, who passed away after collapsing at his grandfather's funeral when he was only 14. Bono sings about "the ache in  my heart" that "is so much part of who I am." U2's first hit "I Will Follow," from 1980's Boy, and "Tomorrow," from 1981's October, are also about Bono's mother, Iris Hewson, but "Iris" is from the perspective of a man in his fifties looking back at a mother who has been gone for four decades, and how her loss has shaped his life. "Hold me close," he sings. "I've got your life inside me." 

6. "Volcano"
Produced by: Declan Gaffney
The driving, bass-heavy "Volcano" could be about a young, angry Paul Hewson, wrestling with the death of his mother. "Something in you wants to blow," Bono yelps. "You're on a piece of ground above a volcano." 

7. "Raised by Wolves"
Produced by: Declan Gaffney and Danger Mouse
The only overtly political song on the record, this one tells the true story of a car-bombing in Dublin that hit close to home. "On any other Friday I would have been at this record shop, but I cycled to school that day," says Bono. "The bomb tore apart the street. I escaped but one of my mates was around the corner with his father, and it was a very hard thing for him to witness and I'm not sure he really got over it."

8. "Cedarwood Road"
Produced by: Danger Mouse and Paul Epworth
Bono grew up on 10 Cedarwood Road in Dublin alongside his friends Guggi Rowan and Gavin Friday, with whom he remains close to this day ("Road" is dedicated to Rowan). "You can't return to where you never left," Bono sings on this song about friendship and bittersweet memories, "It was a warzone in my teens/I'm still standing on that street."

9. "Sleep Like a Baby Tonight"
Produced by: Danger Mouse
Bono briefly brings out his "Lemon"-era falsetto on this haunting song about an unhappy man whose eyes are "as red as Christmas" and who reads "about the politician's lover" over his morning "toast, tea and sugar" – possibly the singer's late father, Bob Hewson. 

10. "This Is Where You Can Reach Me"
Produced by: Danger Mouse
First mentioned by Bono as a contender for the album in a February interview with the L.A. Times, "This Is Where You Can Reach Me" is inspired by a Clash concert that U2 attended in 1977. "We signed our lives away," Bono sings. "Complete surrender/The only weapon we know."

11. "The Troubles"
Produced by: Danger Mouse
Another tune name-checked by Bono earlier this year, "The Troubles" was presumed to be another U2 song about the political situation in Northern Ireland, but it's more about Bono learning to move on from his own problems. Guest singer Lykke Li repeats the refrain "somebody stepped inside your soul", and Bono reflects on his own redemption: "I have a will for survival/So you can hurt me then hurt me some more/I can live with denial/But you're not my troubles anymore"

 http://www.rollingstone.com

A Long Gestation for U2’s Next Album

U2 has been working on a new album since 2009, with detours for other projects, like a Broadway musical and a stadium tour.Credit Brantley Gutierrez

U2, the Irish band formed way back in 1976, has long been feeling like a lonely upholder of the mantle of the Big Rock Band: the kind that headlines stadiums and lodges songs deep in the public consciousness. Its pealing guitars and martial beat have cast a long musical shadow over all the bands in its wake — from Coldplay to OneRepublic to Imagine Dragons — who strive to write high-minded rock anthems. Yet U2 has also sought to expand, and at times escape, its own signature sound.

U2 tends to labor extensively over its albums, and the one it has promised to release in 2014 — with its title still a secret at press time — has been in the works since U2 offered “No Line on the Horizon” in 2009. There were detours for Bono and the Edge to write the music for the ill-starred Broadway show “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” and for U2’s worldwide stadium tour, with sets that often included unreleased songs. The band has also been announcing, and changing, plans for the new album since 2009, at times considering the release of both a second album from the “No Line on the Horizon” sessions or an album of club-oriented music.

