Paul McGuinness on the new U2 album and 2015 tour plans

“I thought the exercise they mounted yesterday was absolutely spectacular and a huge success; a new way of distributing music to the world,” he proffers. “I think it stunned everyone. I’m just working through the worldwide press and the two things to come out of that are, first of all, astonishment that they were able to do it and do it secretly, but also how good the record is. There seems to be near unanimity on that.

“I heard the complete album a few days ago and it’s brilliant. It’s U2 yet again doing their best work late into their career.”

Paul goes on to debunk the idea that the band are taking a financial hit on Songs Of Innocence.

“The way they have released it is obviously extraordinary,” he resumes. “I think you have to read the detail; Bono has an interview today in Time magazine and he points out that it’s not free. He’s absolutely opposed to free. It may be free to the consumer but I can assure you that Apple will haves paid a very high price to U2 and Universal Records for the right to do that.”

As for live dates, Paul reckons U2 fans are in for an exciting 2015.

“I think you can expect a major tour starting next summer that will in every way be what people expect of U2 - groundbreaking, unique and world-beating.”

 http://www.hotpress.com/

"Songs of Innocence" First Reviews

'More than any U2 album before it, Songs of Innocence goes deep into Bono and the rest of band members' 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."' 

Rolling Stone

'With occasional exceptions, Bono’s vocals are well to the fore throughout; Edge piles on the big chords and twangs brilliantly where appropriate; and in the engine room, Larry and Adam anchor things powerfully, giving U2 their unique centre of gravity.‘California (There is no End to Love)’ is a certain single: starting with an almost religious choral vocal, it is the most West Coast the band have ever sounded. There is a sense of rapture which marks it as a special moment in the U2 pantheon of great tracks.‘Volcano’ is a monster: the album’s ‘Elevation’, it's a ball buster of a riff-based anthem that opens with a full-on Stranglers’ style bassline from Adam. Packed with raw, meaty guitar slashes and psychedelic, swelling backing vocals, it is another near-certain centre-piece for their live set....' 

Hot Press

'The method of distribution will dominate the initial chatter about the album for a few days, but once people have had a chance to listen to Songs of Innocence a few times and digest it, they'll discover a substantive album that harks back to the band's earliest days, most musically and lyrically...'

USA Today

'It is an album of big, colourful, attacking rock with fluid melodies, bright anthemic choruses and bold lyrical ideas. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that, despite apparently being created in a spirit of self-doubt, it sounds fresh and cohesive, bouncing out of the speakers with a youthful spring in its step....'

Daily Telegraph

"California (There is No End to Love)," a song about the band's first trip to Los Angeles, is a modern take on The Beach Boys with a hallucinatory opening consisting of the band chanting "Barbara Barbara Barbara Santa Barbara" in the round before launching into one of those trademark power ballads that feel like a jet plane racing to the horizon....' 

US News 

'This Is Where You Can Reach Me" is a kind of howling, skanking disco-punk homage to the Clash...'   

Billboard. 

'The 11 tracks look back to the band’s musical roots in the punk and post-punk era, paying explicit homage to the Ramones and the Clash, and carrying resonances of later genres and bands, not least the many groups such as Arcade Fire and Coldplay that flourished by tapping into their influence.'

Time. 

"The music on Songs of Innocence doesn’t hark back to the open spaces of early U2; it exults in multitrack possibilities. But it connects emotionally to a time when, as Bono sings in 'The Miracle (of Joey Ramone),' “I wanted to be the melody/Above the noise, above the hurt/I was young/Not dumb.” 

New York Times


www.u2.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, Songs of Innocence: first review

By Neil McCormick

U2 have announced the release of their 13th studio album, Songs Of Innocence, available now and free to all iTunes customers. And, after several years' gestation, five producers, ever-shifting release dates and Bono publicly fretting that the biggest band in the world was on the verge of irrelevance, fans will be relieved to hear that it sounds a lot like U2.

It is an album of big, colourful, attacking rock with fluid melodies, bright anthemic choruses and bold lyrical ideas. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that, despite apparently being created in a spirit of self-doubt, it sounds fresh and cohesive, bouncing out of the speakers with a youthful spring in its step.

