I think it's time for a new thread, don't you?

So November 18 is the date that the management and label have given for a new album release. Meanwhile, it's long been rumored that one of the songs on the new album is to be titled "No Line on the Horizon," and now U2's management has purchased the domain nolineonthehorizon.com-- which seems to indicate that this will either be the album title or the first single.

This article says that the first single might be a song called "Sexy Boots."

The aforementioned domain name has apparently NOT been secured by the album's staff, but that's alright. Just knowing that the next U2 disc should feature 13 jamming tracks is enough to make me drool.

That's a very Popmart sounding title. My guess is it's a working title and not the actual name of the song, but what do I know?

If I get even half as much enjoyment out of the new U2 album as I'm getting out of the 3 recent reissues, it will be money well spent. I'm loving these first three albums even though I've owned them in some form for 20 years.

"Sexy Boots."

I wonder if there will be a 7inch release?

Edge talks about the new album in Q Magazine (via @U2).

It appears "Sexy Boots" has become "Get On Your Boots," and more disturbingly, the record might not come out this year after all.

Oh well. As long as it's well-made, I don't really care when it's released. No rush jobs, please.

Now, Bono's talking about the album, and it looks like we will be waiting until 2009 after all.

Glad to hear they're moving away from the template that gave us ATYCLB and HTDAAB, as much as I enjoyed those.

But THIS: "...what we're about now is of the same order as the transition that took us from 'The Joshua Tree' to 'Achtung Baby.'"

Yeah, don't get our hopes up or anything, Bono. Sheesh!

Meanwhile... What Will Bono Do?

Will a certain song be dropped from set lists in the future? Or does he feel differently about speaking God's name in this fashion?

Bono and Edge played some new songs at a party Thursday night. @U2 makes it sound like this was an album release party, and that the finished record was played, but the article here doesn't say anything to that effect...

Err... this is a little bit icky and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Bono on vacation

What to make of it? Are you joking? He's a mega celebrity, women flock to him and want to "f" a rockstar-- it's pretty simple.

When musicians talk about the "struggles" of fame (and Bono has many times), they're not referring to some abstract, emotional nemesis, they're talking about two bikini-clad teens sitting on your lap and wanting to party all night. The guy's not a pastor, he's a rockstar and he's faced this kind of crap constantly for nearly 30 years.

Certainly I'm aware of the "struggles of being a rock star" and I'm sure he has dealt with stuff like this for 30 years. (In fact, there are some amusing anecdotes about this in the U2 by U2 book.) More power to him! It's just weird to me that he has reached the age of 50 and he doesn't really look like he's "struggling" at all in that photo. I know it's just a tabloid story and I don't want to sound harsh and judgmental. I'm just so used to reading about Bono campaigning for Third World debt relief that it's a bit of a shock to see him acting like a 20-something rock dude.

Stories like this pop up ever so often about Bono (although they usually involve a famous female, such as Andrea Corr or Penelope Cruz) and they are always just baseless tabloid trash.

But I still maintain that the photo is "icky"--grizzled old rock stars cavorting with teen girls is always icky, whether it's Bono or Mick Jagger or whoever else you'd care to name.

I guess on some base level i just resent the Bono-PR machine trying to spin the most obvious, human nature reality into something fantastically implausible.

Yeah, it's icky. But the reality is, if I was an aging rock star on St Tropez, a couple thousand miles from home, with two legal age hotties on my lap, I'm sure I'd do the same thing.

It's amazing that U2 have come this far without any severe tabloid-material crisis. I suspect it's only a matter of time, but I hope and pray it never happens.

If scandal-happy reporters are eager to find something, they'll find all kinds of things. Bono's marriage should not be held up as an ideal. I know people who have been close to Bono and Ali over the years, and if somebody wanted to sensationalize something and make a stink, I'm sure they could discover the shocking scoop that Bono and Ali are human beings, and their marriage has been through rocky times... may still go through more rocky times.

But any scandal that the band might suffer at this point wouldn't put a scratch on the merit of their material. Their work has always been as much about personal struggle, sin, and failing as it has been about spiritual longing and worship. And if any publication starts trying to discredit the integrity of their work because of typical human failings, I have one response: The Psalms.

