U2 has announced a new album, titled Songs Of Surrender, that will feature 40 “reimagined and re-recorded” versions of their past hit tracks.
The album’s official announcement follows the sharing of a written letter from U2’s lead guitarist The Edge, which teased the now-confirmed project. In it, he explained that most of the band’s work was written and recorded when they were “a bunch of very young men” and that their songs have come to “mean something quite different” to them over time. “Some have grown with us,” he wrote. “Some we have outgrown, but we have not lost sight of what propelled us to write those songs in the first place. The essence of those songs is still in us. But how to reconnect with that essence when we have moved on and grown so much?”
The Edge added that the band had experimented with a “21st-century reimagining” of their old songs, and the practice quickly stuck. “Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version, each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are now, and particularly the singer that Bono has become,” he wrote. “I hope you like our new direction.”
Letters from the Edge announcing “Songs of Surrender” have started to appear. See the story here: https://t.co/i1xnQuNrxO
(Many thanks to @daniDpVox and @U2360gradi for sharing!) pic.twitter.com/4jyBmJPaT9— U2Songs.com (@u2songs) January 9, 2023
Songs Of Surrender was confirmed on Tuesday, with a trailer that features a reinvented version of the band’s hit track, “Beautiful Day.” The band has not shared a tracklist for the album, though it’s likely that the project will include the same songs featured in Bono’s 2022 memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. Last year, The Washington Post reported that U2 had pulled apart and re-recorded the 40 songs in the book.
Watch the official trailer for U2’s Songs Of Surrender above.
In more music news, Logic announced his eighth studio album, College Park, with an animated trailer.
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