Is there an album on the horizon? (AKA New Album Speculation)

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Its what is behind the decision that is truly fucked.

Its nice of Edge to say they have truckloads of material and its all so great and they just don't know what to do with it all, what direction to go in, but we all know that's complete bullshit, right? We know they did make a directional decision. And that they were happy enough with that material for a long, long time. Up until early February - and possibly later - that thing was on-target for a May release. The decision came after then. And had nothing to do with having too much material and it all being so confusing.

They'd made that decision and nailed it down. Then... so... do we actually release it? Why should we release it? Why should we hold back?

Think about that. Try imagining that conversation between the band. If you think that decision had anything to do with direction or quality of material or whatever, you're pretty naive. Enjoy your bloated biggest ever greatest hits tour and don't forget to re-up your annual $50 subscription to a meaningless website each year while you are on your long wait till your next $100 blown on four different super deluxe limited exclusive edition versions of a seriously underwhelming and massively compromised creatively stale album.

To be honest, there are five or six tracks on No Line that are starting to look more and more as though they were just a final twitch coming from a body that has otherwise been lifeless for some time.

So what do you think was the reason for cancelling this album?
 
look on the bright side, you get to see many of your friends from Anaheim last summer! :wave:

I know - and I'm very happy about that. :wave: Recovering now, but felt really bad listening to that interview - almost as bad as hearing Bono hurt his back last year - at least this time the band is injured in a creative rather than a physical way.
 
I've somewhat recovered from my whining and will direct my anger at the other whiners in this thread.

Feelsgoodman.
 
So, how long until ridiculously exaggerated versions of this story hit the mainstream news? I'm guessing three hours.
 
If you think that decision had anything to do with direction or quality of material or whatever, you're pretty naive. Enjoy your bloated biggest ever greatest hits tour and don't forget to re-up your annual $50 subscription to a meaningless website each year while you are on your long wait till your next $100 blown on four different super deluxe limited exclusive edition versions of a seriously underwhelming and massively compromised creatively stale album.

To be honest, there are five or six tracks on No Line that are starting to look more and more as though they were just a final twitch coming from a body that has otherwise been lifeless for some time.

yep. bollocks to it....not surprising, but still an outright gutless move.

at least the rolling stones play some b-sides in their greatest hits tours.
 
So, how long until ridiculously exaggerated versions of this story hit the mainstream news? I'm guessing three hours.

We're already seeing some ridiculously exaggerated responses on this thread already. :lol:
 
I'm guessing the headlines will now say
"New U2 album after tour ends" :doh:
Well, technically, 2013 is after the end of the tour.

We're already seeing some ridiculously exaggerated responses on this thread already. :lol:
I know, but the media is probably the best at it. Take, for example, spinning Jay-Z giving the band some words of advice into "‎Jay-Z Accidentally Gave U2's Bono The Fear Of Failure" into "Jay-Z Forced Bono To Review Below-Par U2 Album" into "Jay-Z Blames Himself For U2 Album Delay" into "Famous Rapper Punches U2 Singer In Face Repeatedly, Calls Bono's Upcoming Album 'Crap-Tastic'".
Okay, the last one was made up, but the others are all direct quotes.
 
now that's a surprise...

seems like they've lost their inspiration or something...
 
Vlad n U 2 said:
I'm disappointed as much as everyone else, but don't act as if this is some "we're all doomed, U2 are doomed" thing.

It will now be impossible for U2 to reclaim any of the reputation they once had. All they have now is the past, and I think that's why everyone here is upset with the news.

Do you honestly think that in another 2.5 years, the music world will be interested in four guys in their mid 50s who are roughly 20 years past their best work? And if they lack the courage of their convictions now, if this shelved album was make or break, imagine how that situation will be magnified in 2013.

I wish it was 1989, but it's not.
 
I've been as negative with the rumors as anyone on here, only cause I didn't buy into the hype that is just utter bullshit from this band.

After Pop, they kept talking about how much material they have, how they're on fire, how they could release multiple albums....etc etc

When you make claims like this over and over, you don't have shit.

