Tag: U2

Official U2 Album Release, Tracklisting

Posted on January 19, 2009

It is official! No Line on the Horizon will be released on March 2nd in the UK and March 3rd in the US. You can stream the first song, “Get on Your Boots.”   Definitely not love at first hear, but I don’t usually like the first single release on any of their albums, i.e. Discotheque/Pop, Vertigo/HTDAAB. Here is the NLOTH line-up:

1. No Line On The Horizon
2. Magnificent
3. Moment of Surrender
4. Unknown Caller
5. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
6. Get On Your Boots
7. Stand Up Comedy
8. Fez – Being Born
9. White As Snow
10. Breathe
11. Cedars Of Lebanon

No Line On The Horizon will be available in five formats;

– Standard jewel case – with album CD and 24 page booklet

– Digipak format – limited edition with album CD, 32 page colour booklet and fold out poster. Features access to exclusive downloadable Anton Corbijn film.

– Magazine format – limited edition with album CD, with 64 page magazine. Features access to exclusive downloadable Anton Corbijn film.

– Box format – limited edition bespoke box containing digipak format album CD, DVD of Anton Corbijn’s exclusive film, 64 page hardback book, plus a fold out poster.

– LP vinyl – limited edition with 2 black vinyl discs, gatefold sleeve, and a 16 page booklet.

– Preorder from Amazon US

No Line on the Horizon: New U2 Album

Posted on December 18, 2008

No Line On The Horizon, the new studio album from U2, will be released on Monday 2nd March 2009. Written and recorded in various locations, No Line On The Horizon is the group’s 12th studio album and is their first release since the 9 million selling album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, released in late 2004. Check out an early release, “I Believe in Father Christmas”;

Sessions for No Line On The Horizon began last year in Fez, Morocco, continued in the band’s own studio in Dublin, before moving to New York’s Platinum Sound Recording Studios, and finally being completed at Olympic Studios in London. The album calls on the production talents of long-time collaborators Brian Eno and Danny Lanois, with additional production by Steve Lillywhite.

Great interview with the Edge that describes the new album in greater detail.The words: “innovative”, “U2”, “new”, “piano” all stood out. I’m excited!

Bonus: Listen to two leaked tracks here.

Bono on Christmas

Posted on December 14, 2008

I posted this last year and found it just as reflective and awe-inspiring as last year…

This reflection on Christmas occurred after Bono had just returned home, to Dublin, from a long tour with U2. On Christmas Eve Bono went to the famous St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where Jonathan Swift was dean. Apparently he was given a really poor seat, one obstructed by a pillar, making it even more difficult for him to keep his eyes open…but it was there that Christmas story struck him like never before. He writes:

“The idea that God, if there is a force of Logic and Love in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in shit and straw…a child… I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry … Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came streaming down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this.”

Isn’t it compelling? The logic and love of a personal God revealing himself, accounting for our person-ality, our propensity to love. And oh, the mercy of God, born in shit and straw, to rescue us from ourselves, our godless gift-giving, and our arrogant disregard for God and for others so that we might know and enjoy him and his new creation forever. And that he, the infinite God, would do it in Christ, in time, in space, in confounding condescension to pivot the course of the entire creation project from despair, destruction, and dereliction to a hopeful, whole, and happy future.

Will you ponder the poetry of Christmas this year, the genius of the incarnation? What obstructions are in your path to dwelling on the vulnerable, inexhaustible power and love of God in Christ? Renounce them and rivet your attention on the Christ.

Excerpt taken from Bono: in conversation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), 124-5.

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Keane – Perfect Symmetry

Posted on October 23, 2008

I became a fan of Keane the first time I heard them live, opening for U2 during the Atomic Bomb tour (side note: Bono’s Recent Speech). The combination of guitarless, piano driven music, soaring vocals, and reflective lyrics makes Keane a unique band. Although Hopes and Fears is their best known album. Under the Iron Sea was a great follow up, featuring some great songs like “Crystal Ball”, “Frog Prince”, “Hamburg Song”. With the release of their latest album Perfect Symmetry, Keane has reworked their sound considerably.

Perfect Symmetry is like Keane meets Culture Club, a real 80s throw back sound. These guys are, after all, children of the 80s. At first I didn’t like it; I love the old, classy Keane, but I haven’t take PS out of my cd player in a week. The first half of the album contains the synthesized sound that smacks of the 80s, but the second half of the album is like the old Keane. There’s no doubt they had fun making this album.

My son loves what he calls “The Monkey Song” also known as “Pretend that You’re Alone.” It’s a song about the ramifications of biological and social darwinism. Tom ties Darwinism to the selfish gene in the following lyric:

We are just the monkeys who fell out of the trees
We are blisters on the earth
And we are not the flowers, we’re the strangling weeds in the meadow
And love is just our way of looking out for ourselves
When we don’t want to live alone
So step into the vacuum, tear off your clothes and be born again

If we are just monkeys that fell out of the trees, then love is simply an emotion, a biological secretion designed for self-protection. Surround yourself with people who “love” you enough to protect you. Of course, this often backfires because our selfish love is more selfish that we could ever imagine. Darwinism empties love of any virtue. Makes you long for an absolute Love.

The rest of the album is scattered with lyrically reflective, poppy 80s tunes. A thought provoking combination. After all, the ideas and experiences Tom Chaplin kicks around are far from pop in substance. Hope you pick it up and enjoy it.