They're rock stars living rock-star lifestyles. They're not saints. It's what they've done within that context, and in spite of their stumbles and misbehavior, that makes them remarkable, and worthy of praise. There's never been a band in the history of rock who have taken advantage of their (admittedly overblown) celebrity more aggressively and respectably. Where others invest their energies in celebrating their own importance, Bono is a familiar figure in the hall of power internationally, dedicating himself to the cause of the neglected and the suffering. What other celebrity has devoted himself so relentlessly to awakening the conscience in men and women of influence... and yet done so with a sense of humility? I watch that talk Bono gave at the Washington Prayer Breakfast, and I'm filled with gratitude for what God is doing through that worldly man. U2 never been messiahs, and they've known that from the beginning, skewering their own overblown image at every turn. The laments in Bono's lyrics about making terrible mistakes, being a prodigal, struggling with the allure of the world he lives in... I'm convinced that these lines come from a place of genuine, ongoing struggle.

Having said all that... there is almost nothing... NOTHING... we can conclude from seeing one photograph on Facebook. The very existence of that article is ridiculous, a sign of "journalists" desperate to find and create a scandal. And frankly, I'm really sorry I even looked at it.

I do predict, however, that one of these days someone will successfully stir up a big scandal about the band. And that will be a very sad day... not because it will deal some serious blow to the band's integrity, but because of what it will say about our need to punish those who make a difference.

Even though it was conveyed on several mainstream news web sites, in retrospect I feel like posting this "news item" was nothing more than gossipping on my part, and for that I sincerely repent.

FWIW, I don't believe there's any scandal here. I think the fact that Bono would happily pose with two scantily clad young girls is proof that there was nothing else going on. I guess this just struck me as one of those "what the hell?" moments and so I impusively posted it. If I had it to do over again I certainly wouldn't do that.

Let's ignore the icky photo and get back to talking about the new album...

I am thankful that his beach attire doesn't include a Speedo.

I happen to wholeheartedly agree with the general sentiment, Jeff. My concern is whether the same courtesy applied to the Beloved Bono is extended to all artists, writers and creative people who happen to regularly traffic in things like uh, say...marital infidelity involving two foreign teenagers at a beach resort.

Yet there is no evidence of marital infidelity (as far as I know), the rest is assumption and innuendo.

I've always had a fairly large number of female friends. I also have a very high percentage of female coworkers, at one point being the token male in my department. My heart (and body) belongs to my wife, and I never forget that. My female friends and coworkers also know that. The boundaries are very clear and no one steps over them. Yet anyone who wanted to follow me around with a camera could put together a number of photographs of me with women other than my wife, and insinuate that there is something unseemly going on.

Knowing that, I try not to make any assumptions about other people and what they may or may not be doing behind closed doors. During and after my divorce a number of years ago I heard all kinds of suggestions (even to my face) from coworkers, fellow church members and seminary students, and even a few friends that I must have been having an affair or I was interesting in dating someone else when I decided to legally end my marriage. With that kind of withering criticism to my face (all of it false) I can only imagine what was being said behind my back.

I know what it is like to be unjustly accused without any way to demonstrate innocence. I don't know what was going on with Bono, but that's not really my business. In the book, U2:At the End of the World, the writer mentions the aftermath of the Zooropa concerts in Austrailia, where Bono and others in the traveling crew met up with a young woman and some of her friends late one evening after a concert. They stayed out all night talking, having a few drinks, and ending up on the beach for the sunrise. (The author mentions that Bono knows people all over the world, and this was not an unusual thing.) I can imagine the same kind of thing going on in this circumstance.

Would I do it? Probably not. With that many people following me looking for scandal, I would avoid situations like that. But then again, I'd hate to be famous and would probably lose my sanity if I had people following me around with cameras. But Bono deals with it all the time, so maybe he has a different way to deal with it.

That's what bothered me about the fair and balanced article in the link...while the girls implicitly state nothing happened? The article makes it seem otherwise-especially the title which suggests Bono was "caught" cheating.

You're absolutely right.

Scandalmongers make quite a bit out of the fact that the young women are wearing bikinis in the photo. But they are at a beach resort, so it would be strange for them to be dressed in urban attire, as one would dress on the streets of London or Paris.

Yes, they are showing a lot of skin, but less skin than many young women show on the beach or at the pool.

True, I suppose, but as a great sage once said, "you don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows".

Of course "something" happened! Human beings consume things, they expel waste and they have sex. These are absolutes. The only difference with rock stars is they do all three excessively. (Want proof? Have you seen Bono's gut lately?)

I'm all for cutting a "brother" some slack, but cut me some slack. I cannot imagine anyone on this board extending the same overly-generous benefit of the doubt to Joe the Plumber if the story was about him instead.

We have to eat and we have to "expel waste," but we have no essential requirement for sex. This is far more information than anyone needs to know, but I've lived 38 of my 43 years without significant sexual relations. I've been a single man for the vast majority of my life and have lived relatively chaste through all of it except for a period in late high school and early college. And in my first marriage, sex pretty much ended after the first eight months when my wife started having second thoughts about being monogamous.

