Next Album Rumours Thread III - The Gospel of Adam

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Get Out Of Everyone Else's Way
I Will Isolate


On a side note: I hope to God on the next tour Bono doesn't swap out Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart snippet from With or Without You, and replace it with snippets from Isolation. I could totally see him doing something cheesy, cringey and eye roll inducing like that. Don't do it, Bono.
 
Do You Feel Drugged?
Into The Arm
Get That mRNA
 
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At this point I’d be surprised if we get a new album, just lots of vague talk of being lost in the music.

Larry and Adam really aren’t active in the band anymore. Edge comes up with the music, and those two come in when it’s time to record. Not sure how much actual jamming the band did over the last album.

The thing is the rhythm section has been one of the strongest aspects of the albums. Both have never sounded better, but Edge has barely sounded like a guitar player at all, at least compared to himself.

I gave a listen to SOI a few weeks ago and it actually wasn’t too bad for a low key Edge sound. SOE tho was not his finest moment

Would love for him to be featured again on an album. Less Bono sounding like he’s drowning out everything and more edge please.

But as i said it’s really hard to figure out what they’ll do next since they seem to be enjoying the later stages of life. And they should
 
BEAL said:
At this point I’d be surprised if we get a new album, just lots of vague talk of being lost in the music.

Larry and Adam really aren’t active in the band anymore. Edge comes up with the music, and those two come in when it’s time to record. Not sure how much actual jamming the band did over the last album.

The thing is the rhythm section has been one of the strongest aspects of the albums. Both have never sounded better, but Edge has barely sounded like a guitar player at all, at least compared to himself.

I gave a listen to SOI a few weeks ago and it actually wasn’t too bad for a low key Edge sound. SOE tho was not his finest moment

Would love for him to be featured again on an album. Less Bono sounding like he’s drowning out everything and more edge please.

But as i said it’s really hard to figure out what they’ll do next since they seem to be enjoying the later stages of life. And they should
Click to expand...

So much of SOE was done by the producers, Edge isn’t audible much because he’s not on it much relative to other things. It’s a shame, because as you note, SOI has good Edge. Here’s hoping he gets his mojo back for the next project, whenever it is.
 
wolbersu2 said:
Still not a single bit of news/rumours regarding a new album (or plans for that)/new releases....:hmm:
Has the band planned another sabbatical year?
Did they retire already?
Some new album news is quite welcome in these dull times. Not even some news about the JT movie or Bono's biography....
Click to expand...



Eli’s band Inhaler looks like they have an album announcement in under two weeks. I legit think Bono wouldn’t want to be competing.
 
So at the end of last year Adam said they hadn't recorded anything in 2020 (https://www.u2songs.com/news/adam_clayton_answers_questions_about_a_new_album)

How long does it normally take them to record an album? I guess it's hard to quantify, because they often start sketching ideas during the tour for a previous album. But it took 2+ years after the Vertigo tour for NLOTH to be released, 3 years after 360 tour for SoI, and 2 years after the I&E tour for SoE to release (with a JT tour in the middle).

If they haven't done any work in 2020, I could imagine it'll take them until autumn 2022 to release something at the earliest. I don't think we'll get new music anytime soon, but hopefully soon we'll get news that they're at least in the studio.

(Having said that, I have seen a few news snippets suggesting they have been working in 2020, so maybe they've made more progress than I thought).
 
I highly doubt they're recording right now. We would have heard something. Not impossible that they're keeping it secret, but unlikely.

But let's say that they were and have something that's either ready or somewhat ready? There's not a chance in hell they'd announce/release it until they knew for sure that they could at minimum tour Europe and the US behind it.

So even though it's looking promising for some concerts to return by this fall, I wouldn't count on hearing anything from them until late this year at the earliest. A U2 tour is elaborate and expensive. They won't be among the first ones out (but I'm betting there will be some pressure on them to be out next year).
 
Yeah, a lot of bands have said outright that they won't release new material until they know they can tour it. I imagine that goes double for a band like U2.

I can imagine that fact could have removed a lot of motivation to record. I mean, it probably wouldn't be that fun to work on music that you're worried you might have to sit on for a year or two once it's done. Maybe they're waiting to get the green light that an arena/stadium tour is viable before they even start recording in earnest.

Hell, even promo gigs and interviews are difficult right now. If u2 want to make a commercially successful album, they probably want as many marketing opportunities as possible.

Hopefully, some bands will start touring at the end of this year and it will provide motivation.
 
I think it depends on how many tours they still want to do.

They could go hits-only stadium tour and justify it as “celebrating being with our audience again.” Follow that up with a ZooTV revival stadium tour in top 7-10 markets; I don’t think the casual draw here is as strong as The Joshua Tree so they may be better marketed under a “limited engagement”. Again, this keeps them in stadiums, minimizes dates and travel, easier on the band. If Zoo proves more popular in the initial onsale, add dates in next set of markets.

