I am already excited about the new U2 album now being recorded. It should be out early in 2009. Few bands have been able to tap into the spiritual and cultural world and create such a brilliant and meaningful combination of commentary and entertainment.
Many of their songs hit me like sermons.
Of course, U2 will always be known for their 1987 breakthrough album "The Joshua Tree" and such classics as "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "With or Without You." But there is much more to this mighty band. Every one of their discs has produced some fantastic songs that are both musically brilliant and lyrically powerful even if they don't make the singles charts or get airplay. "Playboy Mansion" from "Pop" is one such song; "All That You Can't Leave Behind" is another.
I think one of the reasons they are so successful is that they were childhood friends. They grew up together, became rich and famous together, and stuck it out through good times and bad together. That is the kind of bond and interpersonal chemistry you don't find very often in the cutthroat music business.
The last time U2 came out with an album of new material was late 2004, with "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." It went on sale on a Tuesday and I went the store to buy it at 12:01 a.m., the first time I'd ever done that for a new album. I guess you could say I was pumped for it.
I put the CD in my car stereo and headed west into the farmlands of Fulton County to crank it up. I thought it would be better than blasting the new disc at home and waking everyone up... and listening on headphones is not my favorite way to hear music. Listening to music in the confines of your own automobile as you're zipping along the highways and byways is one of modern life's true pleasures.
So here I am, around 12:30 in the morning, cruising blithely along the backroads in my classic Saab 900, when somewhere in the middle of the third song, "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," I heard and felt a loud "Thwap".
Something hit the car. I got out and checked and saw that some moron had thrown an egg. No harm done but it knocked me out of my reverie.
That's my pleasant memories of my first experience listening to "Atomic Bomb." Touching, isn't it?
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So on we go to 2009 and the next album. Here's what Bono had to say on the band's official website, www.u2.com., about the new songs:
'We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein and we don’t want to stop.' Bono has been talking to U2.Com about how the songs are shaping up for the new record and plans for 2009 to be their year.
‘This is our chance for us to defy gravity once again, ‘ explains Bono, calling in from a break in recording sessions in the south of France. ‘ We have what it takes, we have the songs, new rhythms and a guitar player who is not ready to re-enter earth's atmosphere until he's taken a slice of the moon!
'It's been fun, it's been maddening... there have been injuries and recoveries, no babies born that I know of, but this one is nearly ready for the new year of 2009.'
The band have been writing and recording the follow-up to ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ since last year, and the feeling is that they’ve hit a creative groove so there are no plans to stop. Everyone, he says, is excited about where the recording is taking them.
‘When we set out on this record it was Larry who came up with the plan not to have a plan. He put up this idea that wouldn’t it be great just to make music for its own sake, not for the purpose of a live show or on album but just to see what we’re capable of…’
It’s an idea that’s paid off. Following sessions in Morocco, in Dublin and through the summer in France, the band have written ‘fifty or sixty’ tracks. And counting.
‘We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein,’ he explains. ‘It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we've found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there's more priceless stuff to be found?
For now, they’re keeping a promise they made to themselves when they started writing: ‘We said to each other that if we got to the great place then we wouldn’t stop…’
So the writing and recording continues and while they now know what shape most of the album will take, they're not leaving the studio just yet.
‘We know we have to emerge soon but we also know that people don’t want another U2 album unless it is our best ever album. It has to be our most innovative, our most challenging … or what’s the point ?’
They have no doubts that it will be as important a release for U2 as any. ‘It’s a brand new chapter for us, and everyone we’ve played the tracks to has said that musically it feels like another departure.
‘The last two records were very personal, with a kind of three piece at their heart, the primary colours of rock - bass, guitars and drum. But what we’re about now is of the same order as the transition that took us from The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby.’
He also mentions that the recording in Morocco was the first time the band have worked in a studio open to the sky: ‘On that track you can hear the sound of a swallows nest close to the building - it’s beautiful.’
Longtime collaborators Danny Lanois and Brian Eno have joined the band at different times, and, more recently, Steve Lillywhite – usually a tell-tale sign that a record is nearly done. ‘Steve has that ear for a top line melody and a good hook.’
But while Bono is itching to get the music out he says it’s going to be early 2009 when we first get to hear the songs.
‘I’m always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply 'put out the songs now', if it was just up to me they’d be out already! But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we’ve been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we’re going to start making an impression very early on …’
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Sylvania, Ohio
November 8, 2008