New U2 Album Information

The following is a running collection of news, rumors, quotes, and other information related to U2's next studio album. We'll continue to post updates to this page as we get new information. If you have found a quote or news item about the new U2 album, you're welcome to share it by emailing webmaster...at...atu2...dot...com.

ALBUM NAME: Bono told Rolling Stone the album will be called Songs Of Ascent

PRODUCER(s): unknown, but likely Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, with additional production by Steve Lillywhite since the songs are expected to be unused tracks from No Line On The Horizon

ALBUM RELEASE DATE: In this Irish Independent article, Bono and Paul McGuinness say it may be out by June, 2010.

FORMATS: unknown

TRACKLIST: unknown

POSSIBLE SONGS MENTIONED

These are two types of songs listed below:

1. songs mentioned in the buildup to U2's new album
2. songs believed to be unused from previous albums

It's possible that some of these titles were changed and have already appeared under a different name. It's also possible that, as song titles changes, some of these may be referring to the same song.

• "Kingdom Of Your Love" - this is the name of the song U2 is using as the intro music when the band takes the stage on the U2 360 Tour
• "Tripoli" (unused from No Line On The Horizon) In a video on U2.com, Brian Eno explains that this song became "Fez" on No Line On The Horizon.
• "Winter" (unused from No Line On The Horizon) - this song appears in the Jim Sheridan film, Brothers
• "Every Breaking Wave" (Bono told Rolling Stone this is a "surging anthem" and would be the first single.)
• "If I Could Live My Life Again" - Bono says this song is "inspired by the great Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges." Bono said he had just begun the song while speaking with author Michka Assayas in December, 2005. Their interview appears as the extra material in the paperback version of Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas.
• "Love Is All We Have Left" - a song Bono named during his May, 2006, trip to Africa as one that he had recently written. "It’s like an old Broadway tune. I thought it was a Frank Sinatra song," Bono said.
• "North Star," a song from the How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sessions which included a guest organ appearance from Michael W. Smith. In this CCM article, Smith describes the song as a tribute to Johnny Cash.
• "Mercy", one of the last songs to get cut from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, described in Blender magazine as "a six-and-a-half-minute outpouring of U2 at its most uninhibitedly U2-ish"
• "Lead Me In The Way I Should Go" -- a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in this February, 2003, interview with Bono in Grammy Magazine
• "You Can't Give Away Your Heart" - a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in SPIN magazine

LATEST NEWS

January 15, 2010: In a conversation with Dave Fanning, Edge continued to express the band's uncertainty over what to do next with its Fez material, its Rick Rubin material, and the Spider-Man songs.

"We're asking ourselves exactly the same questions. We don't really know yet. We're working on material here, and it's sounding amazing, but we're far from being certain about what we're gonna do with it."

January 4, 2010: The Guardian has published a Neil McCormick interview with Edge that includes this quote about U2's new album plans:

"...we won't really know til the new year what we'll be able to achieve. There's a certain sort of practical window of opportunity to release the record that we are operating within. If the material isn't ready for the early new year we'll probably have to put it on hold."

But these comments were made back on December 8th, so the quotes below from Bono and Paul McGuinness are still the most recent statements about U2's plans.

January 2, 2010: In the year-end issue of Hot Press, Olaf Tyaransen talks with Edge about U2's plans for 2010.

The last time we spoke, you mentioned the possibility of a new U2 album coming out before the end of the year. That's obviously not going to happen, but when can fans expect a new record?

We would like it to be sooner rather than later. We are working on some stuff that sounds amazing, but it's hard to say when it'll actually be done. Well, certainly I don't, and I know Bono doesn't want to leave too long of a gap between the last record and the next one.

What's the feel of the songs you're working on at the moment?

It's too early to say, but because the last record was an experiment writing with Brian [Eno] and Danny [Lanois] in that kind of free-flowing workshop, Bono and I -- we're really kind of songwriting in a much more formal way at the moment. We've got some stuff, more abstract stuff that we could put together as a release, but right now what's really intriguing me is plain, old-fashioned songwriting, and we have some amazing stuff.

