The scratching voice, the dry and at the same time soft and poignant sound, the experience at the service of 40 pieces that have become the soundtrack of over 40 years of history.
Not just a band like U2, but at least a couple of generations.
Bono Vox and his companions, after two years of work in the studio, are ready to publish Songs of Surrender (Island Records and Interscope) on March 17, St. Patrick's Day, patron saint of their Ireland.
Not the definitive work, but a return to the origins to go further: a collection of 40 songs, chosen from among the most important in their catalogue, re-recorded, re-imagined and somehow "stripped", because - it's the principle enunciated by The Edge who edited and produced the project - "less is more", less is more.
Timeless pieces such as One, Where The Streets have no name, Beautiful Day, With or Without you, Pride (In the Name of Love) - first excerpt of the new work -, or Sunday Bloody Sunday while remaining true to themselves take on facets, arrangements and in some cases even new lyrics.
The collection is divided into four parts, each for each member of the group, Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. "Hearing the songs interact with each other, and finding the order of the four albums was very exciting, finding the most surprising passages, having the opportunity to do like a DJ - explained the guitarist -. Once the four different albums were decided, it was easy to decide who should represent each of them".
Forty songs to travel through time.
"We were curious to find out what it would be like to bring some of our early songs with us into the present, giving them a 21st-century guise," continued The Edge. "What started as an experiment quickly turned into a personal obsession. Intimacy replaced the urgency of post-punk. New beats, new keys, and in some cases new chords and new lyrics arrived."
But what surprises the listener and what the artist underlines is that "a great song is something indestructible".
And he explained how the selection of songs to revisit began with a series of demos: "I have observed what remains of a song when all but the essential elements are stripped away. The
another main goal was to find ways to bring intimacy to the songs, as most of them were originally written with live concerts in mind.
Going through these auditions with producer Bob Ezrin, it was very easy to see which ones worked right away and which ones needed more work.
We've all entered the mentality of 'less is more'". And this is how Bono's voice is exalted, it is the absolute protagonist with his deep and biting notes.
It becomes an interpretative tool.
With 14 studio albums, over 170 million records sold, numerous awards including 22 Grammys and Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience award, live performances all over the world, U2 - who met in school as teenagers and formed the band in 1978 - they are the only band in history to have topped the chart in four consecutive decades.
A success that led Disney + to make the documentary Bono & The Edge A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman, available on the platform on March 17, the same day as the disc launch.
Part concert film, part adventure tour of Ireland.
Then in autumn the band, four years after the last live performance in December 2019, will inaugurate the MSG Sphere, the most avant-garde venue in the world inside the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas with the project "U2: UV Achtung Baby Live At The Sphere", which will see drummer Bram van den Berg replace Larry Mullen Jr, who is on hiatus for surgery and subsequent recovery.
(HANDLE).