Pages tagged “U2”

U2: digging for diamonds in a coal mine? Not really. The band is actually recording in the South of France, an album that was expected to be released by now, but Bono says their efforts have been fruitful…or gem-ful. On U2’s website, the frontman forged the mining metaphor, saying that “it gets a bit dark down here but…why come above ground now when there’s more priceless stuff to be found?"

Chances are, if you're reading this story, you're a U2 fan. Not merely because a news item with the phrase "New U2 album" in its headline tends to attract followers of Bono and Co., but also because U2 is a quintessential Paste band. Just look at that poll on the lefthand side of your screen (scroll down a bit...to the bottom of the page). That poll was supposed to be about Brian Eno, but those sneaky Irish gentlemen up and stole the whole show! At the time of this writing, The Joshua Tree is straight up annihilating its Eno-affiliated competition by a margin of 19% or more. Well played, U2. Well. Played.

I just finished posting the 12 best concerts I've ever seen. Rather than have them all in 12 separate posts, I thought I'd consolidate the list here. I was recently digging through a pile of ticket stubs I've saved, finding cool concert after cool concert, from high school, college and especially, these last six years since we started Paste magazine. There are some big omissions—I've still never seen Springsteen or The Stones. I've only in the last few years checked off Dylan and Prince (neither made the list and only Prince was close). Some of the best concerts I picked are obvious choices. Others are more offbeat or just personal. But all are seared into my memory; for each night, I stood (or occasionally sat) in awe of the performance that was given. So here are the 12 best concerts I've seen:

#7
U2
Nov. 19, 2005, Philips Arena (Atlanta)

I remember missing the Joshua Tree tour. My sister went, and I, being the jobless 15-year-old, stayed home. I remember that The BoDeans opened, and I instead listened to the Joshua Tree cassette on my boombox. I apparently was one of the few people who actually liked the follow-up, Rattle and Hum, and was initially bored by Achtung Baby, Pop and Zooropa. So in 2005, I somehow found myself never having seen one of the best bands of my generation. And they really are. Bono still seems to draw his energy from the adoring masses, and he acts like it's the first stadium show he's ever played and is awed by the crowd. There's still so much joy and camaraderie on the stage, with each of the members playing off their bandmates. And the catalog is so deep and rich—and only getting deeper and richer. I was just as excited to hear "City of Blinding Lights" and "Beautiful Day" as I was to hear "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and "40." They may be the most hyped live band since The Beatles, but that's only because they actually live up to it.

The wait is over! Well, almost. As previously reported, The Edge has overseen the re-mastering of U2's first three albums (Boy [1980], October [1981] and War [1983]), which are slated for release on July 22. As that date inches closer, Bono and the boys have whetted our appetites with details about the reissues' tracklistings, which offer a healthy serving of bonus material.

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U2 guitarist The Edge is overseeing the re-master and release of the band’s first three albums by Universal Records. The reissues are scheduled to hit stores July 22.

U2’s first three albums (Boy (1980), October (1981), War (1983)) have all been restored from the original audio tapes, and expanded with new liner notes, previously unseen photos and full lyrics. Each title will be released as a standard single disc, a deluxe double version including a disc of B-sides, live tracks and rarities, and as an LP pressed on 180 gm virgin vinyl.

The Dublin rockers began reissuing their early albums late last year with a special 20th anniversary edition of Joshua Tree. No word yet on whether or not the band plans to reissue any other material from its extensive catalogue.

In the mean time, the band is back in the studio in Hanover Quay working on an still-untitled new album, due for release later this year. Frontman and activist Bono also made an appearance on last week’s American Idol Gives Back program in a segment filmed in Kenya. Idol network Fox assembled Bono and a slew of other musical heavyweights to raise money for charities including The Global Fund, Save the Children and Malaria No More.

Related links:
U2.com
U2 on MySpace
News: U2 Signs 12-year deal with Live Nation

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U2 has signed a 12-year deal with concert promoter Live Nation, cementing a partnership that began in the late '90s.

The new agreement gives Live Nation global rights to the band’s merchandising, touring, digital and branding areas, the company’s president and CEO Michael Rapino announced this morning. The deal does not include any recording or publishing rights, which fall under the band’s contract with Universal Music Group.

