Irish rockers and Rock Hall of Famers U2 have been making music together for over 40 years and still have its original members.
Now in their 60’s, the rockers are slowing down when it comes to hitting the road, but they are keeping the music alive with a new album and reworked music.
After forming in 1976 in Dublin, the rockers have amassed hundreds…maybe thousands….of songs and have appeared on numerous albums that include four gold certifications, six platinum and 14 multi-platinum awards by the RIAA – Recording Industry Association of America – with their album “Joshua Tree” earning a Diamond status for selling at least 10 million copies in the United States.
U2 have pawed through their massive musical catalogue and picked out 40 of them to “reinvent”. Artists write their songs to be performed on a stage before thousands of fans, not for a tiny set of earphones coming out of a tiny tinny box. But in creating “Songs of Surrender”, U2 revisited their music and have re=imagined it for a more intimate performance.
The Edge noted, “there’s a sort of gladiatorial aspect to live performances when you’re in that situation. The material has got to be pretty bold and even strident at times. With this reimagining, we thought it would be fun to see intimacy as a new approach, that intimacy would be the new punk rock, as it were.”
Spearheaded by The Edge, some of the music was created during the pandemic when playing live was an impossibility. For the new album The Edge has traded his electric guitar for an acoustic one, some keyboards, and a dulcimer.
With no real plans in mind, The Edge said, “as we got into it and got into a groove, we really started to enjoy what was happening. There was a lot of freedom in the process, it was joyful and fun to take these songs and sort of reimagine them and I think that comes across. It doesn’t sound like there was a lot of hard work involved because it wasn’t.”
The re-imagining process even included rewriting some of the lyrics.
While artists re-recording songs is far from a new idea, The Edge added, “we’re one of the only acts that has this body of work where a project like this would be possible, with the distance of time and experience where it would be interesting to revisit early songs.”
With the album due out this week, The Edge tells fans to “give it a chance” and maybe they might even like the new versions better, saying, “I don’t think there’s a competition between these and the original versions. It’s more of an additive thing than a substitution. If you like the new arrangements, great. If you prefer the originals, keep listening. It’s no problem either way. They’re both valid.”
The Edge adds that there is also some new U2 music on the horizon.
feature photo credit: “Songs of Surrender” album cover