As for arenas, best served in the I+E residency mold, for new album + rarities tour. Let me add that I thought those E+I one-off shows in 2nd tier arenas (ex. Newark, Nassau) were oddly endearing.

Listen, I’d love the obviously correct approach of mixing stadiums and arenas for different types of shows in the same run akin to what The Rolling Stones did on the Licks Tour but this is U2 we’re talking about. They’re lazy.
 
All those screens are modular anyway. They could set them into any configuration they wanted. A Zoo revival could mean either just splitting them up into a few separate units or going even larger and leaving some of the screen “off” for the same visual effect before launching into full-screen Streets.

I’d still like to seem them tackle a true center stage in-the-round stadium show; seems perfect for an all-hits, 2+ hours singalong show that can lean on the songs more than visual effects. Garth did it at Notre Dame.
View attachment 12822

Surely they could go a bit more high tech without requiring a claw-esque monster buildout. Maybe use the stage itself for additional supportive visuals like Drake did.

https://youtu.be/z0O5iSwhIOw
 
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I keep thinking what I'd be wanting to do if I was in their position where they've earned more money than they or their children could spend and they're getting to the age where touring is clearly something they love, but that its getting more gruelling each time, for Bono in particular.

Clearly its going to take a while for things to return to normal, so why not get an album written and released? Support it the best you can, but rather than sitting on songs that might not be released for a couple of years, just get something it out there. Surely they're aware of their own mortality and body of work, so if they're as creative as they used to be, I'd be wanting to get stuff recorded.

I'd love an Achtung Baby tour, but would much rather hear some new music from them. Surely just now there's never been a better time for them to try something different without any pressures or commitment to tour (and working out how to play things live) for x number of years.

I'm surprised Edge in particular hasn't got in to more soundtrack work, but maybe the Spiderman thing scarred him for life.
 
I’ve been advocating they go the digital singles route for years - like Radiohead does- with albums reserved for cohesive statements/ musical approaches. Maybe offer 45s manufactured-on-demand to Fanclub members. Keep content coming and something may stick, at the very least you’re keeping your core audience engaged.
 
I think they will continue to tour. Bluntly, a U2 tour is a cash cow event, and while they themselves don’t need the money, there are a lot of people in their world that do. Springsteen and The Stones are their only real comparables, and both those acts have continued into their 70s. That’s the standard and expectation. Health is the wild card, and Bono doesn’t take care of himself like Mick or Bruce.

It’s seemed to me that since 2000 they find it difficult to write music that isn’t meant to be played live. The concerts drive the recording, not vice versa. They may find it impossible to make music without a looming tour. They are now song-and-dance men, which isn’t an insult. It’s not really about money. It’s that U2 doesn’t really exist until they step on stage together.
 
I am curious to hear what a U2 album written with no intent to tour would sound like.

I’d imagine it would be very dark.
 
Yeah, a few people on here have said they should have used lockdown to work on and release Songs of Ascent (and I agree). It would have been the perfect opportunity for them to release something quite bold without any baggage about getting a radio hit or playing it to stadiums.

I'm guessing they're still in that "reapplying for the biggest band in the world" mindset, and still want a number 1 single (regardless of how realistic it is). They were back in the studio with Ryan Tedder in 2019 after all.

They're surely conscious that they haven't really had a big hit since Vertigo, so I wonder if, to them, releasing something like SoA now would just be another nail in the coffin for their 'relevant' stage.

When Bono has mentioned SoA recently, it's been in a sort of "one of these days", "eventually" kind of way - I wonder if they do put it out it'll be as a swan song, a deliberately final album? It sounds like they want to give the 'fuck off rock album' another go before they call it quits.
 
Anyone expecting a great album or "return to form" at this point is fucking delusional.

The best we can hope for is that whatever they release has more good-to-great songs than stinkers, and IMO that's what the last 3 albums were. Some outstanding pieces of writing and/or performance alternating with head-slapping, embarrassing choices.

It's not likely to get any better (the missed opportunity mentioned in Jamie's post above, e.g.), and one should just hope it doesn't get worse.

I don't think they would release a final album that consists of old leftovers, and expect the SOA tracks to more likely show up as part of some larger post-retirement collection.
 
I think they still have potential for a great album but they really need to ditch their current mindset of songs must RAWK!!!

I think going down the original path of NLOTH is their best bet. It didn’t work out and to Eno’s credit he did say the music they made in Africa didn’t really meet their expectations

But the mindset of getting out of their comfort zone and trying something different is probably best bet to reach a great album.

U2 trying to sound like the Beatles isn’t it.
 
There are plenty of examples of acts who lost their way returning to form late in their career.

U2 certainly don't fit that bill with their history of trying to force themselves into a fourth "moment" - and if you're one of the "everything after Pop sucks" crowd then you're probably right that they'll never put out anything that's great to YOU again - but I do still hold out hope that they'll see the light before they're done, and there's been enough moments of greatness sprinkled in over the past decade that lets me believe that with the right direction it can be done.
 
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