(06-18-2003) Updated (6/24) Solar Poster is False - Interference.com *

[Edgette]

Wow.


I hope this is true. I can wait until January for the new single. Which probably means U2.com or somewhere else will have clips of the new songs by Novemember or December...I hope anyway.




This is cool!! I'll have to get used to the title though, I don't care for it at the moment.


~J

 

[Elvis]

and why have your promotional material done 9 months before it will be released in a time when record companies desperately try to keep things as secret as possible?

Over a year prior to POPs release... I had pre-promo material.

 

[a-mole]

tell me this is true!!

I am about to hyperventilate

 

[HelloAngel]

tell me this is true!!

I am about to hyperventilate

Well.. the only information I have is what is on the poster, and from what I have been told, it should be taken for face value.

 

[Zooropa man]

Hmm........I don't know about this. It seems a bit strange that this would be shown. How in the world would they get something like this? Who ever made this up really worked on it to get everyones attention with the Interscope label on it. Very intersting......

 

[a-mole]

well well
in times of internet there is always stuff like that leaking out
remember Madonna's early demo tapes from th ecurrent album
or Lord of the Rings rough cut on th einternet las summer (1/2 year before the movie aired) and all this stuff

so It is not unlikely that someone was quite sneaky

but of course it still could be all made up

yet, I don't think the argument that it is too early doesn#t realy count, since this is obviously no oficial info, but rather soem leaking through

 

[mmmBono]

AWESOME!!
I so can't wait for this!!!

 

[souLnation2002]

Yay!

 

[DaveC]

The title could also work with the "punk rock from Venus" quote...maybe someone was doing a little foreshadowing?

 

[*BOOMCHAA!*]

I'm going to be angry if this is all a sham!!!
BAHA.

 

[Strato Edge]

Good point

I think that poster was a very early development. Not official for sure, but the title "SOLAR" and the dates are probably true.

Which is awesome!

 

[U2Soar]

Why not? Have fun with it! It?s Summer time. No action in the U2 world. And it's better than "Ordinary Land / Plain Dirt"

Solar = sun = light = day = ?Beautiful Day? ? U2 spent the 90s more concerned with the moon / the night / darkness

Solar = sun = Bono can play on the word with ?Son? of God. The Old Testament story of Joshua (?The Joshua Tree?) halting the sun. In the New Testament the ?Transfiguration? = his face shone like sun. Book of Revelations? Bono?s recent wearing of the rosary and his new version of Ave Maria ? Fatima (a sign = the sun came hurling out of the sky and downwards to the earth?)

Solar energy = covert messages against ?oil? - it?s role in wars (Iraq) and wealth & power (U.S. / Europe versus the Third World)

Solar = solar system = another word for universe = universal / humanity / one > DATA

Songs for the Tour:

Staring At The Sun
Gone ?I?ll be up with the sun / I?m not coming down?

I like the ?title? Solar = heat / brightness and continuing theme of Beautiful Day and joy. At the other end, a dark, rocking, Exit-like track called ?Eclipse.? I think one of the leftover ATYCLB tracks was titled as ?The Sun, The Moon, And The Stars.? I?d like to see it as AB (including The Edge?s guitar solos from the ZOOTV Tour ? Mysterious Ways, Bullet, Love Is Blindness, etc.) meets Boy (Out Of Control, Tick Tock, Electric Co., etc.). ?If? ATYCLB was ?damage control? and bringing back the ?older 80s fans? then let Solar be a full throttle assault on the ?youngsters? (and everyone else too!) ATYCLB had 3 rockers (BD, Elevation, and New York) then let Solar have at least 6 rockers! Let Solar be firing on all cylinders and with guns blazing! To be on top of the world; to kick down the doors as they are inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in a year or two!

 

[Bonochick]

If it is released March 9th, 'twill be a happy birthday for me!

 

[filledeperle]

Yay!

Let's hope it would end up being released before March!

Perle

 

[u2-theband]

Great, great, great!!!!!!!!!!

 

[womanfish]

I do like the title Solar. However I'm remaining skeptical. Not getting my hopes too far up. This could be a "real poster" or it could also be a poster made by someone with Photoshop in about half an hour.

Thanks for this new info Angel. Keep it coming!

 

[gvox]

Coupla things:

- Interference doesn't have a hard copy of this (yet). Photos. Photos can be doctored.

- Having said that, why would someone go to all the trouble? It looks pretty well thought out for a fake.

- Has anyone read "Stealing Hearts At A Travelling Show?" I would strongly suggest it...and pay special attention the the myriad of ideas that were bandied about in both naming and designing the albums over the years. With most of them, the final product wasn't one over the other but a hybrid of individual elements lifted from a number of prototypes.

Having said all that, I would be VERY surprised if what we finally get looks or even is entitled ANTHING like what we are seeing here.

But have fun with it, why not? I'm sure U2/Four5One are!

 

[Bono7]

i'm not the only one staring at the sun...

 

[HelloAngel]

Having said all that, I would be VERY surprised if what we finally get looks or even is entitled ANTHING like what we are seeing here.

You're right.. which is why the poster has a big green PREVIEW stamp across the middle of it.

 

[Squishy Peanut]

AAAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!! New albuuuuuum!!!

*pees pants*

 

[rio589]

wow is it me or is that cover quite uncool?

and it looks quite blurry you should have taken another picture, from above maybe

 

[medl11]

Re: (06-18-2003) Photo Proof: New Album Information - Interference.com *

Looks like the U2 promotions team is starting to rev it up a bit.

 

[u2live2001]

Hmmm. New album poster eh?