Earnie may be right, they may have completed an album, and got too chicken shit with it being a different direction, or not enough hits to quiver and shrink their already tiny fucking egos to hold off till after the tour.

And speaking of. U2 will do the same thing. They'll talk about examining the material they have after tour, taking their time to sit down with it and see what they really have....then we'll hear they're in the studio and the songs are just flowing out.....and we'll have another two to three years AFTER the tour is over.

I'm sorry but this band has really dropped in my opinion. I was starting to waiver a bit after ATYCLB (only cause the reapplying shit was old, but I do like the album and the tour was great). Then they have the stupid iPod ad, a exact same tour as Elevation, just with a god damn circle and some colored beads, and the constant cash cow they've become.

As Earnie said we'll get four different formats to buy with the most expensive having the few extras us die hards woudl want, and a whole lot of crap no one would want.

The 360 tour has had a chance to become one of their best, but their choices of songs lead me to believe they are really just mailing it in. IALW, MS, and the lack of any real rock songs is just lame. Heck they even remove the cool parts from songs like the solo from MW.......it's almost as if every song has to sound the same. IF it wasn't for UV, i wouldn't even bother listening to a song from this tour.

But what's really shitty is to keep getting updates from this band and leading it's fanbase on. Even though deep down i knew they'd never have the balls to release an album, I still wanted to hope and believe they could do it.

I'll stick to other bands who can actually write songs and release them, without thinking about having a #1 album and a 300 million profit for tour.
 
maybe it's time for them to call it a day? i mean, if they're so indecisive with their material, or just can't produce material they think is good enough to release?
 
It will now be impossible for U2 to reclaim any of the reputation they once had. All they have now is the past, and I think that's why everyone here is upset with the news.

Do you honestly think that in another 2.5 years, the music world will be interested in four guys in their mid 50s who are roughly 20 years past their best work? And if they lack the courage of their convictions now, if this shelved album was make or break, imagine how that situation will be magnified in 2013.

I wish it was 1989, but it's not.

I do agree, although I can't imagine this being massive news.
 
Feeling a bit of a fool for renewing wife and my U2.com subscriptions this past month. $80 for not a lot I guess - just 2 CDs of stuff we've already got and no new presale codes for no new shows. Very poor show guys.
 
So what do you think was the reason for cancelling this album?

Probably will never know for sure, definitely will never get an honest answer, but:

I don't think it would be purely creative. Given that it would have been this little window for release, or not at all, there's no room for delay. They couldn't do what they did with No Line, and just bump it a couple of months while they nail down some HITS! So I think you have that quote from McGuinness in November saying they were done with recording, they just need to wrap it up and tinker with it a bit, and they're gunning to do that now because they need to hit certain deadlines for a May release. Then in early February, he says they're releasing in May. I think there's a pretty good chance the material survived the wrapping up phase as 'good enough'. I think if they thought it wasn't up to scratch, or was missing a song or two, that would have occurred to them before February.

So it might not be a case of it being not good enough, but rather, not being BIG enough. Maybe they went into it, and got all the way through it, thinking a Zooropa type album is all they need/all they want. Like Zooropa, its mid tour, no expectations, no weight of "After four years, this is it?" An understanding that this is a bit of fucking around part time while on tour, not locking yourself in a studio for a year full time. It allowed a different spirit all though Zooropa, and more specifically, songs like Babyface and Some Days are Better than Others, which I truly love, but would have sounded a bit after four years? on a different album.

So maybe this was similar. Grabbing a producer like Danger Mouse, describing the album as 'lightfooted', and working on such a fast timeline (for them), on a timing like this, all points that way. But then they get to the final, right at the end of the process, album is done, this is it, are we releasing this? decision, and... we thought we wanted our next album to be Zooropa, and we've made a great Zooropa... but actually... wait... cold feet... Ditch! Ditch! Ditch!... BIGGER! BIGGER! BIGGER!