So the myth that a person can't be human and abstain from sexual relations is complete BS. It's not easy, and it means you don't indulge every passion or take opportunities that are offered... even if you really want to. (And yes, I had numerous opportunities for sex.)

I'm not trying to make myself sound more virtuous than I am. I have plenty of sin issues. But promiscuity is not one I have gotten caught up in.

But beyond all of that... Bono is married and has a legitimate and God-encouraged way to express his sexual passions with his wife! Most people don't subscribe to the "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" philosophy. Moreover, how do we know for sure that his wife and family were not on Edge's yacht? Bono and Edge's families often accompany them on portions of the tours and vacations in various parts of the world.


I haven't seen Bono's gut, but I take your word on it. I don't think you can easily shove people into categories like rock stars, musicians, accountants, writers, plumbers, pastors, etc. and make blanket claims about the moral specifics of their lives though.


I'm not on your case. I have enormous respect for you. I just want some evidence or admission before I assume anything of anyone. I've just spent too much of my life getting condemned for crap I didn't do. Most of my teen years, my mother worried I was "on drugs" and made decisions regarding the boundaries she would extend based on that belief. I've never used a drug that was no prescribed to me in my life, and I had my first drink of alcohol at age 33. For years, certain people I know have considered me a "liberal" (which they believe also includes a life of wanton immorality) because I'm not a fundamentalist. When I was living in seminary housing, one of my seminary student neighbors decided there was "immorality" going on in my apartment, and I face having my apartment secretly searched while I was in class. (I figured out what was going on because I used to have a bad habit of leaving cabinet doors open when I was hurrying to get ready for the day. One day I came home and the medicine cabinet door was close, the cupboard door was closed, and things were much more neatly arranged in the medicine cabinet than I had ever had them. I started leaving doors open on a regular basis in order to monitor how frequently my place was searched. Of course, they never found anything and the housing office didn't deny they had searched the place when I went to talk to them about it and see if I could help them find what they were looking for.) Late afternoon yesterday, I walked out of a bar with two of my female coworkers and walked them to their cars. Both of them are very attractive by anyone's standards. While we were walking out, I was thinking of this conversation. If someone had been taking pictures of me with them (and the public cared about my life) I could see how someone could write a gossip story about how I was cheating on Sara by going to bars with other women. They probably wouldn't have reported that I was there with my group from work and that we were celebrating the end of a very hard, but successful, six weeks of intense deadlines. They also wouldn't have known that Sara was invited, but she was teaching students and then going to early vote instead.

I could go on and on about being falsely suspected and accused. Part of that is due to being somewhat confrontational with people, with is occasionally a virtue, but mostly a flaw. I can get people irritated/worried, and they often assume certain things about me. I'm just fortunate that the public has no interest in my life.


I would. Why not?

Sorry i missed this one for so long... I hear ya, Will and I happen to agree. My posts are a little tongue in cheek (particularly about "cutting a brother some slack") but i will add this... The Backstage World of a traveling rock n roll circus is about as far from "reality" as one can get. That's why so few marriages survive it. Those that do endure, are "successful" because the spouse at home is willing to wink and endure the inevitable-- yes, i believe inevitable-- nonsense. There's just no way any of us can compare the standard temptations of daily work life with what rock stars face on the road.

More than ever, I'm sorry for posting this bit of salacious "news," but since the discussion continues, I'll just make another comment.

I'm perfectly willing to assume that "nothing happened" on Bono's vacation. But to those of you who are married males, even if you could honestly tell your wives that you didn't do anything sexual with those girls, do you really think your wife wouldn't be just a little bit angry/annoyed/hurt/taken aback if photos surfaced of you with two bikini babes on your lap? Again, even if lap-sitting and posing for silly photos is all that happened, I think my wife would be justifiably upset. Certainly not as upset as if I had an affair, but still.

Your wife probably wouldn't be the sort of person who had decided to marry a rock star, then.

Good point.

Blah blah blah blah blah...

And more blah blah blah...

Will.i.am lets it slip that he's been working with U2-- on their new album, one presumes. Are they going all hip-hop on us?

Now Kanye says that Will.i.am is producing the album.

Josh Jackson just put this on his Facebook status update. To echo Jeff, blah blah blah.

Wow... you can preorder? I guess it'll be tough for them to change the title of the album now.