On first impressions, Songs of Innocence is not an attempt to create a grand masterpiece that redefines the band, but rather, as the title suggests, to reconnect them with an elusive pop elixir of youthful energy and passion. Lyrically, it reflects on the past, on their origins as a band and as individuals, which is unusual territory for the usually forward-looking Bono and the Edge (who share lyrical duties). Lead single and opening track, The Miracle (of Joey Ramone) sets the confident tone, with its “oh-way-oh” choral chant, glam rock stomping rhythm and surges of grungy guitar.

Lyrically, it is a celebration of the transformative power of music, and in particular the effect on the young U2 of hearing The Ramones, and in that spirit it keeps things simple and direct. There are songs about growing up on the north side of Dublin (the fierce and strange Raised By Wolves and the dense, somewhat ungainly Cedarwood Road), memories of Bono’s late mother (the chiming disco driving Iris (Hold Me Close)) and appreciations of musical inspirations (the loose, groovy This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now is dedicated to Joe Strummer, and celebrates the Clash spirit of passion and purposefulness).

Each track seems very defined in itself, opening with a trio of songs aimed directly at American radio (The Miracle, Every Breaking Wave and California (There Is No End To Love)), packed with chiming guitars, synth hooks and epic choruses. It sounds like U2 taking on such young stadium rock pretenders as Snow Patrol and The Killers, intent on beating them at the game U2 themselves invented.

An immediate standout track is Volcano, a thrilling, thumping yet delightfully quirky celebration of the power of rock and roll that sounds a bit like Franz Ferdinand on steroids. The Ryan Tedder-produced ballad Song For Someone is probably the track that will have fans holding their phones aloft in stadiums, a mid-tempo ballad that builds from plucked acoustic intimacy to heart-bursting emotion. It is one of the songs that hints at ideas and feelings in the deeper currents of an album made up of dazzling surfaces.

It clearly hasn’t been an easy album to make. It is six years since No Line On The Horizon (itself widely deemed a flawed album) and three years since they completed their record breaking 360 Degree tour. There were long sessions with cool American producer Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, who started working with the band in 2010. The album was first mooted for release at the beginning of 2014 (hence the release of a one off single, Invisible, in February), but since then there have been sessions with Paul Epworth (British producer for Adele, Coldplay and Florence And The Machine) and Ryan Tedder (top songwriting collaborator with the likes of Adele, Taylor Swift and Beyonce), both highly commercial producers who bring some contemporary sheen. Long-time collaborator Mark Ellis, aka Flood, is also involved, although, in the end, it appears to have been U2’s engineer Declan Gaffney who has put in the long hours to tie it all together (leading to promotion to a full production credit).

With the album’s October release only confirmed at the very last moment (with the pressure of the Apple iPhone launch looming), I have the sense that it was plucked from the band’s grasp in the mastering suite, probably with the Edge protesting that he’s not finished yet and there’s one more echoing guitar note to be added.

For me, on first contact, it is the Danger Mouse tracks that hold the most interest, and perhaps hint at directions U2 might have rewardingly explored if they had stayed their original course and weren’t quite so intent on maintaining massive stadium-level success. Touching synth ballad Sleep Like A Baby Tonight and dreamy, sinister album closer The Troubles (with a perfectly pitched vocal chant from Swedish singer Lykke Li) are the kind of strange pop songs that can really get under your skin.

Lyrically, here and elsewhere, hints emerge that these reminiscences of the past are not quite as innocent as they first appear, and that this is an album laced with guilt, working towards self-forgiveness and redemption. “I’m a long way from where I was and where I need to be,” Bono croons on Song For Someone, suggesting that there is perhaps more experience at work in this album than there is innocence.

It is, at heart, a highly personal set of songs. There are no flag waving anthems, no big social causes. If there is a moral, it appears in the coda of Cedarwood Road: “a heart that is broken is a heart that is open.”

