Universal Australia’s giant FUBAR
So if you were up early. Or late. Or just… up, you may have been awake for the brief window of time during which getmusic.com.au, which is Universal Australia’s official download platform (!), accidentally sold mp3 downloads of all of the songs on U2′s No Line on the Horizon, more than a week before its official release. Not just for Australian customers… this international cat used Paypal to legally get her paws on the album.
Brief review? Lovin’ it.
According to atu2.com it wasn’t even the first leak. It’s just that nobody noticed the first one. For a few days, the songs were available individually on Napster Mobile. Apparently, not a whole lot of people use that – legal – service.
We hope you got lucky too. Let us know what you think of the album.
Nice: U2 fans are pleading with the web shop not to fire the guy that caused the leak. (Update: fans’ comments have been removed from the site!)
U2 on Letterman for five nights
U2 will be David Letterman’s guests on the Late Show on Monday March 2nd and on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after. It is the first time a musical guest has been booked on Letterman for a full week. Perhaps Letterman was so rattled by Joaquin Phoenix’ stint on the show this week, he is aiming for a little stability with U2.
The Late Show airs Monday, March 2-Friday, March 6 (11:35 PM-12:37 AM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
RTÉ 2XM to premiere title track of U2′s No Line on the Horizon
Get ready to rip, folks. RTÉ 2XM will play the title track of U2′s new album ‘No Line on the Horizon’ on Thursday, February 12 at 12 noon GMT.
You can tune in to 2XM on DAB digital radio sets in the Greater Dublin area, Cork and Limeric, or online at www.rte.ie/digitalradio.
U2′s sessions in Fez: the video
The Observer’s Sean O’Hagan, a long time friend of the band, spent 18 months following them from Fez to Dublin, as they recorded New Line On The Horizon.
He’s captured his travels on film and in part one of this exclusive – but brief- footage the band begins sessions in a converted riad in Morocco.
Irish Independent hosts U2 video premiere
Independent.ie, the website of the Irish daily newspaper, has announced that they will host the video premiere of U2′s new single Get On Your Boots. The video will be available from the website at 4.55pm on Friday, January 30th.
Elbow’s Guy Garvey: ‘We Were Huge U2 Fans’
Guy Garvey, lead singer of the British band Elbow, says the band members were all U2 fans. Elbow, who won the 2008 Mercury prize, has recorded U2′s song Running to Standstill for the new War Child album, ‘Heroes’.
Photo copyright cvodb, 2008
Garvey says it was the first song the band ever learnt together:
“We were huge U2 fans… it was the first thing we ever played together as nippers”, said Garvey. “It was too lovely a thing that we’d also covered it many, many moons ago.”
You can listen to Guy Garvey being interviewed by XFM’s Ian Camfield, and you can also hear Elbow’s lush cover of ‘Running To Stand Still’ on the XFM website.
The War Child album ‘Heroes’ will be released on February 16th.
U2 performs at ‘We are One’
Bono and The Edge on stage in Washington, originally uploaded by Presidential Inaugural Committee. Photographer: Kevin Mazur
U2 performed ‘Pride’ and ‘City of Blinding Lights’ at the ‘We are One’ inaugural concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Sunday. During Pride, Bono addressed president-elect Obama: “This is not just an American dream, but also an Irish dream, a European dream, an African dream … an Israeli dream and a Palestinian dream…”.
U2′s new single to premiere on Irish radio
U2′s new single, “Get on Your Boots,” from the forthcoming album No Line on the Horizon will premiere on RTE 2FM radio next Monday (January 19) at 8:10 a.m. (local time) on The Colm & Jim-Jim Show. Dave Fanning has the honor of spinning the song.
The single is now streaming live on U2.com.
The song is also available from the USA iTunes shop.
Bono, Sugimoto and the Church of Light
There was something familiar about the sleeve of U2′s new album (Not a picture of any sea or ocean, but actually Lake Constance (Bodensee) as seen from Uttwil, in Switzerland, taken in 1993.) A few Google searches later, I realised that the photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto, also took a photo of Tadao Ando’s Church of Light:
And it so happens that Bono visited that church, when he was in Osaka, Japan with Guggi and Gavin Friday back in 2006:
Bono and Gavin Friday, Church of Light. Photographer unknown.
And here’s a picture of Bono and Tadao Ando together when the architect came to visit Dublin.
So there you have it. A fun little insight into how U2′s choice for their new sleeve may have come about.
First review of U2′s new single ‘Get On Your Boots’
Alan Cross, the host of the radio edition of ExploreMusic, has heard U2′s new song ‘Get On Your Boots’, expected to be the band’s first single off their upcoming album ‘No Line on the Horizon’. He describes the song and his 20+ years experience with the rituals and security surrounding a new U2 release. He writes:
“There are some new sounds that could only come from an Eno/Lanois production, which left me with a feeling similar to what I experienced when I heard “The Fly” for the first time. This is NOT a back-to-basics guitar/bass/drums track like “Vertigo” or even “Beautiful Day.” There’s some definite sonic evolution going on here. “
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- Bono Honors Queen Elizabeth May 24, 2012Bono was in London Wednesday for a Diamond Jubilee celebration of the arts for Queen Elizabeth, who's in her 60th year on the throne. As the Belfast Telegraph reports, Bono praised the Queen about her visit to Ireland last year: "I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge the extraordinary magic that you made on your trip to Ireland last year […]
- U2 Fan Survey 2012: Third Set of Results Available May 23, 2012The third set of results from the 2012 U2 Fan Survey is now available, and it takes us through your votes on U2's albums and songs. As a reminder, the survey was open from April 5th through April 30th. We received completed responses from 3,530 fans in 79 countries this year, both of which are down from 2010. We think that's likely due to the band […]
- A Look at My U2 Framed Album Cover Wall (PHOTOS) May 22, 2012How would you like to have a wall in your house covered with perfectly framed U2 album cover art? You could just have your favorite U2 albums on the wall or, like me, you could go all the way and put every U2 album on display in order — like this: That’s one of the [...]This is a post from the @U2 blog.A Look at My U2 Framed Album Cover Wall (PHOTOS) […]
- The Resource Miracle May 22, 2012[Note: This essay appeared in the May 28, 2012, edition of TIME magazine.] It's become the go-to cliché of modern economics. Natural resources are a "curse." When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly […]
- Bono Pays One More Tribute to Steve Jobs May 22, 2012Bono made an appearance via video tonight at the Webby Awards, contributing to a tribute to Steve Jobs. A host of tech legends and celebrities each paid tribute to Jobs in five words or less, a Webby Awards tradition. It looks like Bono’s contribution was recorded within the past week, but that’s just a guess. [...]This is a post from the @U2 blog.Bono Pays […]