The deal with U2 comes less than six months after Live Nation announced a watershed all-inclusive agreement with Madonna. The artist was rumored to have left Warner Music Group after the label refused to match Live Nation’s offer of $120 million over 10 years. The deal also made the Material Girl the founding artist in the company’s Artist Nation division, which allows artists to manage their rights and provide global distribution and marketing through a partnership with Live Nation.

The deal may give Live Nation an advantage over Ticketmaster in the continuing fight for dominance in concert promotion and ticket sales. The two companies operated as partners until last year, when Ticketmaster CEO Sean Moriarty announced that his company would not extend its contract with Live Nation.

Under Live Nation’s contract with Ticketmaster, which will expire at the end of the year, LiveNation.com can sell a portion of the tickets for the company's concerts. Instead of partnering with another outside ticketing agency when the contract expires, Live Nation seems to be positioning its own website as the primary outlet to buy concert tickets online.

U2 frontman Bono shrugged off the overlying implications of his band’s deal with Live Nation, saying, “We’ve been dating for over 20 years now; it’s about time we tied the knot.”

Related links:
U2.com
U2 on MySpace
Paste: U2 back in the studio with Eno, Lanois

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Last year, Idol Gives Back raised about $76 million for charities, both U.S. and international. Now, the Emmy-award winning program is back for a second year.

Bono will be endorsing the event, as will John Legend, Annie Lennox and Snoop Dogg. Last year proceeds went toward providing education, clean water and medical care to children in Africa. Some proceeds also contributed to health care and literacy programs for underprivileged kids here in the U.S. The show will be broadcast from both American Idol’s home stage and the Kodak Theatre.

Also in attendance will be Peyton and Eli Manning, Miley Cyrus, Fergie, Mariah Carey, and American Idol alum Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry. No word as of yet on who will actually be performing.

Related links:
AmericanIdol.com
U2.com
JohnLegend.com

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The globe-trotting members of U2 have finally returned to their home turf and are back in the studio, Billboard.com reports.

Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. are working on a new album in a Dublin, Ireland studio with longtime collaborators Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. The band, Eno and Lanois met several times over the past year in France and Morocco, and have already produced a plethora of new material – maybe even enough for two albums, Lanois told Billboard.

U2’s last album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, was released in 2004, but the band has hardly disappeared from the public eye over the ensuing years. Bono has lent his perpetually shaded mug to theRed Campaign, a consumer-driven effort in which participating businesses donate a percentage of a product’s price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS.

The band has also been lighting up the silver screen. U2 first appeared as the subject of the Lanois-produced documentary Here is What it Is, which debuted last September at the Toronto Film Festival. And one of the band’s electrifying concerts has been filmed and converted to 3D for the aptly titled U2 3D, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. (And no, you will not look as cool as Bono when you strap on those goofy 3D glasses.)

No release date has been set for the band’s new project, but Lanois told Billboard that the band was breaking new sonic ground and would deliver a masterpiece.

Related links:
U2.com
U2 on MySpace
Paste: U2 reissues The Joshua Tree, plots its own skyscraper

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U2 has been trying to throw its arms around the world ever since the band blew up into unprecedented rock superstars. The group has especially focused its efforts on the plight of developing African nations, from debt relief to AIDS to pervasive famine.

"You can throw pennies at the problem, but at a certain point I felt God wasn’t looking for alms," Bono told Paste in an article for our "Can Rock Save the World?" issue. "He was looking for action. You can’t fix every problem, but the ones you can fix, you have to.”

That sense of obligation has led the band to plenty of charitable efforts in the past. But now some of Africa's most accomplished musicians are paying a token of gratitude to U2 for its years of service.

On April 1, Shout! Factory releases In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2. The compilation features 12 artists - each representing a different region of Africa - covering U2 standards. Participating artists include Vieux Farka Touré, Tony Allen and Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars. A portion of the proceeds from the CD benefit The Global Fund, an organization that works in 136 countries across the world to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Shawn Amos and Paul Heck produced the compilation.

"Paul and I wanted to develop an easy entry point for the growing global community where they could get more involved and learn something deeper about Africa," Amos said via a press release. "It's really a focus on the key successes of several regions, and the African artists who originate from these areas. It's our goal for the public to learn more about all the good that's happening in Africa."