- Four5One said they were finishing up other work so they could begin work on the new album material when the band came to them. This point was made very clear at several different points throughout the weekend.
- Paul McGuinness in an interview this week with u2.com said no date of release had been sent.
- The claims that this poster was sent direct from Ireland - it's got the Interscope label on it which means it's from the US - all non-US material is still going with the Island logo.
- the graphics - pink on a dark purple - not the most professional choice of colours.
- the font - the four5one guys don't tend to go to your basic windows fonts for use...this one is a really common one and is rarely used in any sort of design work.
- the grammer and spelling doesn't check. One space after the colon in places and none in the other use of it. Dashes and colons mixed together.
- the tag line "Europe and the ROW" - if it is by Interscope they'd be promoting for the US market primarily and they don't tend to mention that Europe gets things first...If they were to mention it they'd just mention the "Rest of the World" not "Europe and the Rest of the World" that's poor grammer there too.

 

[U2Soar]

SOLAR = All The War You Can't Leave Baby

U2log.com: Long-time U2 fan Ruby shares an amusing discussion she had with Steve Averill at the Rock Hall last weekend: I?d heard/read somewhere that Four5One had heard a half dozen tracks of the new [U2] stuff, so I was curious what they thought of the material. I asked Averill at the book signing if it was true
that the new stuff was along the sonic lines of All That You Can?t Leave Behind. He initially said, ?Yes,? but then followed with, ?Actually, it sounded more like War but with a harder edge?.. and with the depth of Achtung Baby. Laughing, I asked him, ?So you are sure they won?t turn around and give us, say, Pop part two - more techno?? And he said, very definitely, that this was indeed a guitar-driven album.

 

[gvox]

You're right.. which is why the poster has a big green PREVIEW stamp across the middle of it.

Actually, if I had to pick one aspect of the photo that to me says "FAKE", I would have to say that "preview" stamp is it...who is labelling it a "preview"? Universal? Interscope? They have no control over what is preview and what isn't in terms of U2 cover art, U2 and Four5One do. U2 and Four5One come up with many ideas and settle on the final one before sending it to the label, or at least that's what "Stealing Hearts at A Travelling Show" seems to state outright.

Fact is, this 'evidence' is purported to have been released by someone at the record company, in this case Universal/Interscope. This implies that what they are claiming is a sneek preview is allegedly what the band and their designers have decided on.

The other fact is, the Four5One team of Averill and McGrath said last weekend that they were heading back to begin design work on the new album. How could Universal possibly already have what Four5One hasn't even given them yet?

Held up against those two facts and the way U2 has done business in the past, I'm going with this as being a fake, unfortunately.

Just for fun, some other album titles:

Joshua Tree - The Two Americas, Desert Songs
Zooropa - Dog, God U2 Dog
Pop - Miami, 12 New Songs From U2, Novelty Act, Godzilla, Super City Mania, 1996, The Sun The Moon and The Stars, YOU2, Discola, Staring At The Sun, Atomic
ATYCLB - U2:40, SoulSurMer, Sure Mer, Beautiful Day, At Heart Zero, Travelog, All That You Leave Behind, Grand Canal Docks, Love Will Never Say Goodbye, Love & Peace

Like I said, Solar may never see the light of day (no pun intended lol).

 

[HelloAngel]

I hope everyone remembers that we should be having fun with this - none of us are masters at record label politics, or the ins and outs of "leaks."

So, given that logic, none of us can unequivocally say it is true or false one way or the other, no matter how high we hold our own opinions.

 

[Strato Edge]

I just think U2 have had a lot of time to think about this (since end of Elelvation Tour). I'm sure they've thrown title ideas around for a while. I think this is what the title is going to be to tell you the truth.

But what do I know...I just like "SOLAR" I guess...lol

 

[u2live2001]

So, given that logic, none of us can unequivocally say it is true or false one way or the other, no matter how high we hold our own opinions.

I'm not trying to say that it's false, but it sure is suspicious, especially coming after a weekend where we were told no design aspects were done. Unless you are suggesting Four5One had us all in Cleveland to tell us a bunch of lies?

The other factors - the McGuinness interview last week, the poor grammer and punctuation, the inconsistancy that it came from Interscope straight from Dublin when if it came out of Europe it would be under Island...Lets just say it looks very suspicious to me...

 

[gvox]

I hope everyone remembers that we should be having fun with this - none of us are masters at record label politics, or the ins and outs of "leaks."

So, given that logic, none of us can unequivocally say it is true or false one way or the other, no matter how high we hold our own opinions.

I disagree. I think what's being provided as "photo proof" can be held up against historical and contractual fact and validated to a certain degree.

ATYCLB had 9 working titles that actually saw design print, and Pop had no less than 12. That's not even counting the numerous different photo and graphic styles that these titles were pasted onto.

Also, one needn't be a master at record label politics to know that U2 has ALWAYS insisted on strict control on the packaging and presentation of their material. It's part of their contract, and always has been. Page 18 of "Stealing Hearts At a Travelling Show" illustrates this point and shows what happened in the rare occurence when the label did something without their approval ("Fire" single).

Thus, I think forgoing any personal opinion on the matter (I actually quite like Solar, but not the photo), it can be safely stated that there exists a high probability that this 'proof' is either a. a fake or b. an early design idea.

Now, to hold either of those possibilities against logic:

The fact that it has writing on it stating that it's coming from Interscope/Universal (ie, alleging that this promo is already decided upon by U2/Four5One) coupled with the fact that U2's designers publicly stated 4 days ago that they were heading back to begin working on the design, would seem to point to possibility a., that is, a fake.

 

[Red Ships of Scalla-Festa]

i hope this album gives me a good kick in the ass.