Wow, let's review the liner notes from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb:

VERTIGO: Produced by Steve Lillywhite
MIRACLE DRUG: Produced by Steve Lillywhite. Additional production by Carl Glanville and Jacknife Lee.
SOMETIMES YOU CAN'T MAKE IT ON YOUR OWN: Produced by Chris Thomas. Additional production by Steve Lillywhite and Nellee Hooper.
LOVE AND PEACE OR ELSE: Original production by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Additional production by Chris Thomas, Jacknife Lee and Flood.
CITY OF BLINDING LIGHTS: Produced by Flood. Additional production by Chris Thomas and Jacknife Lee.
ALL BECAUSE OF YOU: Produced by Steve Lillywhite.
A MAN AND A WOMAN: Produced by Jacknife Lee. Additional production by Steve Lillywhite and Carl Glanville.
CRUMBS FROM YOUR TABLE: Produced by Steve Lillywhite. Additional production by Jacknife Lee.
ONE STEP CLOSER: Original production by Chris Thomas and Daniel Lanois. Additional production by Jacknife Lee.
ORIGINAL OF THE SPECIES: Produced by Steve Lillywhite. Additional production by Jacknife Lee.
YAHWEH: Produced by Chris Thomas.

HTDAAB had no less than eight producers (Lillywhite, Lanois, Eno, Flood, Glanville, Lee, Thomas, Hooper) at various stages of developement, and the album suffered for it. Note that "Love and Peace or Else" boasts no less than five producers on JUST THAT ONE SONG!!! Jeez, usually with that many producers you're looking at a Michael Jackson track.

It appears U2 may be going this route again with the new album (working first with Eno and Lanois and then inviting all sorts of other folks in... Will.i.am?... to tinker with it). Blech.

FWIW, I thought HTDAAB was a decent album, but it could have been a lot better if they just let Lillywhite or Eno/Lanois produce it and not invite so many other "cooks" in.

HTDAAB is one of my least favorite U2 albums, and, given how long it took them to make it, it's certainly the most disappointing. But then, I'm not sure if its weakness has much to do with the number of producers. From a production standpoint, I honestly don't hear that much difference from one track to the next.

I agree. I don't think they originally set out to make an album using eight producers. As I recall, the album was originally supposed to be produced solely by Chris Thomas. But when those sessions didn't work out, they kept calling in new producers to try and "fix" it. The number of producers on HTDAAB is probably just indicative of the fact that U2 didn't have a clear direction when they started out, and perhaps that the songs themselves weren't up-to-par to begin with.

...And based on the reports about the new album (and the delays), that appears to be happening all over again. I'd love to be wrong though.

U2 seems to do their best work when they hunker down in the studio with a core team, and usually that core team is either Lanois/Eno or Lillywhite. Heck, I'd rather hear a U2 album produced EXCLUSIVELY by Will.i.am than one produced by Eno/Lanois/Will.i.am/etc./etc.

The Will.i.am rumor does give me some hope, though, that they're doing something different-- not another U2 by-the-numbers record like the last one.

This recent quote from the Edge in a MOJO interview is interesting (emphasis added):

"Famously, Chris Blackwell came down when we were doing Achtung Baby and with a week to go he said, There’s just no chance you’re gonna finish this album; I’ll come back in a month’s time and check on your progress. So he left town, and sure enough we finished at the end of that week! It’s like this ground rush. You seem to be going nowhere and then suddenly you hit the last period and then everything starts to move and everything clicks into place. It’s just the way we do it because I suppose inspiration is the ultimate thing for us. It’s not craft. So when things start to really get close, it’s a really inspiring time and everyone just gets onto a whole other level of creativity and we go into overdrive and all these ideas start coming through."

I think that was the problem with HTDAAB... it was all craft and no inspiration.

As for the new album, @U2 and any number of apopleptic U2 forums you'd care to visit are saying that an announcement, presumably about the new single/album, is expected sometime today...

March 3

And @U2 notes that the producers are just Eno and Lanois, with "additional production" by Steve Lillywhite, which is basically the same arrangement as The Joshua Tree.

Awesome.

The description "amazing and a little out there" makes me dare to hope for another U2 masterpiece. Oh please oh please oh please!!

By the way, this might be my favorite U2 album title since Pop. The other two are just so unwieldy; this one is long-ish, but has a certain cadence to it.

U2 to release 5 versions of new album.

WTF? I think I'd just like the CD. (Well, maybe the CD and the poster.)

Q is promising numerous U2-related exclusives over the next couple of weeks-- behind-the-scenes recording footage, new photos, interviews, etc.

Woa!!

So... "Sexy Boots" has been retitled "Get Your Boots On"?

Bono, when asked to describe the new record in just three words: "It's very long."

Hmmm, technically that may be four words, even if two of them are contracted.

Has U2 ever done a double-album before? Not counting compilation CDs, of course.