The complete tracklist:

1. Angelique Kidjo - "Mysterious Ways"
2. Vieux Farka Touré - "Bullet The Blue Sky"
3. Ba Cissoko - "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
4. Vusi Mahlasela - "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"
5. Tony Allen - "Where The Streets Have No Name"
6. Cheikh Lô - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
7. Keziah Jones - "One"
8. Les Nubians - "With Or Without You"
9. Soweto Gospel Choir - "Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
10. Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars - "Seconds"
11. African Underground All-Stars Featuring Chosan, Optimus & Iyoka - "Desire"
12. Waldemar Bastos - "Love Is Blindness"

Related links:
U2.com
Paste: U2 releases a "Wave of Sorrow" on Facebook
YouTube: Bono talks Africa, AIDS

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As we have previously reported, U2 will be releasing their reissue of The Joshua Tree on Nov. 20, but those of you who are just itching to get a piece of the new material they have added to the deluxe edition of this classic album are in luck. The Irishmen have teamed up with iLike on Facebook to pre-release “Wave of Sorrow,” a track that the group recorded for the album’s release 20 years ago, but never finished until now.

iLike is a Facebook widget that launched this year. Members of the online social network can add the application and search through a mammoth database of music, posting favorite songs to their Facebook pages. iLike also allows fans to receive notifications concerning news, tour date, and events surrounding their favorite artists.

U2’s special track was released on this system with messages being sent to over 1.2 million fans to notify them of the songs availability, along with an exclusive video of Bono discussing the origins of the old/new tune. The rest of the campaign was done without any sort of publicity to see how the public would pick up on this new form of music distribution.

Well, if the fact that we are now reporting on “Wave of Sorrow” means anything, then I would venture to say that this experiment has been successful. With U2 having paved the way, it will be interesting to see if any other bands will take advantage of this direct communication with their fans and how this new electronic method of spreading music will fare in the long run.

Related links
U2.com
"Wave of Sorrow" on Facebook
YouTube: Bono's commentary on "Wave of Sorrow"

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Years from now, when it’s possible to fold our 36" plasma screen televisions into our pockets and bread boxes come equipped with blue ray, some humans will still be blown away by 3-D movies. And when hordes of blue/red-spectacled future activists teleport to Bono’s hologram - projected in a new, desperately famished region every six months - they will thank the U2 frontman for contributing to the gimmick’s longevity.

At Cannes earlier this year, pieces of then-unfinished U2 3D, a 3-D film chronicling U2’s South American Vertigo tour (perhaps named after the nauseating spinning sensation caused by exaggerated reality-mimicking effects), apparently garnered some positive reactions. "I loved it when the Edge blew bubbles at the camera!" squealed one highly reputable six-year-old.

Okay, that’s a completely made up scene and source, but it’s exciting to imagine, no?

The point is, National Geographic Cinema Ventures has announced it will distribute the film internationally, beginning in January of 2008. Co-director Catherine Owens called the project a "lovefest" that mimics a great-seats concert experience as closely as cinema allows. Stated 3ality Digital CEO Steve Schklair: "We take the cinema audience into the crowd, above the band, and up on stage."

Wouldn’t it be awesome if they threw in an effect where Bono suddenly “swapped glasses” with you? And then pointed at you (pointing is the most intense and potentially humiliating of all 3-D effects) and mouthed, "Aren't you happy to be alive?” After which the 3-D camera stagedives? Oh man!

But you’ll have to see what really happens for yourself. And don't try to download a pirated version, cause it'll just be weird and blurry. Check the links below for more details.

Related links:
U2.com
3alityDigital.com
National Geographic Cinema Ventures

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Take that, John Lennon! So what, you're reissuing your discography on iTunes? U2 is repackaging just one of its albums four times over. Oh yeah, and that wussy "Imagine Peace" tower that Yoko Ono unveiled in your honor? U2's getting its own skyscraper in Dublin, chump. So, you know, have fun with all of that posthumous recognition and all. Because the present belongs to Ireland's finest.

On Nov. 20, U2 and its similarly named home label UMe will reissue the group's seminal Joshua Tree album in several different packaged forms to celebrate the album's 20th anniversary. So, U2 fans, pick your delicious poison: a single remastered CD, a double CD set, a 2xCD plus DVD goliath, or a double vinyl version. The various pressings feature new liner notes from the group, with bonus material to be announced in the near future. The DVD, meanwhile, features a live 1987 concert and the U2 documentary Outside It's America.