The two new songs to emerge recently from U2 have stayed in anthem mode: “Ordinary Love,” from the biopic “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” and “Invisible.” But there’s no guarantee that these songs define the album. The long list of producers that U2 has been working with over the last few years could also point elsewhere. It includes not only Danger Mouse of Gnarls Barkley and Broken Bells, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic and Adele’s collaborator Paul Epworth, but also will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas and dance-music specialists like RedOne and David Guetta (whose own single “Lovers on the Sun” has more than a hint of U2 in it). U2 has revitalized itself before with electronic dance music; that’s what it did in 1991 with “Achtung Baby.” But until the full album emerges from its long gestation, it’s anyone’s guess how U2 hears itself in the 2010s.

http://www.nytimes.com/

Adam Clayton "The Album Could Be Finished by the Summer"

Adam Clayton talked on the phone on the Ray Foley show. The interview was about his involvement with the campaing "Walk in my Shoes" (a campaign to raise mental health awareness of the St. Patrick's Mental Health Foundation in Dublin). Before even started,Adam explained:

"I'm just back from doing some recordings. I think there's a lot of recording going on but we're coming to an end which is good."


Ray: "Is it for the new album?"

Adam: "Yeah, you know, I can't say when   we're gonna be releasing it, but I can say we hope to have it finished before the end of the summer, which will be great...and we're very excited about it, and we all want to get it out as quickly as possible but I don't want to  pre-empt anything until I know it's actually finished..."





http://www.walkinmyshoes.ie//http://news.u2fanlife.com//https://soundcloud.com/rayfoleyshow/adam-clayton-interview-on-the-ray-foley-show

Mojo's U2's 10 Best Albums

Blood, sweat and tears from the globe-bestriding Dublin quartet. Plus their 10 greatest albums. By Danny Eccleston.

One man’s gauche is another man’s heartfelt; one man’s art another man’s pretention. And so it is with U2, loved and loathed in equal measure almost from the moment Larry Mullen Jr pinned a musicians wanted ad to the noticeboard at Dublin’s Temple Mount school in 1978 and shanghai’d Paul “Bono” Hewson, Dave “The Edge” Evans and Adam Clayton. From the start, rock’n’roll for The Larry Mullen Band (as they were originally to be called) was an opportunity to bite off more than they could chew.

At first, with pals the Virgin Prunes they provided a provincial beach-head for post-punk, The Edge’s frigid guitars providing a platform for Bono’s unfettered hollering. Then Ireland-only singles (Three, and Another Day) tempted Chris Blackwell’s Island label to the table; cue a run of chiming albums that soundtracked their inner struggle with a brand of charismatic Christianity that Edge, Bono and (less enthusiastically) Mullen had embraced back in Dublin. By the commercial breakthrough of 1983’s War album (New Year’s Day became their first UK Number 1 single that March), they’d been born again, but this time in red-blooded rock…
Thematically, a struggle between the sacred and profane, the earnest and honest, would define their progress, while periodic sonic reinventions would save their skins. The Unforgettable Fire (1983) saw the debut of Brian Eno behind the faders, and the ethereal result horrified a label hoping for another War. But it was only when U2 resisted change (as they did on 1988’s über-trad, half-live Rattle & Hum) that they disappointed. Bono called the subsequent Achtung Baby (1991) “the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree”, and the complicated, eclectic result set them fair for the complicated, eclectic ’90s.

n the new century, they’ve thrived (’04’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb debuted at #1 in America, toppling Eminem) and their “wobble” (mixed reviews for ’09’s No Line On The Horizon) was followed by the biggest-grossing rock’n’roll tour of all time. Why so durable? Because, alone among their contemporaries, U2 move at the same speed as contemporary popular culture. “Spending time with Bono [is] like eating dinner on a train,” wrote Dylan in Chronicles Volume 1. “Feels like you’re moving, going somewhere.” Strap yourselves in; it’s a bumpy ride.

According to Mojo:

10- October
9- Zooropa
8- Pop
7- Under a Blood Red Sky
6- All That You Can't Leave Behind
5- The Unforgettable Fire
4- How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
3- Boy
2- Achtung Baby
1- The Joshua Tree


Read more.