How about the Spiderman musical? It's been reported that, thanks to the recession, it's run into problems. Is it going ahead?

Well, it's all ready to go. We're just waiting for the word that we can ... we've pretty much done our job. We're waiting for the word that our director, Julie Taymor, can get back and get into the theatre and start putting the show together. We're told it could be any day. We've got new producers involved: Michael Cohl is coming in, to become an additional producer. So they're busy working on raising finance and getting all that stuff in order. I'm really happy with the music and the script, and the cast that we have are fantastic, so I don't have any concerns, ultimately, but it's kind of frustrating that it's taking so long.

This interview was likely done in early- or mid-December, meaning the December 27 quotes (below) are the most recent about U2's new album.

January 2, 2010: In the new issue of Q magazine, Bono says this about U2's plans for 2010:

"We've been listening to material for [possible next album] Songs of Ascent. We haven't fully decided to press 'go' on that. But we're touring at the end of May and it'd be nice to have some new songs. Even if it's an EP or a single song."

It's unclear when Bono gave that quote, though for monthly magazine publishing, I would expect a deadline of 2-3 weeks prior to the magazine being in stores. Ergo, the quotes below (December 27) are probably more recent.

December 27, 2009: In this Irish Independent article, Bono and Paul McGuinness say the new album may be out by June, 2010. Here are the quotes:

Paul McGuinness: "I have heard some of the stuff the guys have played and, yeah, it is great. Bono is always an optimist but he seems confident of getting a new record out by the end of the next six months. They're talking about June. By that time we will be ready to go back on tour and I think that will give it a different flavour."

Bono: "We are working away and we have a couple of yearlings in the stables that could really turn out to be thoroughbreds in the future. As a band you are always trying to work on new material and we had some unfinished material from the last album."

December 18, 2009: As we reported here, Bono has told the Hollywood Reporter that he and Edge (and maybe the whole band) are in a studio in New York City this week.

November 13, 2009: Following up on the bit right below this, Rolling Stone has published the article from that interview. As Cara notes, there are a few quotes related to U2's new album:

• Bono and Edge headed to France after their November 5 gig in Berlin for a "two-week songwriting session."
• Bono: "We've been playing really well on the tour and getting better and better, and we need to distill whatever we have into some songs."
• Author Brian Hiatt: U2 is "debating whether the next record will consist of songs from the No Line on the Horizon sessions – the unfinished album known as Songs of Ascent – or an entirely new set of tunes."
• Bono: "I would like to put out an album quickly, but we're only going to do it if it's great."

November 3, 2009: Rolling Stone magazine's Brian Hiatt posted on Twitter after a phone interview with Edge. On the bright side, Hiatt posted that Edge says "Kingdom Of Your Love" -- the U2 360 tour intro song -- is a "potential Songs of Ascent track." On the not-so-bright side, Hiatt also posted that "Songs of Ascent remains an idea more than an actual album at this point, a subject of debate within the band. No release plans yet."

October 5, 2009: USA Today talks to U2 about their new album plans, and reiterates this idea (see next entry below) of three potentially different projects U2 could do. "The Spider-Man collection is the most developed but the least appropriate to the band," Edge says. "We've got so much material at different stages of completion, it's going to be a nice problem when we've got a few weeks to look at it." Speaking about Songs of Ascent, Bono says "It's a very intimate affair. They are beautiful love songs, where the object of love is not always obvious."

October 2, 2009: RollingStone.com has a feature about U2's new album plans, taken from interviews conducted in August and September. It's too long to repeat here, but both Edge and Larry say they want to have new music out "sooner rather than later." There are potentially three albums: Songs of Ascent, a Spider-Man album, and an album from the Rick Rubin sessions. "If we're going to do another rock record, I want to do Spider-Man. I just haven't talked Adam and Larry into that," Bono says.

September 19, 2009: Sun Media also spoke with Adam about U2's album plans, specifically asking him to comment on what Bono said (see next entry below) about Songs of Ascent and the old Rick Rubin material.

Sun Media: Bono told me there is another album coming, with the working title, Songs of Ascent, the more ambient songs done with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, from the sessions for your latest album No Line on the Horizon?