Now, onto the really crazy U2 news. The group has evidently finalized plans for the "U2 Tower," which will loom over the skyline of Dublin like a giant electric triangle. For those who haven't been following this story, it's a pretty amazing study in progressive architecture: solar panels, wind turbines, 34 "social and affordable flats," all topped off with a free-hanging recording studio "pod," presumably for use by the group. The project should cost about £140 million, and will be spearheaded by designer Lord Foster, who put together this number in London. Better pick up all four reissued copies of The Joshua Tree, just in case finances fall short.

Related links:
U2.com
Paste: U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
YouTube: U2 - "With Or Without You" live

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Producer Daniel Lanois recently helped put together an upcoming documentary, Here is What it is, that will “feature rare footage of the band in the recording studio,” according to Gigwise. Premiering Sept. 7 at the Toronto Film Festival, it features appearances from Willie Nelson, Brian Eno and U2. Have at this preview.

That’s the word on that for now. In the meantime, take a look at this U2 documentary, likely posted to YouTube in a completely illegal fashion!

Also, while we’re on the subject, it seems like far too few people have read about the New York improv group who, in a performance they called "Even Better than the Real Thing," convinced a crowd of cityfolk they were U2 by dressing up as Bono and company performing on a rooftop.

Related links:
U2.com
U2 on MySpace
DanielLanois.com

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Longtime collaborators U2, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois are putting their heads together again for an undetermined project. One would assume the result would be more sweeping, socially-conscious anthems, but on U2’s website Bono is quoted as saying “it’s very different, quite experimental and kind of liberating.”

The group’s creative base is the medieval Moroccan city of Fez, where director Stephane Sedanoui shot the warbly, colorful video for Achtung Baby’s “Mysterious Ways” (hopefully, Bono is still working the frilly red shirt).

Eno and Lanois produced U2’s breakthrough 1987 album The Joshua Tree, but U2 drummer Larry Mullen said this is the first time they’ve all worked together in a “purely songwriting capacity.”

Related links:
U2.com
EnoWeb
Daniel Lanois Online

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Bono’s “Fly” image—where he strode about clad head-to-toe in leather and wraparound shades—was, we learned, a send-up: he was parodying rock-star poses by creating the ultimate post-everything shamanistic frontman. It was part of a disinformation campaign that included the massive Zoo TV tour, which grew like a horn from the forehead of the band’s outsized ego.

As seen here in a concert filmed in late 1993, gargantuan video screens were everywhere, projecting images of static, slogans, news and Lou Reed, all in an attempt to say, uh… something about media saturation. I guess.

The idea that U2 thought overexposure problematic is laughable, but the astonishing grandiosity on display has a certain grotesque charm. And the set list and performances are ace, drawing heavily from Achtung Baby and the underrated Zooropa, cherry-picking from the best of the ’80s output, and throwing in some interesting covers. U2 may’ve been confused and more than a little ridiculous, but you can’t argue against these songs.

U2's new live DVD—featuring footage shot from the 2005 Vertigo World Tour—was released this week. The DVD, Vertigo 2005/ U2 Live From Chicago, includes one disc of the entire live show at Chicago's United Center, and another disc of bonus material.

View the trailer in Windows Media Player here.

View the trailer in Real Player here.

Launch the U2 media player here.

U2's live DVD, featuring footage shot from their 2005 Vertigo World Tour, was released this week. The DVD, entitled Vertigo 2005/ U2 Live From Chicago, includes one disc of the entire live show at Chicago's United Center, and another disc of bonus material.

View the trailer in Windows Media Player here.

View the trailer in Real Player here.

Launch the media player here.

U2's live DVD, featuring footage shot from their 2005 Vertigo World Tour, was released this week. The DVD, entitled Vertigo 2005/ U2 Live From Chicago, includes one disc of the entire live show at Chicago's United Center, and another disc of bonus material.

View the trailer in Windows Media Player here.

View the trailer in Real Player here.

Launch the media player here.