Oliver Jeffers: 'The U2 thing just came together by chance'

Jeffers last year directed the video for U2's single "Ordinary Love". "The U2 thing just came together by chance," he says. Bono's wife used to read Jeffers' books to her children, and one day he and Bono met for a drink. "And one thing led to another. That's the way I work. Nothing's really planned – it's organic."





In Jeffers' self-defined three categories of work – "the books I make, the paintings I do, and Other" – the U2 video counts as Other. For a long time, he supported his own art by taking on commercial illustration work, but he's now in the fortunate position of being able to pick and choose what Other stuff he wants to do. "I make art for love rather than money," he says. "The difference is, now I'm able to make money by making art for love." After years of exhausting effort – he suffered for a time from insomnia – he's also now worked out a fine work‑life balance. His wife acts as his manager. "There's no way I could manage this amount of work without help. I'm basically running two or three careers at once."


http://www.theguardian.com/

20 Insanely Great U2 Songs Only Hardcore Fans Know

Lesser-known gems from the band's catalog by Rolling Stone

1. 'Pete the Chop'

If you couldn't tell by the fact they have members named Bono and the Edge, the four members of U2 came from a place where it was very common for people to have weird nicknames. One of them was Pete Chop, a friend of their former management associate Andrew Whiteway. When U2 met Pete the Chop he suggested they write a song about him, and they took him up on the challenge. The result was a very catchy pop number and U2's manager Paul McGuinness heard it as a potential big hit. The band disagreed and refused to put it out, though they did play it live a bunch of times. McGuinness didn't give up and he kept asking the band, "Whatever happened to 'Pete the Chop'?" They got so tired of the question that they eventually wrote "Treasure (Whatever Happened to Pete the Chop?)." It's sort of a backwards, inverted version of "Pete The Chop" and it came out as the b-side to "New Year's Day," but the original "Pete the Chop" remains in the vault. 

2. 'Silver Lining'

"11 O'Clock Tick Tock" never appeared on a U2 studio album, but it's one of the most important songs from their early history. Joy Division producer Martin Hannett recorded the song and they released it as their second single in May of 1980. It was the highlight of their live set, and some nights they'd even play it twice. Before they settled on the final lyrics, it was called "Silver Lining." They played it a handful of times in late 1979 and early 1980 before Bono scrapped almost all the lyrics and renamed it "11 O'Clock Tick Tock." Thankfully, some early U2 fans had their tape recorders running so we can hear this historical anomaly today. 

3. 'North and South of the River'

U2 wrote many great songs about the conflict in Northern Ireland, and one of their best came out shortly before the Belfast Good Friday Agreement brought peace to the region in 1998. The mournful and pleading "North and South of the River" was cut during the Pop sessions and released as a B-side to "Staring at the Sun." The only time they ever played it live was on a 1998 TV benefit for the victims of the Omagh bombing. They stripped the song completely down, and the result was absolutely beautiful. 

4. 'Salome'

Robert Plant once said that his favorite U2 song was "Salome." Who knew the guy had such deep knowledge of U2 B-sides? This funky song was cut during the Achtung Baby sessions and remixed a bunch of times before it wound up as the B-side of "Even Better Than the Real Thing." It's also the name of a three-disc set of early Achtung Baby songs that somehow leaked out to fans during the making of the album, seriously pissing off the band. 

5. 'Holy Joe'

When U2 announced their ill-fated PopMart tour at the lingerie department of a Kmart in downtown New York, they could have serenaded the press with any song from their vast catalog, but for some reason they opted for "Holy Joe," the B-side of "Discothèque." Pop is nowhere near as bad as the legend suggests, and it would have been even better had they included "Holy Joe" instead of "Miami" or "The Playboy Mansion." They haven't played even a note of "Holy Joe" in concert since that press conference.

