New Album Discussion 1 - Songs of..... - Unreasonable guitar album

[Headache in a Suitcase]

hypothetical situation that may not be too far removed from the present truth:

U2 have 10-12 solid songs that they could get over the finish line if they devoted 8-12 weeks.

Problem is they're from very different recording sessions, and sonically are all rather different from one another.

let's say..
- 2-3 tunes from Sphere days (recording session that yielded Glorify)
- 3-4 folky or electronic tunes from recent Lee/Eno sessions
- another couple rock tunes from some other sessions (Tedder/Lillywhite)

Assume they're all good songs that most of us nutjobs will love. So we're not comparing Eno to Lillywhite, or anything like that.

Would you rather:
- they get them to finish line and release 2-3 distinct EPs over this year and next
- they pick one sonic focus, and pursue a 10-ish track album, dropping stuff not tied to that sound, and taking the time to write new songs to round out the album. Album comes out late 2026 or 2027.

With only these two options, I go with EPs.

But I'm also fine and dandy with just mushing them all together on one album.

 

[Hewson]

But I'm also fine and dandy with just mushing them all together on one album.

This.
Album doesn't need to be thematic be it sonically or subject matter wise. It can just be a collection of songs. Plenty of bands release albums with a mix of style to the songs. If the songs are good, that's all that matters.

 

[david]

The delay is probably because Bono ran out of album title ideas that don’t start with Songs Of…

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Songs of Incontinence

 

[mikal]

Now that we know they've been working with Eno, I don't want an album mashed up with other ideas. Then we're getting NLOTH all over again.

But if they get a strong 6-8 songs with Eno, get that out there on an EP alone. If you want another album full of mash after that, fine. Just don't mash it with Eno.

 

[Fly-2000]

Looks like U2 has returned the favor to HAIM by letting them basically lift the percussion and guitar of "Numb" on their new album.

Zooropa-ish tone used for the outro too?

 

[BEAL]

Now that we know they've been working with Eno, I don't want an album mashed up with other ideas. Then we're getting NLOTH all over again.

But if they get a strong 6-8 songs with Eno, get that out there on an EP alone. If you want another album full of mash after that, fine. Just don't mash it with Eno.

This is where I land. I don’t want an Eno led album where it’s RAWK / Bubblegum for a few and then glaring atmospheric sonic landscapes.

Now if Eno finds a way to take those previous sessions and rearrange to fit whatever they’ve come up with together, fine.

If not and there’s a good 7-9 Eno songs….push that out. U2 needs to stop with the 10 brilliant songs or it’s crap angle too.

especially if they’re at the 8-9 proper songs are done mark. Throw in an instrumental or two and you got your album. Cause they can spend 8 months on one song. Unless it’s Streets quality….no

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

B&E sent in a recorded video singing Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head for their longtime tour account Bob Koch last night, who is retiring.

Then Unforgettable Fire played.

Much fun was had.

 

[DancingBrft]

This is where I land. I don’t want an Eno led album where it’s RAWK / Bubblegum for a few and then glaring atmospheric sonic landscapes.

Now if Eno finds a way to take those previous sessions and rearrange to fit whatever they’ve come up with together, fine.

If not and there’s a good 7-9 Eno songs….push that out. U2 needs to stop with the 10 brilliant songs or it’s crap angle too.

especially if they’re at the 8-9 proper songs are done mark. Throw in an instrumental or two and you got your album. Cause they can spend 8 months on one song. Unless it’s Streets quality….no

Not sure the kind of relationship they have these days, but Eno would have to have the authority to tell them, “look, let me be the producer and tell you what’s crap and what isn’t”. Would the band allow that type of honesty? Because that’s what they really need is an honest editor and not more “yes” men

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

B&E sent in a recorded video singing Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head for their longtime tour account Bob Koch last night, who is retiring.

Then Unforgettable Fire played.

Much fun was had.

 

[vaz020202]

Not sure the kind of relationship they have these days, but Eno would have to have the authority to tell them, “look, let me be the producer and tell you what’s crap and what isn’t”. Would the band allow that type of honesty? Because that’s what they really need is an honest editor and not more “yes” men

Eno has that authority, always has done, but the band will often choose not to listen. Let’s bring in Lillywhite…

 

[wolbersu2]

We need a new album with Eno/Lillywhite included. Not more producers.
As the statement of world is explosive at the moment, a WAR part II/sequel to me is most welcome for me.

