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Subtle Signs

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Subtle Signs FRONTMAN

Subtle Signs

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ALBUM NAME: unknown; possibly No Line On The Horizon, based on a Universal Music domain registration of nolineonthehorizon.com

PRODUCER(s): Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, and Steve Lillywhite have all been in the studio during album sessions

ALBUM RELEASE DATE: A reliable source tells @U2 the album will be released on November 18 in N. America. That would presumably mean November 17 worldwide, except certain countries that get new releases even earlier (November 14).

These are songs that have been mentioned in the buildup to U2's next studio album:

* "Sexy Boots" - tipped as the album's first single in this Evening Herald article

* "The Cedars of Lebanon" - Daniel Lanois revealed this track in an interview with the Montreal magazine, Voir. He said the song was inspired by Jimi Hendrix.

* "Moment of Surrender" - Brian Eno reportedly told fans about this song outside Hanover Quay studios in early June, 2008. Eno called it "the best thing" he's recorded with U2.

* "For Your Love" - a song title seen on the band's white board, as described in this article from the Fez recording sessions

* "One Bird" - a song title seen on the band's white board, as described in this article from the Fez recording sessions

* "No Line On The Horizon" - Bono and Edge played this song for a USA Today writer during an in-the-car interview at the Sundance Film Festival. On hearing it, writer Anthony Breznican says "heavy distortion fills the car," and later adds: "The song is rough, weaving between brutal guitar blasts underscoring the mellow title refrain." Edge explains that the song "It came out of a new distortion box that my guitar tech got."

* Unknown Title - in the same interview with Anthony Breznican, Bono and Edge played a second song whose opening lyric is, "It's six o'clock...". Bono tells Breznican that numbers are significant in each of the new songs.

* "If I Could Live My Life Again" - Bono says this song is "inspired by the great Argentinian poet Jorge Luis Borges." Bono said he had just begun the song while speaking with author Michka Assayas in December, 2005. Their interview appears as the extra material in the paperback version of Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas.

* "Love Is All We Have Left" - a song Bono named during his May, 2006, trip to Africa as one that he had recently written. "It’s like an old Broadway tune. I thought it was a Frank Sinatra song," Bono said.

* "North Star," a song from the How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb sessions which included a guest organ appearance from Michael W. Smith. In this CCM article, Smith describes the song as a tribute to Johnny Cash.

* "Mercy", one of the last songs to get cut from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, described in Blender magazine as "a six-and-a-half-minute outpouring of U2 at its most uninhibitedly U2-ish"

* "Lead Me In The Way I Should Go" -- a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in this February, 2003, interview with Bono in Grammy Magazine

* "You Can't Give Away Your Heart" - a contender for Atomic Bomb first mentioned in SPIN magazine

LATEST NEWS

August 11, 2008: According to this Evening Herald article, the first single will be a track called "Sexy Boots"

July 21, 2008: Universal Music have registered the domain, nolineonthehorizon.com, which is one of the known song titles listed above. It could be the album name, or perhaps the name of the first single.

July 6, 2008: As described in this Sunday Mirror article, Steve Lillywhite has reportedly told Irish DJ Tony Fenton that the new album is U2's best ever.

June 28, 2008: Somewhere around this date, U2 has finished recording the new album. Daniel Lanois told Le Journal de Montreal, "It's going to be different in several ways, but I think it's similar from one point of view, namely that it's going to push the known limits in the sound arena, the way Achtung Baby did in the past."

http://www.atu2.com/newalbum

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Rebel Yell Senior

Rebel Yell

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Straight from U2.com:

'We want 2009 to be our year'

'We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein and we don’t want to stop.' Bono has been talking to U2.Com about how the songs are shaping up for the new record and plans for 2009 to be their year.

‘This is our chance for us to defy gravity once again, ‘ explains Bono, calling in from a break in recording sessions in the south of France. ‘ We have what it takes, we have the songs, new rhythms and a guitar player who is not ready to re-enter earth's atmosphere until he's taken a slice of the moon!

'It's been fun, it's been maddening... there have been injuries and recoveries, no babies born that I know of, but this one is nearly ready for the new year of 2009.'

The band have been writing and recording the follow-up to ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ since last year, and the feeling is that they’ve hit a creative groove so there are no plans to stop. Everyone, he says, is excited about where the recording is taking them.

‘When we set out on this record it was Larry who came up with the plan not to have a plan. He put up this idea that wouldn’t it be great just to make music for its own sake, not for the purpose of a live show or on album but just to see what we’re capable of…’

It’s an idea that’s paid off. Following sessions in Morocco, in Dublin and through the summer in France, the band have written ‘fifty or sixty’ tracks. And counting.

‘We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein,’ he explains. ‘It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we've found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there's more priceless stuff to be found?