6. 'Luminous Times (Hold On to Love)'

U2 hit such a deep songwriting vein during the Joshua Tree sessions that even a song as brilliant and emotional as "Luminous Times (Hold On to Love)" wound up on the cutting room floor. It did come out as a B-side to "With or Without You" and that cassingle flew off shelves in the spring of 1987, but who knows how many people bothered to flip the tape over. Those that did heard a hell of a song. 

7. 'Trash, Trampoline & the Party Girl'

U2 were never a band with much of a reputation for bagging groupies. Any backstage shenanigans that may have gone on were kept on the supreme downlow. That's why it's so odd they wrote "Trash, Trampoline & the Party Girl" back in 1982, though it was created in a mad rush when they needed a B-side for "A Celebration." The song is about a lady named Party Girl who "wants more than a party." She meets a boy named Trash Can that "does all that he can, wham bam." It was clearly meant as a throwaway tune, but it's had an odd afterlife. They began playing it a lot in concert, even releasing it on their 1983 live album Under a Blood Red Sky. Fans loved it and they kept it in the set all through the 1980s, and it even popped up a bunch of times in the 2000s. It's hard a much longer afterlife than "A Celebration," which is one of the weaker U2 songs to ever come out as a single. 

8. 'Big Girls Are Best'

Bono and his wife Ali Hewson had two little boys right around the time of U2's big comeback album All That You Can't Leave Behind. Pregnancy and childbirth were clearly on Bono's mind when he wrote the lyrics to "Big Girls Are Best," which came out as a B-side to "Walk On." "She's got the baby at her breast," Bono sings. "She knows big girls are best."

9. 'Summer Rain'

Like "Big Girls Are Best," U2 recorded "Summer Rain" during the All That You Can't Leave Behind sessions and ultimately discarded it, though it did appear on some deluxe editions of the LP. The euphoric, acoustic tune  has the vibe of a classic U2 song and would certainly have worked great onstage, but they've never gone near it. It's a shame. It really deserves a revival. 

10. 'Return of the Stingray Guitar'

U2 have written an absurd amount of songs over the past five years that virtually nobody has heard. They briefly decided to let the public in on some new tracks when the 360 Tour hit Europe and South America in 2010. Many nights opened with "Return of the Singray Guitar," a monster riff of a song that kicks ass even though it never really sounded finished. It was a sign to the fans that the band was moving forward, even though it's likely nobody will hear hear this one again. Too bad.

11. 'Stateless'

Remember that 2000 Win Wenders movie Million Dollar Hotel? It starred Mel Gibson back when he was actually a big movie star and not a national joke. It's about a bunch of disjointed people coming together at a Los Angeles hotel and even Mel Gibson said it was "as boring as a dog's ass." The public agreed and it made a whopping $59,989. Latter-day Ernest movies made about five thousand times more than that. But it's noteworthy here because Bono wrote the screenplay and U2 contributed some songs to the soundtrack, which is infinitely more enjoyable than the movie. The best of the bunch is the haunting "Stateless," though like all things associated with Million Dollar Hotel, it's been completely lost to time. 

12. 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet'

Another victim of the Million Dollar Hotel fiasco was "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," a gorgeous ballad that Bono wrote after reading Salman Rushdie's 1999 novel, also titled The Ground Beneath Her Feet. The lyrics come almost verbatim from a portion of the book, so Rushdie got the songwriting credit, and it appeared as the first song on the film's soundtrack. U2 thought it was a very strong song and wanted it out as a single, even shooting a video for it. But their label knew that All That You Can't Leave Behind was coming and they didn't want to confuse fans on the verge of the group's big comeback. They did play the song a bunch of times on their 2001 
world tour. 

13. 'Wave of Sorrow (Birdland)

This Joshua Tree outtake was so inspired by Patti Smith that they added "Birdland" — the title of a track from her 1975 masterpiece Horses — to the name of the song. Bono wrote the song when he travelled to Ethiopia after Live Aid and realized the money raised by the massive event would barely dent the overwhelming problem. The title comes from a Langston Hughes poem. They never quite felt the song was done, and in 2007 when they released a 20th anniversary edition of The Joshua Tree they fleshed it out. 