Or, its a pure commercial decision. There's going to be no European leg to finish this off. We've sold our North American leg. There's no need to release a new album now, it really has no upside to it. We won't be able to promote it properly. Why would we just slip an album out there when there's little to no demand, one that isn't promoted properly, and isn't there to sell anything? Why on earth would we do that? Let's just wait until the conditions are right. In a couple of years, demand will have built up again, when we release it will be a much bigger deal, we'll be able to put together a much bigger album in the meantime, and we'll be able to flog another mega-tour off the back of it. It makes far better business sense to just hold off completely. Let's do that.
 
maybe they've read Interference and just decided they hate all their fans? :D
 
I'm disappointed as much as everyone else, but don't act as if this is some "we're all doomed, U2 are doomed" thing.

No, but there should be few illusions as to what U2 are all about, or where they're at. Nothing on its own is a killer, but there's a pattern, and I think with each step, more are realising it.
 
I'll start to forgive them for messing about like this if they'll start to play the rocking numbers a bit more for the end of this tour for example:
No Line On The Horizon
Electric Co
Last Night On Earth
Gone
Bullet The Blue Sky
Boy Falls From The Sky

and other songs with an angry element and a bit more geetar. (Plus Bad)

But really what a lot of us want is new songs - after all the band themselves always talk about being more interested in the now and the future rather than the past. But the current setlist is getting to be a bit of a museum piece.
 
Probably will never know for sure, definitely will never get an honest answer, but:

I don't think it would be purely creative. Given that it would have been this little window for release, or not at all, there's no room for delay. They couldn't do what they did with No Line, and just bump it a couple of months while they nail down some HITS! So I think you have that quote from McGuinness in November saying they were done with recording, they just need to wrap it up and tinker with it a bit, and they're gunning to do that now because they need to hit certain deadlines for a May release. Then in early February, he says they're releasing in May. I think there's a pretty good chance the material survived the wrapping up phase as 'good enough'. I think if they thought it wasn't up to scratch, or was missing a song or two, that would have occurred to them before February.

So it might not be a case of it being not good enough, but rather, not being BIG enough. Maybe they went into it, and got all the way through it, thinking a Zooropa type album is all they need/all they want. Like Zooropa, its mid tour, no expectations, no weight of "After four years, this is it?" An understanding that this is a bit of fucking around part time while on tour, not locking yourself in a studio for a year full time. It allowed a different spirit all though Zooropa, and more specifically, songs like Babyface and Some Days are Better than Others, which I truly love, but would have sounded a bit after four years? on a different album.

So maybe this was similar. Grabbing a producer like Danger Mouse, describing the album as 'lightfooted', and working on such a fast timeline (for them), on a timing like this, all points that way. But then they get to the final, right at the end of the process, album is done, this is it, are we releasing this? decision, and... we thought we wanted our next album to be Zooropa, and we've made a great Zooropa... but actually... wait... cold feet... Ditch! Ditch! Ditch!... BIGGER! BIGGER! BIGGER!

Or, its a pure commercial decision. There's going to be no European leg to finish this off. We've sold our North American leg. There's no need to release a new album now, it really has no upside to it. We won't be able to promote it properly. Why would we just slip an album out there when there's little to no demand, one that isn't promoted properly, and isn't there to sell anything? Why on earth would we do that? Let's just wait until the conditions are right. In a couple of years, demand will have built up again, when we release it will be a much bigger deal, we'll be able to put together a much bigger album in the meantime, and we'll be able to flog another mega-tour off the back of it. It makes far better business sense to just hold off completely. Let's do that.

I see. It makes sense to me that they would see it as a kind of 'low priority' - they've already released NLOTH, have no obligation to release another big album for a few years, are already in the public spotlight with a massively successful tour, haven't been able to fully commit to an album, and want to be absolutely sure the follow up to the NLOTH 'dud' is a big, best-seling one.

The odds were really against this album from the beginning. It might piss us off, but u2 simply didn't really need a quick follow up. Or, at least, they felt they didn't - i think going away after a flop for 5 years is a pretty bad idea.
 
I'll start to forgive them for messing about like this if they'll start to play the rocking numbers a bit more for the end of this tour for example:
No Line On The Horizon
Electric Co
Last Night On Earth
Gone
Bullet The Blue Sky
Boy Falls From The Sky

and other songs with an angry element and a bit more geetar. (Plus Bad)
it won't happen.
 
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