 

[pacemaker]

The “Band in a room” comments and a lot of expectations of what an Eno produced album would/should be don’t necessarily line up, but the possibilities of one/the other/both are exciting. Maybe Eno is playing keys and triggering sequences in that room they’re capturing.

 

[BEAL]

I think he’s always been one to be in the room with them. Playing keyboards, or as you said leading the sequencing

What I don’t want to hear is any talk of stripping down the songs to piano or acoustic guitar

 

[PookaMacP]

Funny how we seem to have forgotten about Daniel Lanois...

 

[pacemaker]

Funny how we seem to have forgotten about Daniel Lanois...

I’ve thought it weird that he hasn’t been in the conversation at all, but he and Eno haven’t always been a package deal (Zooropa).

Has Lanois had anything to do with them since… I guess it would be the JT30 remixes?

I can’t remember all of the details but I seem to remember some professional and/or personal issues between U2 and the Dream Team since ~2000. Maybe they aren’t on great terms with Danny, but mended bridges with Brian starting with the Sphere stage design and ambient AB mixes.

 

[MattD]

Oh dear god no, The Edge has had his say on the upcoming album.

“We started to realise that if a song couldn’t hold its own with just a voice and a guitar, it wasn’t really finished. If you look at an artist like Adele, there’s something timeless about how she can strip everything back and still devastate you. That kind of clarity—it’s honest. All the sonic craftsmanship, the layers and effects, they’re not bad, but they can’t be the foundation anymore. That felt like an old way of hiding. We wanted to write songs that could breathe without electricity and we feel as if we're almost ready to get that out there.” — The Edge on U2's new album*



*According to ChatGPT

 

[MattD]

Funny how we seem to have forgotten about Daniel Lanois...

In an ideal world, he'd be part of this. But I guess we don't mention him because it feels like we're lucky that at least Eno is back and that beggars can't be choosers after a decade of tacky MOR producers and tacky songs.

 

[MattD]

I’ve thought it weird that he hasn’t been in the conversation at all, but he and Eno haven’t always been a package deal (Zooropa).

Has Lanois had anything to do with them since… I guess it would be the JT30 remixes?

I can’t remember all of the details but I seem to remember some professional and/or personal issues between U2 and the Dream Team since ~2000. Maybe they aren’t on great terms with Danny, but mended bridges with Brian starting with the Sphere stage design and ambient AB mixes.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it was a combination of:

- Not receiving writing credits, culminating in U2 submitting to their demands for No Line.
- U2 feeling short changed that they submitted to such a request resulting in their worst performing album for a long while.
- U2 blaming Eno/Lanois for the album's lack of commerciality.
- Eno and Lanois blaming U2 for watering down the original album and compromising its concept (album was ready to go in October 2008 before the band bastardised it).

The last point I think we can all agree with Eno/Lanois on. Certainly siding with Eno/Lanois on this more than U2. I don't believe No Line was destined to be a great album on any level but you can hear a very interesting, esoteric thing going on there. It certainly shouldn't have become the mess it became.

And it's such a shame, in ditching Eno/Lanois it's as if they thought they were running away from the problem. Instead they ran head first into the problem that ruined that album - namely the obsession to write bland insufferable 'rawk' tunes with generic melodies that torpedoed No Line and the subsequent albums after.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Lanois performed with them on the final night at Sphere.

 

[Rich79]

I think we're all on the fringes of the exact kinds of questions the band is probably wrestling with right now:

Is the material separate, whole, thematic? Is it several releases? Does it matter? Etc.

Re: comments about an album not needing to have a sonic or lyrical theme - Yeah, it's not necessary, but it sure is what takes an album from good to great for me and not just the strength of the individual songs. If it's a mash of songs that are really good, but don't quite fit, then all the more reason to split it up I say. If there's a pile of square pegs and round holes (hehe), do a square EP and a round EP and I bet each would be the better for it, rather than jamming them together on one record and shaving off the ones that are deemed "filler" by a band that I don't even think has a great radar for what is/isn't anymore.

