Rolling Stone : Hear U2 Get (Kinda) Funky on Long-Lost Song ‘Happiness’ (by Brian Hiatt)

It has somehow been 20 years since U2 released How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb— the one with “Vertigo” — and the band is rolling out a “shadow album” of ten outtakes from it, dubbed How to Reassemble an Atomic Bomb, on Nov. 22. The band already dropped one of the songs, the chiming mid-tempo anthem “Country Mile” and now they’ve released a second track, “Happiness,” which is a bigger sonic surprise. In the wake of mixed reactions to their underrated 1997 album Pop, which incorporated some electronic dance beats into their sound, U2 shied away from their funkier instincts for a while. But “For this anniversary edition I went into my personal archive to see if there were any unreleased gems and I hit the jackpot,” the Edge recently wrote. “We chose ten that really spoke to us."

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ScreenRant : U2’s Bono And The Edge Talk Art Against Oppression In Kiss The Future Documentary Clip (by Owen Danoff)

Kiss the Future is a new documentary about an underground artist community during the 1990s siege of Sarajevo that inspired a U2 concert, and Screen Rant has a clip featuring the hit band themselves. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was a major locale in the Bosnian War and was ultimately besieged for a whopping four years—from April 1992 to February 1996. During that time, a vibrant community of artists utilized art and music to affect change, which inspired a U.S. aid worker to propose that U2 help raise awareness of the conflict.

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Se7en : ‘Sarajevo Concert Documentary ‘Kiss the Future’ by U2, Executive Produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Set to Land on Paramount+’

"Kiss the Future", the docudrama regarding U2’s spots 1997 show in Sarajevo. The movie, created by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Artists Equity and Sarah Anthony and guided by Nenad Cicin-Sain, is based upon author Bill S. Carter’s narrative Fools Rush In, which catches the imaginative defiance bordering the 1990s siege of Sarajevo throughout theBosnian War [...] U2 lead guitar player The Edge included: “Kiss the Future documents how through superhuman acts of courage and creativity, the people of Sarajevo kept going while their city was under siege during the bloody Balkan civil war of the early 1990s. Their story of defiance and resistance against extreme nationalism couldn’t be more relevant to today. To have been even a small part of this amazing story is a huge privilege.”

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Forbes : U2 Announces A Series Of New Music Releases (by Hugh McIntyre)

U2 is fresh off their first Las Vegas residency and ready to head into their next chapter. But while the world waits for completely brand new music from the Irish rockers, they have announced a year-long series of musical re-releases, ones which will surely be of interest to their most die-hard followers. On Friday (April 5), U2 dropped a new collection of remixes and alternate editions of their single “Discothèque.” [...] The new album runs an hour and 12 minutes long, with plenty of renditions of “Discothèque” for fans who can’t get enough of the tune. The tracklist includes the original radio edit, as well as remixes that come with names like the DM Deep Club Mix, Howie B, Hairy B Mix, and the Hexidecimal Mix, among others.

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Variety : Bono Leads U2’s Audience in Chanting Alexei Navalny’s Name During Impassioned Anti-Putin, Pro-Ukraine Speech (by Chris Willman)

U2 has been performing Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over” in concert at the band’s Sphere residency recently, and before Saturday night’s show, the introduction to that song extended far longer than usual, as Bono paid tribute to the dream of Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died in prison days earlier. The singer spoke up for the freedom of the Ukrainian people and against Russian leader Vladimir Putin — who many believe is directly responsible for the political prisoner’s still-unexplained death — before leading the crowd in a chant of Navalny’s name.

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American Songwriter : The Meaning Behind “I Will Follow” by U2

Long before their Las Vegas residency at Sphere, before all of their many reinventions, before The Joshua Tree made them international superstars, U2 released Boy. As far as debut albums go, U2’s 1980 release did fairly well, reaching No. 63 on the Billboard 200 and getting into the Top 20 on Canada’s and New Zealand’s album charts. It also spawned U2’s first hit single, “I Will Follow.”

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American Songwriter : U2 Lighting Up Las Vegas’ Sphere Red Today in Honor of World AIDS Day and Bono’s (RED) Initiative

U2 returns to Sphere in Las Vegas tonight, December 1, to launch a new series of dates as part of the band’s ongoing residency at the state-of-the-art venue. Since December 1 also is World AIDS Day, Sphere will be lit up red in honor of the (RED) initiative and The ONE Campaign, which were co-founded by Bono to fight HIV/AIDS and poverty across the globe.

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The Guardian : U2 change lyrics to Pride to honour ‘beautiful kids’ killed at Israeli music festival (by Janine Israel)

U2 have paid tribute to the hundreds of “beautiful kids” killed at the Supernova music festival in Israel by altering the lyrics to one of their biggest hits at a concert in Las Vegas on Sunday. During their performance at Sphere, where the Irish rock band are in the midst of a 25-show residency, frontman Bono reworded the lyrics to U2’s 1984 breakthrough song Pride (In the Name of Love), referring to those killed by Hamas fighters as “stars of David”. Before launching into Pride (In the Name of Love), Bono said: “In the light of what’s happened in Israel and Gaza, a song about non-violence seems somewhat ridiculous, even laughable, but our prayers have always been for peace and for non-violence."

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Deadline : Sarajevo Opening Night: Bono Makes Surprise Appearance As U2 Doc ‘Kiss The Future’ Opens Fest (by Zac Ntim)

Bono made a surprise appearance at the Sarajevo Film Festival this evening, where he accompanied the crew behind the U2-inspired Bosnian war documentary Kiss The Future, which opened the festival. Bono was joined by his U2 band member The Edge on the red carpet at Bosnia’s National Theatre alongside CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, who also features in the doc, during which she recounts her time as a young reporter covering the Bosnian conflict.

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