Island Records and Interscope today announce the release of Songs Of Surrender, a collection of 40 original songs from U2’s catalogue, re-recorded and re-imagined over the past two years, set for release on Friday, March 17, 2023.
The first single available from this new series of recordings is the anthem “Pride (In The Name Of Love)”, which you can listen to here. https://U2.lnk.to/Pride-SOS
The Edge was responsible for curating and producing Songs Of Surrender, in which the band revisits some of the most celebrated songs from their 40+ year career including, With Or Without You, One, Beautiful Day, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Unseen.
This musical re-imagining results in a completely new recording of each track that includes new arrangements and, in some cases, new lyrics.
“Music allows you to travel back in time, and we were curious what it would be like to bring our first songs with us into the present day and give them the benefit, or not, of a 21st century reimagining.
What started as an experiment quickly became a personal obsession, as many of our songs lent themselves to new interpretations. Intimacy replaced post-punk urgency. New tempos arrived, new keys and, in some cases, new chords and new lyrics. It turns out that a great song is indestructible.
The song selection process began with a series of demos. I looked at how a song would look if all but the essential elements were removed. The other main goal was to find ways to give the songs intimacy, since most of them were written with live concerts in mind.
Going through these recording sketches with producer Bob Ezrin, it was very easy to see which ones worked first time and which ones needed more work. We all fall into the sensitivity of less is more”. Said The Edge about this new project.
The newly recorded 40 tracks are brought together under the names of each of the four band members on four separate ‘albums’, “Listening to the songs, interacting and finding the order of the four albums was really exciting; find the amazing segments, have a chance to be a DJ. Once we had four different albums it was easy to see who would be the main figure of each one”, added The Edge.
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