14. 'Two of Happy, One Shot of Sad'

Bono got close to Frank Sinatra during the final years of the Chairman of the Board's life. They recorded a duet of the Sinatra classic "I've Got You Under My Skin" in 1993 and the following year Bono presented him with a Legend Award, though the Grammys, in a shameful move, cut Frank off mid-speech to go to commercial. Bono was determined to see Frank Sinatra record one final masterpiece before he died, and he wrote "Two Shots of Happy One Shot of Sad" for him. He read him the lyrics in a limo one night, but Sinatra wasn't in great shape by this point and he never recorded it. Bono recorded it himself in 1995 with an orchestra and sent it to Frank for his 80th birthday. Two years later, it came out as a B-side to "If God Will Send His Angels." In 2004, Frank's daughter Nancy recorded it. 

15. 'Alex Descends Into Hell for a Bottle of Milk'

U2 were pretty much off the grid in 1990, though Bono and the Edge did emerge to write the score for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of A Clockwork Orange. The Edge was listening to a lot of industrial music at the time, and their song "Alex Descends Into Hell for a Bottle of Milk" was the first glimpse U2 fans got of the new direction U2 were headed in the 1990s. It's also the complete opposite of the American roots sound of Rattle and Hum. The instrumental came out in 1991 as a B-side to "The Fly."

16. 'Glastonbury'

"This is a new song we're trying out," Bono said in Frankfurt, Germany, in August 2010. "It's kind of a rocking 1970s thing. It's called 'Glastonbury.'" U2 were supposed to play England's massive Glastonbury festival that summer, but Bono's back problems delayed the show until the following year. When he got better, they debuted this rocking tune when they played mainland Europe in the late summer. Oddly enough, they didn't bust it out when they were actually at Glastonbury. 

17. 'Xanax and Wine'


The line "how to dismantle an atomic bomb" appears nowhere on U2's 2004 LP How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, but you can hear it on "Xanax and Wine," a song they wrote during the final days of recording the album. The track eventually evolved into "Fast Car," but it lost its raw, frenetic energy in the process. Thankfully, they released "Xanax and Wine" on a rarities collection a few years later.

18. 'Native Son' 


U2 have proved that it's possible to over-think a song and screw it up. Their 2004 song "Vertigo" was a big hit, but many fans prefers the tune in its original incarnation as "Native Son." It's not glossy, still has some rough corners and probably wouldn't have worked in an iPod commercial. The good news is they put it out so fans can compare the two. 






19. 'Mercy'


"Mercy" was originally slated for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, but for some reason it was yanked at the last minute. One fan wound up with a bootlegged copy and it was uploaded to the Internet in late 2004. U2 fans fell in love with the anthemic song, many of them arguing it was one of the most U2-ish songs every written. The band finally got on board in 2010 when they began playing a revised version of the song in concert. One of those versions came out on the band's 2010 EP Wide Awake in Europe. 





20. 'Lady With the Spinning Head'


Achtung Baby is undoubtably one of U2's greatest albums, but it had a very difficult birth. When they began cutting the album in Berlin, Germany, they were simply unable to finish any songs they were happy with. One of their early attempts is "Lady With the Spinning Head." They eventually gave it up and scrapped it for parts, using elements of it on "Zoo Station," "The Fly" and "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)." It's trippy to listen to it today since it sounds like all those songs combined. 

http://www.rollingstone.com/

"Invisible" Reaches Nº 1

Adult Alternative Songs

*** No. 1 (1 week)*** "Invisible" U2

U2 passes Coldplay for the most No. 1s in the 18-year history of the Adult Alternative Songs chart, as "Invisible" jumps 3-1. Now with 11 leaders, the band breaks a tie with Coldplay (10). (Dave Matthews band and Jack Johnson follow with nine No. 1s each.) 



http://www.billboard.com/

U2 album still 'planned for this year'

Amid rumours that the band have halted work on the new album, a spokesperson has confirmed that U2 are on schedule for the 2014 follow up to No Line on the Horizon.

