Good news for U2 fans..

[suites]

As cliche as they have become, they are pretty great live.

 

First time was at the Sportotorium in 84 and have not missed since.

[Analogman]

From Billboard:

 

 

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 performed at the Golden Globes, 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."

[Sir Stewart]

Hang it up, guys.

[Analogman]

That article is certainly discouraging. I don't know why they are worried about making "hit singles" at this point.

[froggie]

the title of the thread makes me smirk.... 'no u2 during 2014?'

[Moss]

They need to either hang it up or do the Rick Rubin thing where he comes in and reminds them what the hell made them good to begin with.

[Atticus]

If you're having to work that hard at being relevant I think you've already gotten your answer.

[remphish1]

They should be at the stage in their career when they don't give a f what they release and they should record ever they want! That's why I liked pop because they were in the we will let the cards fall where they do phase.

[Sir Stewart]

If you dig Comedy Bang Bang and/or Parks & Recreation and U2, you might like Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott talking about U2 in their podcast U Talking U2 2 Me?

http://www.earwolf.com/show/u-talkin-u2-to-me/

A lot of the time they don't talk about U2 at all, but they are still entertaining.

[Analogman]

I wonder if the new album will have a physical release for those who don't do iTunes?

 

 

Songs of Innocence is the 13th studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was announced on September 9, 2014, at an Apple Inc. keynote event, and released the same day to all iTunes customers at no cost.

 

1."The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)"

2."Every Breaking Wave"

3."California (There is No End to Love)”

4."Song for Someone"

5."Iris (Hold Me Close)"

6."Volcano"

7."Raised by Wolves"

8."Cedarwood Road"

9."Sleep Like a Baby Tonight"

10. "This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now"

11."The Troubles"

[Hixter]

I wonder if the new album will have a physical release for those who don't do iTunes?

I think it's only free for a month, so I assume there will be a CD release. Knowing record labels these days, it'll probably have a bonus song and so will the vinyl version.

 

(I knew there had to be a U2 thread around here somewhere, but the board software wouldn't let me search for a 2-letter string. I get the same thing a lot when I try to search for 'Who'.)

[Analogman]

I like to keep this thread alive for someone who use to post here. 

 

(I search on Bono or Townshend to find the threads.)

[bleedorange]

From U2's website:

 

On October 13th the physical release of Songs of Innocence comes with a 24-page booklet. A deluxe, gatefold double album, contains an acoustic session of songs from the album and four additional tracks: Lucifer's Hands, The Crystal Ballroom, The Troubles (Alternative version) and Sleep Like a Baby Tonight (Alternative Perspective Mix by Tchad Blake)

The album will also be available as a gatefold, double white-vinyl LP with an exclusive remix of "The Crystal Ballroom".

 

[Analogman]

Thanks for the information.

[Analogman]

It appears Amazon is not going to put a page up for this album. I am guessing they are protesting the free giveaway deal. 

[Vacant Horizon]

http://www.jambands.com/news/2014/09/18/u2-and-apple-think-they-can-get-people-to-buy-music-again/

 

 

hi-rez?

[Analogman]

John Mellencamp and T Bone Burnette already tried that one.

 

Billboard:

 

 

Everyone calm down. While Apple refused to comment, sources with knowledge of the situation tell Billboard that Bono's use of the word "format" was a bit of a misnomer. "It's not a new format, but rather a new way to package and present an album," our source explains. "This is focused on creative advances, versus shifts in technology." This is not Pono in file form.

 

Apple has tread this path before, in the music and film industries, through its iTunes LP and iTunes Extras formats. iTunes LP, introduced in 2009, gave labels and artists an extra creative arm for the presentation of digital albums, with exclusive material like interactive artwork. iTunes Extras offered similar functionality for films, with exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes materials.

[Vacant Horizon]

i'd buy downloads if they came with a gatefold sleeve.

[Analogman]

I am curious to what they have in mind. It seems risky now that there has been such a backlash against the way they released the new album.

[Kim Bodnia]

vinyl listing on amazon U.K: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Songs-Of-Innocence-VINYL-U2/dp/B00NI5RHT6/

[Analogman]

Still nothing listed at the American Amazon.com

[Analogman]

There's a link up at Amazon now: 

 

Songs of Innocence

 

I think I am going to go for the deluxe version. I am curious to hear those acoustic songs. And I have to disagree with some of the comments. There are some great songs on the last two albums. 

[Clayton Kershaw]

Invisible will be somehow included on Songs Of Innocence according to Bono on recent radio interviews. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I hope that it finds itself as a hidden track on disc 2 and not disc 1.

 

Bono also went on to explain how some of the acoustic arrangements will be for the new tunes. I like how he describes California and Raised By Wolves, but it worries me that already they're hinting on planning on doing some of these acoustic on the next tour, as if it's too hard to present these as close to possible as they are on the record. Maybe it will be nice to give Stay (Faraway, So Close) and Stuck In A Moment a break from the acoustic presentation on the next tour. Those are amazing live, but a bit too predictable. I liked it when they tried Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses and The First Time acoustic on the Vertigo Tour. 

 

He also dropped some information about the bonus tracks on the deluxe version of Songs of Innocence. "Lucifer's Hands" and "The Crystal Ballroom" are, in Bono's words, a couple of "important songs". He then went on to describe three of the acoustic versions: "Every Breaking Waves" will "really kill ya"; "California" has a "big brass, big soul section like a Van Morrison song"; and there is a version of "Raised By Wolves" that "sounds like African music, Fela Kuti or something".

[Analogman]

I have not heard the album yet - so it will all be new to me. 

[Sir Stewart]

I like to keep this thread alive for someone who use to post here.

 

u2roolz?