Before Songs of Surrender was officially announced, Bono mentioned the album by name in a section of his memoir titled "After the After Words". I’d say after 45 years as a cohesive, powerful, and influential band they have every right to take their art in a new direction. This is them saying “here’s what we feel now about our songs” - it’s not a greatest hits collection.

Songs of Surrender - Wikipedia Songs of Surrender - Wikipedia

The band discussed ideas for projects that they could undertake while Bono was busy writing his book. Context/s aside, the whole premise remains one big boring lounge-y affair, with good ol' Bono and The Edge sounding like guesting on another clichéd cover LP by Nouvelle Vague. In the United States, Songs of Surrender debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, with 46,500 album-equivalent units earned. Imho this album is not only superfluous, it is the completion of U2's demise as a band of significance that had started long before.Damian Jones of NME said, "There is disappointment that a number of U2's big-hitters don't translate well", but he thought it was not a "totally fruitless endeavour: you just have to dig a little bit deeper to find the reimagined material that's truly worth savouring.

U2 – Songs Of Surrender (2023, CD) - Discogs U2 – Songs Of Surrender (2023, CD) - Discogs

Painful to listen to, realising what the immortal (early) originals still give and what re-workings like these kill off. The week of the album release, the band announced a "40 songs, 40 cities" promotion, whereby fans could gather at a location in 40 cities worldwide to find a lyrical tribute to the album's songs, as well as access exclusive merchandise and a bespoke photo filter. All studio albums from the group's career are represented with the exception of: October (1981); No Line on the Horizon (2009); and Original Soundtracks 1 (1995), U2's collaboration with Eno that was released under the pseudonym "Passengers".Recording on Songs of Surrender began in 2021 and spanned a two-year period during lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United Kingdom, Songs of Surrender debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, [63] with first-week sales of 20,569 units (comprising 11,042 CD copies, 6,000 vinyl copies, 1,008 cassette copies, 1,407 digital downloads, and 1,112 streaming equivalent units).

A second song, " With or Without You", was released on 27 January, [29] and a third song, " One", soundtracked the National Football League's presentation of the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award prior to Super Bowl LVII on 12 February. John Walshe of Hot Press said the re-recordings mostly "work beautifully and occasionally surprisingly" and that: "Stripping these songs back to their core gives both band and listener a chance to re-connect with them, to hear them with fresh ears. Produced by guitarist the Edge, it was released on 17 March 2023 on Island Records and Interscope Records. Although it was speculated that the record's 40 tracks would match the book's 40 chapter names, the two do not completely align with one another; ultimately, 28 songs match across both projects. On 17 March, iHeartRadio broadcast "iHeartRadio ICONS with The Edge: Celebrating U2's Songs of Surrender", for which the Edge was interviewed by host Jim Kerr.Petridis enjoyed the reimagined deep cuts the most and thought the group's biggest songs "don't work rendered in soft-focus miniature". At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Songs of Surrender has an average score of 66 based on 15 reviews, 10 of which were mixed.

Mullen said in November 2022 that he needed surgery to continue performing, [16] and although he contributed percussion for Songs of Surrender, he "didn't want to, or wasn't ready to" play a full drum kit at the time of the recording sessions, according to the Edge. The announcement of the track listings was accompanied by the release of a new version of " Pride (In the Name of Love)", which was premiered by radio host Dave Fanning on RTÉ 2fm.Most of these new versions of these songs were bland at best and some outright sucked (I'm looking at you "Desire"). Will Hodgkinson of The Times was struck by a "sense of the reworked music reflecting the inevitable ravages of age, and the greater degree of reflection that brings". Recorded over a two-year period during lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic, [6] the album was largely the effort of guitarist the Edge and lead vocalist Bono, [7] with the Edge also serving as the record's curator and producer. The album is a companion to Bono's memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story (2022), which was structured into 40 chapters titled after U2 songs. The Edge said: "There's a sort of gladiatorial aspect to live performances when you're in that situation.