U2 Announce 'Re-imagined And Re-recorded' Compilation Album

U2 have announced a new compilation album titled ‘Songs Of Surrender’. The new release will be filled with ‘reimagined and re-recorded’ tracks that better reflect the growth that the members feel they have endured. 

The news was announced after fans received letters from the band’s guitarist, The Edge, teasing the new project. 

In it, he explains, “When a song becomes well known, it’s always associated with a particular voice. I can’t imagine Tangled Up In Blue without the reedy timbre of Bob Dylan or ‘All The Time In The World’ without the unique voice of Louis Armstrong. So what happens when a voice develops and experience and maturity give it additional resonance?”

He goes on to admit that most of U2’s work “was written and recorded when we were a bunch of very young men” and that the songs “mean something quite different to us now."

“Some have grown with us, some we have outgrown, but we have not lost sight of what propelled us to write those songs in the first place. The essence of those songs is still in us. But how to reconnect with that essence when we have moved on and grown so much?”

“Once we surrendered our reverence for the original version, each song started to open up to a new authentic voice of this time, of the people we are now, and particularly the singer that Bono has become.”

He ended the letter by saying, “I hope you’re like our new direction.”

The band have confirmed the new album in a post on social media. It will feature 40 songs and will be released on March 17, 2023. The post also included a teaser video soundtracked by a new version of their 2000 single Beautiful Day. 

While a tracklist hasn’t been released, fans are speculating that the songs might mimic the tracks included in Bono’s 2022 memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. The memoir explored the origins of 40 key songs from the band’s discography.