File download is hosted on Megaupload
Photo by Sam Jones
After teasing for well over a year, U2 have finally set a release date for their new album, Songs of Experience. The follow-up to 2014’s Songs of Innocence will officially hit shelves on December 1st, as revealed in an interview with the New York Times.
The forthcoming LP will feature previous tracks “The Blackout” and “The Little Things That Give You Away”, which they debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live in May, and today’s newly unveiled single, “You’re the Best Thing About Me”. It’s also said to come with an expanded version of Bono’s guest contributions on Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. album (“XXX”); the song is reportedly “about America and its history of welcoming immigrants.”
Songs of Experience was completed last year, but needed to be re-evaluated in the wake of Donald Trump’s rise to power, according to the band. Bono’s new comments to the Times reaffirm this, as the frontman calls the LP his “lyrical response” to elections in the US and abroad:
“The elections were a shock to the system personally and a shock to the system politically, not just in America but in Europe. This is my lyrical response to both of those shocks. I leaned more on the personal than the political, but the political is there to put the personal songs in the context of time, of history.”
In the studio U2 were joined by a handful of past collaborators, including UK garage rockers Royal Blood, OneRepublic mastermind Ryan Tedder, Irish producer Jacknife Lee (R.E.M., The Killers), and Steve Lillywhite (The Rolling Stones, Morrissey).
Revisit “You’re the Best Thing About Me” below. U2 are expected to perform the single on The Tonight Show tomorrow evening.