The mashed-together albums: HTDAAB, SOE, NLOTH, and R&H (to a much lesser extent, because I'd argue it has a loose sonic and thematic glue. It's probably the live material that makes me feel it's a mash.). The first three of those rank as their lowest for me and I don't think it's any coincidence. In fact, the really great songs on those albums don't feel as great as other greats mainly because of the context.

My final answer to the hypothetical is release EPs despite liking U2 as an albums band. I just don't think they have it together enough to get a well-organized album out anymore. While EPs are historically not regarded as highly as albums, we're in a totally different world of how releases work than we were even 10-15 years ago and even a great album doesn't feel like it has much of a chance of becoming legendary like the days of old.

Bah, I rambled again.

 

[mikal]

I think we're all on the fringes of the exact kinds of questions the band is probably wrestling with right now:

Is the material separate, whole, thematic? Is it several releases? Does it matter? Etc.

Re: comments about an album not needing to have a sonic or lyrical theme - Yeah, it's not necessary, but it sure is what takes an album from good to great for me and not just the strength of the individual songs. If it's a mash of songs that are really good, but don't quite fit, then all the more reason to split it up I say. If there's a pile of square pegs and round holes (hehe), do a square EP and a round EP and I bet each would be the better for it, rather than jamming them together on one record and shaving off the ones that are deemed "filler" by a band that I don't even think has a great radar for what is/isn't anymore.

The mashed-together albums: HTDAAB, SOE, NLOTH, and R&H (to a much lesser extent, because I'd argue it has a loose sonic and thematic glue. It's probably the live material that makes me feel it's a mash.). The first three of those rank as their lowest for me and I don't think it's any coincidence. In fact, the really great songs on those albums don't feel as great as other greats mainly because of the context.

My final answer to the hypothetical is release EPs despite liking U2 as an albums band. I just don't think they have it together enough to get a well-organized album out anymore. While EPs are historically not regarded as highly as albums, we're in a totally different world of how releases work than we were even 10-15 years ago and even a great album doesn't feel like it has much of a chance of becoming legendary like the days of old.

Bah, I rambled again.

Of those, HTDAAB remains high for me because at least it was a "guitar" album as advertised. As a guitar player and fan, it's real enjoyable because almost every song has some great guitar work.

 

[namkcuR]

I can’t remember all of the details but I seem to remember some professional and/or personal issues between U2 and the Dream Team since ~2000. Maybe they aren’t on great terms with Danny, but mended bridges with Brian starting with the Sphere stage design and ambient AB mixes.

I've always thought there was a bit of a falling out over NLOTH, though it appears as though they're all good with each other now.

But this is part of a Rolling Stone article that came out right when NLOTH came out that does a nice job illustrating the tension between Eno and the band at that time(Lanois isn't mentioned). Like, Eno is openly bitching about them leaving Winter off and watering down some of the songs that made the album and how we're lucky they didn't mess up MOS, and Bono is openly sniping at Eno for not caring about singles(while waxing poetic about the need for the rock'n'roll single and the evils of progressive rock). I posted this way back then in March 2009 and it got 17 pages of response, the vast majority siding with Eno.

In the basement of London's Olympic Studios, armed only with a MacBook and a Nord keyboard, Brian Eno is leading a doomed, one-man insurgency. It's early December and U2 are wrapping up their sessions for No Line, the track listing almost finalized, but Eno is still pushing for prayerful, moody songs that were long ago abandoned. He's most passionate about "Winter", which sounds like no other U2 song. It begins with fingerpicked, chiming acoustic guitar and falsetto backing vocals, and once Bono hits a key line - "Summer sings in me no more" - Eno's dramatic strings kick in. "Listening to the silence, the deaf and dumb roar of white noise/your voice", Bono sings at one point, followed by a choral chant. "Beautiful, isn't it? They're bonkers to leave it off," Eno says with real sadness, as the tune winds up with soaring, dissonant strings - they're synthesized played on his little keyboard down here in the basement.

Well before Barack Obama thought of it, U2 embraced Abraham Lincoln's idea of a team of rivals. "Brian's job is basically to take everything and destroy it," says Lillywhite. "And I suppose I come in after he's destroyed it, and I listen to what he's done, and to what was there before, and I sort of get some middle ground, and try and bring it back to a place where art and commerce live side by side." Adds Edge, "That tension is important to the process. But I think we're pretty much always right."