Clayton: Some of it, I'm sure, is true, especially for Bono. And those are great aspirations. I'm a little bit more nuts and bolts and until there are 10 songs finished, mixed and on a shelf, then that's not definite for me. It takes us a long time. When Bono hears two notes together he hears a song complete. When anyone else hears two notes together, we hear a starting point.

Sun Media: Bono was also hopeful you guys would go back to the shelved Rick Rubin sessions, which began before the Eno-Lanois sessions.

Clayton: I'd like to. Part of the reason we didn't feel like pursuing them at the time was that they were too purist, they were too fundamental, and we tend to like our music a little bit more complex -- so I don't know at what point we'll want something as straight forward as that. Rick strips everything away. There's no real dressing. He doesn't like atmospherics and textures or any of that stuff. I think we all thought we could do something interesting together if we applied that sort of discipline, but in the end I think we realized that we like the textures and colours and tones.

September 17, 2009: Bono talked about U2's new album plans in this interview with Canada's Sun Media:

SUN MEDIA: What's the status on a second more ambient album, to be released from the Lanois-Eno sessions, with the working title Songs of Ascent, and then the Rick Rubin session before that?

BONO: We've got a few albums up our sleeves. We've got a whole album we started with Rick Rubin, which is a rocking club album with beats and big guitars, and I can't wait to get back to that. So we're going to see where the mood takes us. But it's not like we have to start afresh. We have five or six songs on that album. We have about 12 on the Songs of Ascent, plus The Edge and myself have written Spiderman: The Musical -- that's nearly done.

August 12, 2009: As we reported here, Sam O'Sullivan (Larry's drum tech) told fans in Zagreb that the band will stay in Vancouver after the 360 Tour ends in October to finish work on Songs of Ascent. He says the album should be out in December or early 2010. There are also other reports that Songs of Ascent will be the first (or one of the first) albums released on a new digital album format being created by the four major record labels.

July 20, 2009: Edge talks about the next album in the current issue of Hot Press:

There was talk of a possible new U2 album before the end of the year. Is that on the cards?
The Edge: It is still on the cards, but we don't really have plans that we can sign up to that far out. We would love the idea of the next record being sooner rather than later. We certainly have the material for it, but it's about whether we have the time to finish it. It depends on how the touring progresses. And there's the Spiderman musical which will be early next year, starting in New York, so Bono and I have a fair amount of work to do on that early in the year. It'll be a first for us. We are very excited about it, but it's a steep learning curve.

You can read more from the interview at Scatter O'Light.

June 21, 2009: This Irish Independent article seems to dash any plans for releasing the album in 2009:

"While a spring release date had been mentioned, Bono seems to damping down that expectation now, saying that while they have nine pieces of music that they think are really special, the album will only come out if and when it is as good or better than No Line. And it certainly won't come out, as was reported in some media, this year. Bono is unashamedly clear that he wants No Line on the Horizon to be the U2 product that gets bought this Christmas."

March 24, 2009: In an interview with Hot Press magazine, Paul McGuinness expresses doubts over U2 releasing a new album in 2009:

"I can't see how, but we did that once before on the Zoo TV tour – the Zooropa album came out. But I remember the sheer effort of flying back to Dublin every night of the European tour to work on that album and then fly out again a day or so later – it nearly killed the band. They should remember that period if they think about doing it again. Nothing would surprise me, but it's certainly not something I would have expected."

March 3, 2009: The March 17 issue of Rolling Stone quotes Bono saying the next album will be called Songs Of Ascent, and that it will be released in 2010.

"Songs Of Ascent will be quieter than No Line in many ways, it's that ghost album of hymns and Sufi singing. We're making a kind of heartbreaker, a meditative, reflexive piece of work, but not indulgent."

February 28, 2009: A New York Times article says that "U2 expects to release a companion album, which band members say will have a more meditative and processional tone, before the end of the year."

February 15, 2009: This Observer article reports that U2 is planning to release another album before the end of 2009. Bono describes it as "a more meditative album on the theme of pilgrimage."