Advanced course "Growing up" - Three years after the album "Songs Of Innocence" U2 released the sequel

No other U2 album has been dissected by the press as maliciously as "Songs Of Experience". Some critics may have judged with a greater sense of proportion, but the fourteenth studio work of the Irish superstars will certainly not go down in history as a masterpiece. U2 play it safe with their contemporary stadium sound, but at the same time try to appeal to younger listeners. Bono admits this bluntly. Recently he explained that in times of Spotify you have to work more on the quality of the single song to get it on the radio. The times of clearly defined singles are finally over.

But if you think the somewhat too trendy production away for a moment, the songs still remain. And they are sometimes quite successful. Better than much of what the predecessor had to offer. With "Songs Of Innocence" U2 had put the reputation of the band on the line. Not least because of the failed give-away campaign via iTunes. Perhaps the reserved recording by fans and critics was the reason that Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. held back the almost finished twin record for a remarkably long time. Bono sees both recordings as interactive conversations, "my young self enters into dialogue with my old self".

But then, according to the quartet's reading today, simply too much happened in the world: Syria, Brexit, Trump, right-wing populism - events and developments that a long-standing political band could not ignore. U2 decided to rewrite the songs, adjust the lyrics. They didn't want to compose entirely new songs, but the "Songs Of Experience", those songs that speak with the voice of the mature, adult self, enrich with fresh experiences and respond to the setbacks that, according to Bono, are currently keeping world politics in suspense. "For only these are they: setbacks. No change of direction." What has been achieved must be defended again and again. This is an insight that applies to politics as much as it does to the career of a rock band. And so a song like "Red Flag Day" also tells of refugees on the Mediterranean, "Summer Of Love" about the war in Syria, while "American Soul" as well as "Get Out Of Your Own Way" deal with the USA under Trump, again and again mixed with personal impressions. In Bono's eyes, the idea of the USA is "dangerously twisted. As artists, we must respond."

Lest mehr im eclipsed Nr. 197 (02-2018).