‘Larry Mullen Jr, Bono, The Edge and Adam Clayton: get off that skyscraper and do some work.’ Photograph: Vera Anderson/WireImage

Despite fresh claims that U2 have pushed their new record and world tour back to 2015, a spokesperson for the band has confirmed that their 13th album is still on course for this year. The band, who are nearing completion of a record that was expected this summer, had been rumoured to halt plans on the new release and instead book studio sessions with Adele writer/producers Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder. While the switch in producer from long-term collaborator Steve Lillywhite is yet to be addressed, a spokesperson for the band has dispelled claims that the album will be delayed until 2015: “U2’s album is planned for this year, is still on track and touring plans haven’t been confirmed yet,” they told the Guardian. According to recent interviews with the band, Danger Mouse remains the album’s central producer, however Billboard reported that Bono and company have scheduled additional recording sessions with hit-makers Tedder and Epworth. Epworth, an architect of Adele’s sound and co-producer of records like Paul McCartney’s New and Plan B’s The Defamation Of Strickland Banks, has previously worked on a couple of U2 remixes. Tedder, however, is new to the U2 camp: the OneRepublic frontman is best known for pop and pop-rock smashes like Beyoncé’s Halo and Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love. In a recent interview with the frontman, Bono suggested that the band were questioning their relevancy before recording the follow up to No Line on the Horizon. “We were trying to figure out, ‘Why would anyone want another U2 album?’” he told BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe last month. Releasing Invisible seems to have been a way to test the waters. “I think Invisible is a great song, but I don’t know how accessible it is,” Bono said. “We’ll find out if we’re irrelevant.” Though it was downloaded by three million people in a charity deal with Bank of America, the single peaked at No 65 on the UK singles list and didn’t even crack America’s Billboard Hot 100. “The album won’t be ready till it’s ready,” Bono told the Hollywood Reporter in mid-February. Ironically, U2’s long-delayed 13th studio album initially seemed like it would be the group’s swiftest to complete: the same week that No Line On The Horizon came out, Bono promised a “meditative” and “processional” companion LP before the end of 2009.

Sean Michaels for theguardian.com

http://www.theguardian.com/

No U2 Album, Tour Until 2015

Fresh off the Oscars, the band quietly delays its fall tour and album, while inviting Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth into the studio

The media blitz U2 has enjoyed during the first two months of 2014 has been virtually unrivaled - unless you're maybe Pharrell Williams and his Vivienne Westwood hat. Since mid-January, the band has won a Golden Globe; performed at the premiere of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" and the March 2 Academy Awards; appeared on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter; and starred in a Super Bowl commercial funded by Bank of America and (RED) that debuted the track "Invisible."

Such momentum certainly signaled a proper return to music and touring was in the cards for U2 in 2014. The group had been diligently working with producer Danger Mouse (aka Brian Burton) on an album still described as "unfinished" in mid-February to The Hollywood Reporter. Billboard has confirmed with multiple sources, however, that the album has now been pushed back until 2015, with the band recently scheduling additional sessions with producers Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth. (Danger Mouse remains onboard as the project's central producer.) "It seems to be taking longer for them to finish an album as they get older, but the great thing about U2 is that the whole of a record is always better than the sum of its parts," says a source close to the project. "That magic that the band always seems to capture ... they have yet to capture it."

While an Interscope representative maintains that with a release date never announced the album shouldn't be considered delayed, Billboard has learned that a tour initially on track for a mid-March announcement and September start date, booked by Live Nation's Global Touring division, will now begin in summer 2015. Delays are nothing new in the world of U2 - the band's 360° Tour, itself set back with postponements related to the making of 2009's No Line on the Horizon, went on to become the highest-grossing tour of all time, with more than $737 million in receipts from three legs in 2010 and 2011, according to Billboard Boxscore. Live Nation, which declined to comment for this story, would of course always love to have U2 dates on the books for any given year. But at best, the band would only have been on the road in the fourth quarter, and any dates that would have happened in 2014 will be made up next year. (Live Nation Entertainment had a record year in 2013, even without top-grossers U2 or Madonna on the road, reporting a whopping 19 percent increase in concert attendance and total revenue up 11 percent to $6.4 billion.)