As a long time U2 fan and supporter (in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that I am thanked in the album credits, albeit with my name misspelled), I wouldn’t put it on a par with their greatest work - Boy, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby or even the seamless songs of All That You Can’t Leave Behind. At times it does sound like it is trying a bit too hard to please. But it's more pop than Pop ever was, and it certainly does the job it apparently sets out to do, delivering addictive pop rock with hooks, energy, substance and ideas that linger in the mind after you’ve heard them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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

Bono Reveals Secrets of U2's Surprise Album 'Songs of Innocence'

In his only pre-release interview, Bono takes us inside the story of the band's 13th album, which was released today for free on iTunes

By Rolling Stone | September 9, 2014

U2 surprised the world today by releasing Songs of Innocence, their first album in five years, as a gift from Apple, available for free immediately to anyone with iTunes. The band made the announcement with Apple CEO Tim Cook at a Cupertino press conference for the new iPhone 6, capping the event with a performance of the album's first single, "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)." After a standing ovation, Cook said, "Wasn't that the most incredible single you ever heard? We would love a whole album of that."

"The question is now, how do we get it to as many people as possible, because that's what our band is all about," Bono said. "I do believe you have over half a billion subscribers to iTunes, so — could you get this to them?" "If we gave it away for free," Cook replied. And five seconds later, the album was unleashed in the largest album release of all time.

"We wanted to make a very personal album," Bono told Rolling Stone's Gus Wenner the day before the press conference in an exclusive interview. "Let's try to figure out why we wanted to be in a band, the relationships around the band, our friendships, our lovers, our family. The whole album is first journeys — first journeys geographically, spiritually, sexually. And that's hard. But we went there."

The band worked on Innocence for two years with producer Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton), then brought in additional help: Flood, their collaborator since 1987's The Joshua Tree, plus Adele producers Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder. "I think having them around really helped," says Bono, "Some of the music out there now that people call pop, it's not pop – it's just truly great. And we wanted to have the discipline of the Beatles or the Stones in the Sixties, when you had real songs. There's nowhere to hide in them: clear thoughts, clear melodies."

To begin, the band went back to its roots: Bono says the group listened to the music they loved in the Seventies, from punk rock to Bowie, glam rock, early electronica and Joy Division. The album kicks off with "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)," a loping pop song laced with distinctly punk-ish power chords. "I found my voice through Joey Ramone," says Bono, "because I wasn't the obvious punk-rock singer, or even rock singer. I sang like a girl — which I'm into now, but when I was 17 or 18, I wasn't sure. And I heard Joey Ramone, who sang like a girl, and that was my way in."

The driving, reggae-tinged "This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now," is a tribute to the Clash, with slinky guitars from the Edge that nod to Sandinista!. "After we saw the Clash, it was a sort of blueprint for U2," says Bono. "We knew we couldn't possibly hope to be as cool, and that's proven to be true, but we did think we could get behind a sort of social justice agenda."

There is also an intensely personal song about Bono's mother, Iris Hewson, who died when he was 14. "Forty years ago, my mother fell at her own father's funeral, and I never spoke with her again," he says. "Rage always follows grief, and I had a lot of it, and I still have, but I channeled it into music and I still do. I have very few memories of my mother, and I put a few of them in a song called 'Iris.'"

The most joyous track on Songs of Innocence is "California (There Is No End to Love)," which unexpectedly nods to the Beach Boys in its intro. "It's like the sun itself," says Bono. "It's about our first trip to Los Angeles." The darkest track, meanwhile, is "Raised by Wolves," which tells of a deadly car bombing in Dublin. "It was a real incident that happened in our country where three car bombs were set to go off at the same time in Dublin on a Friday night, 5:30," says Bono, "On any other Friday I would have been at this record shop, just down the corner, but I cycled to school that day."

At times Songs of Innocence feels almost like a concept album about Bono's early years – there's even a track named after the street where the singer grew up, "Cedarwood Road." "It has a lyrical cohesion that I think is unique amongst U2 albums," says Bono, "I don't want it to be a concept album, but the songs come from a place. Edge laughed and said this is ourQuadrophenia. We could be so lucky."

 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/