U2 Release First Single From ‘Songs of Experience’

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U2 changed their Facebook cover to the single’s sleeve artwork of The Edge’s daughter, Sian Evans, on September 6, 2017

On Aug. 29, U2 announced that they’d finally be offering details about their upcoming album Songs of Experience. The next day, they posted the performance video for “The Blackout,” a song from the album. (Previously, they’d only teased it with a 16-second excerpt.) Today (Sept. 6), the band released the first single from the album, “You’re the Best Thing About Me.” (Watch the lyric video below.)

The band will perform the new song live for the first time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon tomorrow night (Sept. 7).

Songs of Experience will be released Dec. 1 on CD, vinyl and digital download. Pre-order details will be announced soon.

Back in 2014, U2 stirred up the Internet with their free surprise release, Songs of Innocence. The album was “gifted” by Apple and automatically put in the cloud for all users of iTunes worldwide. There was a huge backlash towards the group for being presumptuous and a “cloud” of distrust among even diehard Apple loyalists over what users felt was an unwanted, albeit free, invasion.

“Oops,” Bono acknowledged. “I’m sorry about that. This beautiful idea, we kind of got carried away with it.”

Since then, the iconic band has been regularly teasing audiences with a follow up album. Fans had hoped the album, to be called Songs of Experience, would be issued in time for their 2015 iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour.

This graphic showed up on U2’s social media platforms on August 29, 2017

It’s a bit odd that they’ve chosen to release music from Songs of Experience while still on their 30th anniversary stadium tour of The Joshua Tree.

Watch “The Blackout” here…

The Blackout

‘The Blackout’, just for you. From upcoming album Songs of Experience.
Tune in now.
First single, ‘You’re The Best Thing About Me’ coming Sept. 6th
#U2TheBlackout #U2SongsofExperience “In the darkness where we learn to see”

Posted by U2 on Wednesday, August 30, 2017

In a June 2016 interview with Billboard, the band’s guitarist, The Edge, talked about the timetable for the new album. “We are still busting our ass to try to get it out this year. That’s our plan right now and exactly when, we’re not sure. This is the working assumption. This is our ambition. It could change, but we’re really doing our best to get it out this year.”

It’ll be three years in between albums. Songs of Innocence was released on September 9, 2014. Songs Of Experience is the companion release, the two titles drawing inspiration from a collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, by the 18th century English mystic and poet William Blake.

Watch the lyric video for “You’re the Best Thing About Me”