Eno, whose fearlessly arty vision has shaped some of the best rock of the last 30 years - from Roxy Music to his experimental solo albums to Bowie in Berlin to Coldplay's Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends - is bald, professorial, and unexpectedly genial, with Prada glasses hanging on a chord around his neck. "It's too long, it needs a bit of work," he says of "Winter." "But, you know, they won't spend time on it. They've spent months working on the ones that are supposed to be the radio singles. Months! This: played, put aside."

"Winter" didn't make it, but another ballad, "White As Snow", came in at the last minute. And Eno is all over the record - the squiggy synth sounds are his, and many of the songs had their seed in the atmospheric loops he records using the program Logic Studio, giving them titles such as "Grunge Beatstorm Gate." "You can hear Brian in the sort of Germanic krautrock feel of the title track," says Clayton. "You can hear his brain there."

Eno and Lanois both pick the hypnotic, seven-minute-plus "Moment Of Surrender" as a favorite track, and the one closest to the original concept of the album. It came out of what the band its producers describe as a small miracle: They all stood together one day and improvised its entire structure from scratch, all at once. That original backing track made it to the final album, complete with a trance-y bass line Clayton was figuring out as he played it - you can hear him imitate the bass part from Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" and then switch to another idea altogether - and Mullen's uneven high-hat work, thanks to a busted electronic drum kit. ("Adam is the star of the show on this album," Bono says. "No one knew he could move from his rock & roll pulse thing to the jaw-dropping bass part on 'Moment' or the sort of neo-Motown bass on 'Magnificent'") Eno fought hard to keep the band from messing too much with the original track. "These fucking guys," he says with a smile, "they're supposed to be so spiritual - they don't spot a miracle when it hits them in the face. Nothing like that ever happened to me in the studio in my whole life."

Eno's iTunes library is a U2 superfan's wet dream, with what seems to be hundreds of discarded songs and alternate takes. In some cases, Eno has written critiques in the "Comment" field, such as "This song needs faster and more urgent singing." He demonstrates the evolution of one potentional single, "Stand Up Comedy": It began as a tune driven by Middle Eastern-sounding mandolins, with Bono singing, "We don't know what the future's gonna bring." From there, it took on a "You Really Got Me"-like riff and a chanted chorus that revolved around the words "for your love" - a little too close to the Yardbirds for comfort. Then it shifted again: new riff, new melody and a chorus that retains only the words "for your love" - upstairs, Bono and LIllywhite are still working on it. "Get On Your Boots," which began as a Garageband demo by the Edge, went through a similarly complex progression. At one point, it was called "Four-Letter Word." And at some stage it lost its central riff, leaving it sounding like what Lillywhite describes as "a Beck B-side" that was in danger of being dropped from the record altogether.

Eno ducks the question of whether U2 have an artistic as well as commercial justification for focusing on potential hits. "You should ask the band that," he replies. And it turns out Bono has strong feelings on the subject. "We grew up on the rock & roll 45," he says. "It is, in an evolutionary way that Brian should, but doesn't, appreciate, the Darwinian peak of the species. It is by far the most difficult thing to pull off, and it is the very life force of rock & roll: vitality, succinctness and catchiness, whether it's the Sex Pistols, Nirvana, the Pixies, the Beatles, the Who, the Rolling Stones. And when rock music forgets about the 45, it tends toward progressive rock, which is like a mold that grows on old, burned-out artists who've run out of ideas. We have a soundtrack/Pink Floyd side of our band, and it has to be balanced by fine songwriting. And it's an infuriating thing for me to see indie rock & roll give up the single to R&B and hip-hop. And that's why I love the Kings of Leon album or the Killers album: These are people who have such belief in their musical power that they refuse to ghettoize it." Bono pauses, and returns to the subject of his friend Eno. "What he's listening for is a unique feeling, a unique mood and a unique palate. And he doesn't get hits - I bet he told Coldplay to leave 'Viva La Vida' off their album. Brian would listen to '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' and say, 'I love that song, but can we get rid of the guitar bits? You know, the part that goes duhnt-duhnt-dunna dun?'"