For now, they’re keeping a promise they made to themselves when they started writing: ‘We said to each other that if we got to the great place then we wouldn’t stop…’

So the writing and recording continues and while they now know what shape most of the album will take, they're not leaving the studio just yet.

‘We know we have to emerge soon but we also know that people don’t want another U2 album unless it is our best ever album. It has to be our most innovative, our most challenging … or what’s the point ?’

They have no doubts that it will be as important a release for U2 as any. ‘It’s a brand new chapter for us, and everyone we’ve played the tracks to has said that musically it feels like another departure.

‘The last two records were very personal, with a kind of three piece at their heart, the primary colours of rock - bass, guitars and drum. But what we’re about now is of the same order as the transition that took us from The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby.’

He also mentions that the recording in Morocco was the first time the band have worked in a studio open to the sky: ‘On that track you can hear the sound of a swallows nest close to the building - it’s beautiful.’

Longtime collaborators Danny Lanois and Brian Eno have joined the band at different times, and, more recently, Steve Lillywhite – usually a tell-tale sign that a record is nearly done. ‘Steve has that ear for a top line melody and a good hook.’

But while Bono is itching to get the music out he says it’s going to be early 2009 when we first get to hear the songs.

‘I’m always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply 'put out the songs now', if it was just up to me they’d be out already! But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we’ve been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we’re going to start making an impression very early on …’

This link has some useful information as well.

Sounds like "Sexy Boots" is actually "Get On Your Boots."

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Estranged Reality LEGEND

Estranged Reality

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Straight from U2.com:
'We want 2009 to be our year'

'We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein and we don’t want to stop.' Bono has been talking to U2.Com about how the songs are shaping up for the new record and plans for 2009 to be their year.

‘This is our chance for us to defy gravity once again, ‘ explains Bono, calling in from a break in recording sessions in the south of France. ‘ We have what it takes, we have the songs, new rhythms and a guitar player who is not ready to re-enter earth's atmosphere until he's taken a slice of the moon!

'It's been fun, it's been maddening... there have been injuries and recoveries, no babies born that I know of, but this one is nearly ready for the new year of 2009.'

The band have been writing and recording the follow-up to ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ since last year, and the feeling is that they’ve hit a creative groove so there are no plans to stop. Everyone, he says, is excited about where the recording is taking them.

‘When we set out on this record it was Larry who came up with the plan not to have a plan. He put up this idea that wouldn’t it be great just to make music for its own sake, not for the purpose of a live show or on album but just to see what we’re capable of…’

It’s an idea that’s paid off. Following sessions in Morocco, in Dublin and through the summer in France, the band have written ‘fifty or sixty’ tracks. And counting.

‘We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein,’ he explains. ‘It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we've found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there's more priceless stuff to be found?

For now, they’re keeping a promise they made to themselves when they started writing: ‘We said to each other that if we got to the great place then we wouldn’t stop…’

So the writing and recording continues and while they now know what shape most of the album will take, they're not leaving the studio just yet.

‘We know we have to emerge soon but we also know that people don’t want another U2 album unless it is our best ever album. It has to be our most innovative, our most challenging … or what’s the point ?’

They have no doubts that it will be as important a release for U2 as any. ‘It’s a brand new chapter for us, and everyone we’ve played the tracks to has said that musically it feels like another departure.

‘The last two records were very personal, with a kind of three piece at their heart, the primary colours of rock - bass, guitars and drum. But what we’re about now is of the same order as the transition that took us from The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby.’

He also mentions that the recording in Morocco was the first time the band have worked in a studio open to the sky: ‘On that track you can hear the sound of a swallows nest close to the building - it’s beautiful.’

Longtime collaborators Danny Lanois and Brian Eno have joined the band at different times, and, more recently, Steve Lillywhite – usually a tell-tale sign that a record is nearly done. ‘Steve has that ear for a top line melody and a good hook.’

But while Bono is itching to get the music out he says it’s going to be early 2009 when we first get to hear the songs.

‘I’m always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply 'put out the songs now', if it was just up to me they’d be out already! But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we’ve been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we’re going to start making an impression very early on …’

This link has some useful information as well.

Sounds like "Sexy Boots" is actually "Get On Your Boots."

I'm hardly a U2 fan and never got into their albums beyond the singles, but that got me pretty excited.

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Rebel Yell Senior

Rebel Yell

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From NME:

U2's The Edge has told NME.COM that his band are still writing songs for their next album.

The band recently decided to push back the release date of the follow-up to 2004's 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb', declaring they wanted "2009 to be our year".

However, while many were anticipating that the record would come out this year, U2's guitarist explained the band were still hard at work on the album.

"We're still writing and we're trying to take it to the next level," said The Edge. "Its taking a while, but I'm told there's no short cut to greatness!"

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