When U2 released All That You Can’t Leave Behind in 2002, you couldn’t help but wonder if it was a passionate return to form or merely the latest metamorphosis in the shape-shifting that marked the band’s previous decade. Understandably weighed down by its own legend after The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum, the group devoted the 1990s to trying to escape its image as self-serious, over-earnest rock ’n’ roll saviors.

In the process, U2 made the least-impressive music of its career, cranking out irony-loaded albums like Zooropa and Pop and embarking on tours that were more about fashion than music. All That You Can’t Leave Behind’s title was a wry commentary on the futility of trying to be something other than what you truly are (Bono spent most of his time onstage in the 1990s as Macphisto, the Fly, anything but Bono), and the music was shimmering, driving, heartfelt and full of life, as was the accompanying tour. Rather than reinvent itself once more, U2 followed with last year’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, an album on which the band once again engaged the world with deceptively simple songs that, after repeated spins, had the power to take listeners deeper into themselves.

The band’s show in Chicago Saturday night—the first of four sold-out Windy City dates—was also a stunning return to form. With a set list that focused mostly on material from the new album but covered every stage of the band’s career, U2 has never looked more comfortable in its own skin. Newer tunes “City of Blinding Lights” and “Elevation” sat comfortably alongside the 25-year-old “An Cat Dubh” and “Into the Heart,” and the show-closing duo of 2004’s “Yahweh” and 1983’s “ ‘40’ “ suggests the band has come full circle.

The band once again used the stage setup from the Elevation tour, with the main stage at one end of an open oval runway extending nearly halfway into the United Center’s floor area. During the show, colored lights blasted the perimeter and interior of the runway, while images played on ingenious curtains of bulbs that hung from ceiling to stage. Rather than distract from the music, the special effects were the perfect complement; while images of fighter planes raced across the curtain on “Bullet the Blue Sky,” The Edge kept the music grounded with the bluesiest solo I’ve ever heard him play, sounding more like Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” than anything stereotypically “Edgy.”

The band also put all that technology to good use, projecting the United Nations’ 1948 Declaration of Human Rights on the giant video screens during “Running to Stand Still,” and later asking the crowd to use its cell phones to sign—via text message—the “One Declaration,” an effort to fight AIDS and global poverty (www.one.org). It Sure beat the self-satisfied calls to the White House switchboard Bono used to make during the ZooTV tour. (“They never took my calls anyway,” Bono joked. “[But] now they take my calls,” he added, referring to his much-publicized work on debt relief and African AIDS research.)

The show’s highlight came in an eight-song set-closing sequence. Beginning with the anti-war suite of “New Year’s Day,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Bullet the Blue Sky,” then turning inward with “Running to Stand Still” (dedicated to the soldiers in Iraq) and “Bad” before combining the personal and political with “Pride,” “Where the Streets Have No Name,” and “One,” the last 40 minutes of the show was as powerful as anything the band’s done onstage. During “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” Bono donned a headband featuring a hand-drawn Christian cross, a Star of David, and the Muslim crescent moon; at one point he chanted “Jesus, Mohammad, Jew, it’s true;” and it didn’t come off like some toothless “why can’t we all just get along?” rant, but rather a genuine call for people to find common humanity across religious divides.

But the evening’s most telling moments came during “Zoo Station,” which opened the encore with rapid-fire images of everyone from George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein to Bill O’Reilly flashing across the video screens. Bono donned an officer’s cap and circled the runway, punctuating his jackboot-march with the Nazi salute, a commentary on the effects of mass media that was all the more effective for its lack of subtlety. If there’s anything the band learned in the 1990s, it’s that irony is a dead end. Bono closed the song by repeating “We do the show, we do the business, but this is not show business.”

Sure, it’s show business, Bono. But thankfully, that’s not all it is anymore.

Their newest album appearing an obvious choice for top honors, Bono and associates have successfully gutted 97 percent of the joy involved in crowning 2004’s best album. Sure, there were more challenging albums, but none packed this one’s unflagging, gritty transcendence. Bomb draws its megatonic punch from the group’s sensitivity to the nuances of human relationships. Well, that and The Edge’s goosebump box. Err, delay pedal.

In this era of clamped-down security, record companies no longer hand out advance pressings of superstar albums, and reviews are frequently based on one listen in an office or conference room. Since one of the things that makes a great album great is its depth, and since I’ve heard it just once, I can’t tell you whether How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb will bloom or wither over time. But I’m sure about a couple of things: the record is loaded with thought-provoking songs, and The Edge has brought his A-game.