 

[PookaMacP]

They only really need ten songs for an album - maybe eight. Led Zeppelin IV only has eight tracks.

Re Lanois, there must be some issue there. Maybe he stays friends with them but is burnt out on the recording side of things. You never know, although it's a pity. Judging by what I've read, and by his great production work with Bob Dylan and with Emmylou Harris, I suspect he's behind a lot of the great sounds we associate we U2 (the strummed guitar on Running to Stand Still was Lanois' idea, I think).

 

[phanan]

Most would still side with Eno.

 

[MattD]

They only really need ten songs for an album - maybe eight. Led Zeppelin IV only has eight tracks.

Re Lanois, there must be some issue there. Maybe he stays friends with them but is burnt out on the recording side of things. You never know, although it's a pity. Judging by what I've read, and by his great production work with Bob Dylan and with Emmylou Harris, I suspect he's behind a lot of the great sounds we associate we U2 (the strummed guitar on Running to Stand Still was Lanois' idea, I think).

Absolutely. I notice that Lanois's best work is with those acts that have rootsy feel to them that are very much aligned with his musical sensibilities. His work excels with acts that are indebted to traditional forms of music, whether it be gospel/folk with U2 or folk with Bob Dylan or the soul and African music that Peter Gabriel immersed himself in.

Intriguingly, his influence is not so noticeable with those acts who don't really delve into traditional music, see The Killers or the latest Arcade Fire record, but that's more an issue with those band's material than Lanois. Sonically they are fine as to be expected from Lanois but they certainly lack his creative imprint.

 

[MattD]

I've always thought there was a bit of a falling out over NLOTH, though it appears as though they're all good with each other now.

But this is part of a Rolling Stone article that came out right when NLOTH came out that does a nice job illustrating the tension between Eno and the band at that time(Lanois isn't mentioned). Like, Eno is openly bitching about them leaving Winter off and watering down some of the songs that made the album and how we're lucky they didn't mess up MOS, and Bono is openly sniping at Eno for not caring about singles(while waxing poetic about the need for the rock'n'roll single and the evils of progressive rock). I posted this way back then in March 2009 and it got 17 pages of response, the vast majority siding with Eno.

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing that Rolling Stone excerpt, a fascinating account of the band and Eno. It does nothing to quell our fury towards the band and the bastardisation of their own work.

Which makes me wonder what the original mix of Moment of Surrender was like? There are excerpts when you hear U2 live in the studio that sound so far superior to the lobotomised mixes we eventually get. There were the clips of them jamming in Fez at the start of this album's production and even though its live, feels more raw yet textured and colourful than anything that ended up on the album. Similarly in 2016 we got that Fender clip of them in the studio, sounding raw and full on like early U2 (Bono's vocals not too high in the mix as as been a major problem in recent decades). Why they can't just leave it alone is anyone's guess. And by their own admission, that they were chasing 'relevance' and hits with the Songs of.... albums, now that they are older and not hamstrung by this need to be 'relevant' and 'chart friendly', you'd hope that frees them up creatively. You'd hope...

 

[dan_smee]

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing that Rolling Stone excerpt, a fascinating account of the band and Eno. It does nothing to quell our fury towards the band and the bastardisation of their own work.

Which makes me wonder what the original mix of Moment of Surrender was like? There are excerpts when you hear U2 live in the studio that sound so far superior to the lobotomised mixes we eventually get. There were the clips of them jamming in Fez at the start of this album's production and even though its live, feels more raw yet textured and colourful than anything that ended up on the album. Similarly in 2016 we got that Fender clip of them in the studio, sounding raw and full on like early U2 (Bono's vocals not too high in the mix as as been a major problem in recent decades). Why they can't just leave it alone is anyone's guess. And by their own admission, that they were chasing 'relevance' and hits with the Songs of.... albums, now that they are older and not hamstrung by this need to be 'relevant' and 'chart friendly', you'd hope that frees them up creatively. You'd hope...

That’s Edge singing in that clip isn’t it? Sounds like one of the random demos from his bag.

 

[vaz020202]

20th anniversary of NLOTH - give us the 2008 album. Please

 

[PookaMacP]

That’s Edge singing in that clip isn’t it? Sounds like one of the random demos from his bag.

I've always thought so too.