No one has struggled more with U2's living legacy than Bono himself, who's spoken about the next album (U2's 13th) and its many challenges in recent years. At a September 2011 press conference at the Toronto Film Festival, Bono, 53, feared the band was "really close to the edge of relevance," noting "there's a giant chasm between the very good and the great, and U2 right now has a danger of surrendering to the very good." He reiterated those sentiments to The Hollywood Reporter in February when he noted that "to be relevant is a lot harder than to be successful." Such remarks were no doubt prompted in part by 2009 album No Line on the Horizon's disappointing sales figures, which at 1.1 million units in the United States were a third of 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (3.3 million) and a fourth of 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind (4.4 million), according to Nielsen SoundScan.

And U2's first two new tracks since No Line on the Horizon, though never officially touted as singles, have both gotten off to relatively quiet starts. "Ordinary Love," the Oscar-nominated song composed for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, has sold 115,000 copies, peaking at No. 99 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 45 on the Digital Songs chart for the week ending March 2. "Invisible," initially launched through the Super Bowl, was downloaded for free 3 million times globally as part of a 24-hour campaign with iTunes, (RED) and Bank of America, thus making those downloads ineligible for Billboard's charts. The song has since started picking up steam at radio, peaking at No. 28 on the Alternative airplay chart and No. 15 on Rock Songs, with sales of 64,000 copies to date.

Teaming with current hitmakers like Tedder and Epworth, both key players in Adele's best-selling 21, would appear to be U2's play to take a step back from the "edge of relevance," as Bono said. As does tapping Guy Oseary to take the day-to-day reins of management while longtime manager Paul McGuinness goes into semi-retirement. (Live Nation acquired Oseary's Maverick Entertainment and McGuinness' Principle Management in November for a reported $30 million.)

Tedder, a previous U2 tourmate with his band OneRepublic, told Billboard in October that the current success of his group's spiritually minded "Counting Stars" was in line with the thoughts Bono shared with him about U2's approach to songwriting. "He said, 'I feel a responsibility to actually write and sing about things that have a level of human gravity to them,'" Tedder recalled, adding, "I have a feeling I'll be around [Bono] a lot more in the coming years."  

http://www.billboard.com/

Nick Stewart describes how he signed U2 to their first major deal.

'I arrived at Island Records in August 1979 where my first signing as an A&R manager was a Manchester band called The Distractions. U2 were my second.'

In North Side Story, the exclusive book commissioned from Hot Press for U2.com's  2014 subscribers, Nick Stewart describes how he signed U2 to their first major deal. Now running his own music consultancy, we asked Nick to come up with the 15 tracks he'd always want to keep on his U2 Playlist .

1. 11 O'Clock Tick Tock 

It was a pretty wild and woolly night in Dublin, when I first saw U2 on their home turf in January 1980. The National Stadium, used for boxing in the normal course of things, was packed; when the band came out, the stage was stormed and Bono was briefly submerged  under a crowd of frenzied fans. Order was restored. The Edge kicked hard into the opening chords of 11 O’Clock Tick Tock. I can see it and hear it 34 years later, as if it was yesterday. I wasn’t sure what I was watching or just how big it could be, but I sensed it was destined to become significant. It certainly thrilled me. The song was then recorded by Martin Hannett (Joy Division, A Certain Ratio & The Durutti Column) at Strawberry Studios in Manchester  and became the bands’ first single on Island. 