When U2 made All That You Can’t Leave Behind in 2000, the world was a very different place; nonetheless, the album’s key songs, “It’s a Beautiful Day” and “Walk On,” seemed to speak directly to a collective need for affirmation in post-9/11 America. Four years later, with the shit hitting the fan on a global scale, the planet’s most responsible rock band reacts to crisis on a grand scale and the widespread anxiety it provokes as you’d expect: with solemn concern and an undimmed humanistic hopefulness. At the same time—because The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. never lose sight of the fact that U2 is a rock ’n’ roll band before it’s a stage for political commentary, a beacon of spiritual guidance, or anything else Bono might aspire to—the fundamental priorities of Bomb are rhythmic, dynamic and textural.

On “Vertigo,” the infectious first single, The Edge rips out arena-rawk power chords, and the track’s visceral impact first obscures, then reinforces, the sense of unease connoted by the title, as the lyric alludes to “a feeling so much stronger / than a thought,” and “everything I wish I didn’t know.” We discover that it’s night in the jungle; tracer bullets light the sky and danger is everywhere. Meanwhile, in a restaurant or club, the song’s narrator asks for the check and gazes at a crucifix swinging from the neck of a girl dancing nearby. In the eerie bridge, a voice commands, “Just give me what I want / And no one gets hurt.” These stories don’t add up, but then neither does present-day reality. The listener can opt to stay on the track’s churning surface or dive into its narrative innuendo—it works either way. In this sense, “Vertigo” could be the band’s way of showing how the album as a whole might be approached.

Consider “Love and Peace,” which can be taken either as U2’s answer to The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” a modern-day political protest song, an apocalyptic parable or all of the above. The track’s musical drama builds incrementally around Bono’s gospel-inflected vocal, as a heavily distorted bass line is joined by handclaps, martial toms and, finally, hammer-of-the-gods guitars. Kid A-brand static introduces the bridge, on which Bono reports, “The troops on the ground are about to dig in,” before returning to the refrain, “I wonder where’s the love and peace?”—which functions as a concrete, contemporary parallel to Nick Lowe’s rhetorical “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?”

At the same time, U2 has no problem jettisoning the thematic cargo and just rocking out on the Stonesy riff-fest “All Because of You,” which is clearly designed to get heads nodding in the old-school manner. Neither does the band have any qualms about referencing itself—the streets have names on “City of Blinding Lights,” a 16th-note-fueled celebration of NYC. The sultry groove of “A Man and a Woman” falls somewhere between Sade and Robert Palmer, while the string-enriched “Original of the Species”—which is at once a power ballad and a lullaby—has the character of U2 acolyte Coldplay. So there’s enough formal and thematic variety to keep the record from coming off monochromatic or, god help us, didactic.

Overall, the album is unabashedly grand and inspirational. Bono wrestles with mortality on “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own” (inspired by the recent death of his father)—which sounds like this album’s “One” or “Walk On”—and the relatively muted “One Step Closer”; he provides a dramatic context for the AIDS crisis (“Miracle Drug,” “Crumbs From Your Table”); and he raps it down with his Maker on the closing “Yahweh,” culminating in a practical request, given the state of the world, to “Take this heart and make it brave.”

My impression is that How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is more consistent than All That You Can’t Leave Behind; indeed, this album may well possess enough substance and power to put it on the rarefied level of The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. That’s the best-case scenario. Hmm… Actually, best-case scenario: Bomb turns out to be U2’s best album ever. Worst-case? Its zeitgeist-capturing preoccupations leave the band stuck in a moment it can’t get out of. But I doubt that—and I can’t wait to hear it again.

U2 has titled its forthcoming album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The title has long been rumored on various fan websites and forums, but official confirmation has now been given from the band.

"Vertigo" will be released as the first single and will feature the B-side cover of Kraftwerk’s "Neon Lights". Some of the other song titles include "Man And A Woman," "Yahweh," "Crumbs From Your Table" and "City Of Blinding Lights". The album, the follow-up to 2000's All That You Can’t Leave Behind, will be released in the U.S. Nov. 23.

The band plans to embark on a massive world tour starting early next year.

Contributing: NME