2. I Will Follow 

I always thought this had to be a hit in 1980 when it first came out. It had a lot of the early U2 trademarks – soaring vocal, powerful guitar, pounding rhythm section and  bags of energy. While it received some radio play and press support, it failed to enter the charts, but remains a favourite at concerts. 

3. The Unforgettable Fire 

The choice of Brian Eno as producer for this album had raised a few eyebrows in Island Records, but an extraordinary and groundbreaking album emerged and took U2 to a new level. Overlaid with a new aural landscape of  mystery and imagination,  Eno combined with the band to produce a new sophistication of writing and playing matched by the drama and power of Bono’s vocals. The gamechanger. 

4. Pride (In The Name of Love) 

For my money, not only one of U2's greatest singles, but one of the great vocal performances on a single of all time. After this, nothing seemed to be the same again. Bono had joined the ranks of Cocker, Stewart, Daltrey and Plant as a pre-eminent rock vocalist. 

5. Where the Streets Have No Name 

The opening track of The Joshua Tree begins with a mood synth, slowly building over the first forty-five seconds, as The Edge's pounding rhythm guitar starts to creep in. At 1'10", Adam's bass line propels the track to a new level alongside The Edge’s driving guitar work. At 1'47" – most singles are more than halfway through at this point – Bono bursts in with "I want to run, I want to hide" and we’re off on the whirlwind journey that was to be the enormous success of The Joshua Tree. One of the greatest opening tracks to any album, ever. 

6. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For 

With The Joshua Tree, U2 became the first act to sell 1 million CD’s and with this track, and  of course, the rest of the album, they conquered the world. The album was brim full of great tunes, fabulous ideas and swept all before them. The Joshua Tree rightly stands as one of the great rock albums of all time. 

7. When Love Comes To Town

I’ve always admired the way the band forge alliances with great artists. There’s nothing remarkable about this track, but I just love the interplay of the vocals from Bono and BB King and then the guitar playing of BB King and The Edge. 

8. Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses 

Achtung Baby was famously described as the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree; this was the sound of the crash as it fell to the ground. The Berlin location - the record was made as the wall was coming down - unleashed some fiery  'wild horses'  all over this timeless album. See 'From The Sky Down',  the documentary made for the reissue of Achtung Baby  in September 2011, for a fascinating peek behind the making of the album. 

9. One 

If there was ever such a thing as a grungy ballad, this would qualify as a prime example. It’s not what one expects, which makes it all the more mysterious. Destined to become a timeless classic and a staple of Valentine-themed CD’s. 

10. Love Is Blindness 

A sepulchral organ begins the final track on Achtung Baby and all is despair and darkness. The Edge’s guitar, jags and quivers its way through the track, in a way unheard before or since. One of the great gems of their catalogue.

11. The Wanderer (With Johnny Cash) 

Bono said it had to be Johnny Cash singing this song. He was right as J C's haunting delivery gave it terrific resonance. As a result  it remains one of the great works in U2’s canon, because everything about it is perfect and is one of my favourite U2 tracks of all time, as Cash is a particular hero of mine. 

12. Miss Sarajevo (Featuring Luciano Pavarotti) 

The Passengers album remains the great unrecognised album from U2 as it contains so many extraordinary, largely unheard moments. This magisterial track, however,  was heard  all over the world. Bono’s gentle soft vocals give no real clue of the drama to come. When LP makes his entrance the sound  is liable to make strong men weep and is, along with The Wanderer, another  exceptional collaboration. 

13. Beautiful Day 

Gorgeous song, gorgeous production, gorgeous record along with "Pride" their greatest single. Rightly, this stops traffic and gets radio's turned up.

14. Kite 

I've always believed this song to be about Bono losing his father and it's one of the most heart-wrenching songs the band ever recorded. It would certainly be my U2 Desert Island Disc and the one track I always refer people to, to prove the power and the magic of the bands songwriting and playing. 

15. City Of Blinding Lights

'Atomic Bomb' is a much underrated U2 album and I love the atmospheric and all-embracing sound of this track. It's the stand out track on an album I play as often as any other.

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