Oscar ? Tour ? New Album ? Yes, Maybe, Sure

The Edge /U2 /  @Walker

2014 Academy Awards to perform their Oscar-nominated song “Ordinary Love” from the movie  Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

We all thought by now U2 would have released their next album. We all thought we knew the name of the album fan based sites all claiming the insider scoop on names and dates and yet  March has arrived and what do we have to show for all that noise.

Nothing ! Yup I said it Nothing U2 is not any closer to announcing dates for a massive tour, not any closer to announcing a release date. The fact is that the only news we have is that "Ordinary Love" is set to be performed on Sunday night and that the fact that this very song caused the delay from the release and expected tour.  

Pretty solid chance that U2 takes home an Oscar for best original song “Ordinary Love,” a song written for and featured in the biopic “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.”   Some long term fans hope that latter. They hope the boys do not win the honor. They claim its not deserved and that it (the win) will surly push the band into mediocrity and redundancy.

Jeff writes from the Buffalo News:  “Ordinary Love” is, despite the poignancy of its Mandela-themed lyric, an ordinary song. It sounds like a Coldplay B-side. We, the Academy included, should not offer U2 the impression that this is acceptable. We should and must demand more from them.

As the peak moments from the band’s last studio album, “No Line On the Horizon,” made abundantly clear, U2 has not run out of creative steam. Rather, the band’s apparent desire for worldwide mega-stardom is stripping the U2 sound of its full potential. For the first time in its career, U2 seems desperate, as if purposely chasing a hit.

Bono / U2 / U2TOURFANS

Lets face it NOL was not a massive hit as hoped yet the music did grow upon those fans that allowed U2 to change course head towards a new direction to find some hidden golden that they had lost within the yester years of U2 hits. Under the covers the band has a sense that the writing is on the wall.

To be able to create music today that is meaningful to a whole new generation of fans may mean that you have to create a sound that is fresh beyond what has already been discovered.  Could this be the reason that Burton ( Danger Mouse) was called upon to help find that new sound?  Why bring in members of Coldplay ?

Could they be the answer to that new sound?  U2 has to look within and understand that their music appears to an audience that has growth and longs for yesterday and while it moves towards the future some of the past can be dragged along for good measure. 

U2 machine will start with a fresh new connection to their audience with the hopes of staying current.  Fans just ask that they play their music and be one with their identity.

U2 Oscar® Nomination

Congratulations goes to U2 for the nomination of "Ordinary Love"  This is going to be a banner year for the boys

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

“Alone Yet Not Alone” from “Alone Yet Not Alone”
Music by Bruce Broughton; Lyric by Dennis Spiegel
“Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”
Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
“Let It Go” from “Frozen”
Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
“The Moon Song” from “Her”
Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
“Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson

Bono and Edge Accept Sonny Bono Visionary Award

Saturday Night Bono and The Edge attended the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Attending the event to accept the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, which acknowledged their major humanitarian work as well as their iconic musical contributions to the world. 

The award was well timed as, like the rest of the honorees, they also have a song that is making waves this awards season. The band, and particularly Bono, had a long friendship with Nelson Mandela — who died December 5 — and their work in the anti-apartheid movement goes back to their beginnings as a band in the 1970s. And now they have written a song, “Ordinary Love”  for the film of his life story, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. The Weinstein Company is hoping it will get the Oscar recognition that has eluded U2 before. They currently have a Golden Globe nomination for it, their sixth, with one win for 2002′s “The Hands That Built America” from Gangs Of New York. 

BBC Picks UP U2 Documentary

BBC Worldwide Canada, part of the BBC’s commercial arm, has picked up distribution rights to Davis Guggenheim’s U2 film From the Sky Down (pictured), which earlier this month became the first documentary to ever open the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

The documentary celebrates the 20th anniversary of U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby!, the creation of which marked a major turning point for the band musically.

Earlier this year, U2 returned to Hansa Studios in Berlin, the site where they first recorded the album, with Oscar-winning director Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for “Superman”) in tow, to make the doc.

Following the film’s September 8 premiere at TIFF, Guggenheim and U2 band members Bono and The Edge held a press conference to discuss the making of the film and highlight their favorite rock documentaries, paying praise to filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, DA Pennebaker and Martin Scorsese.

U2 News Coverage of Haiti,Nascar,Oscar,Freeze,AH

Bono, Sting, Timberlake To Perform On Haiti Telethon

George Clooney says the “Hope for Haiti” benefit for victims of the earthquake in Haiti will include performances from Bono, Sting, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Alicia Keys.

The Edge, whose “Brothers” song was nominated for a Globe,(Did not win) said that he will be helping George Clooney’s Friday telethon. “This  is one of  the most serious disasters that has happened in 10 years and we have to do everything that we can. There’s no question about it.” 

Of attending the Globes, he explained, “This is the perfect opportunity for people to say, ‘We’re there and we are going to do whatever we can,’” adding that the awards are a great platform to get the word out.

Speaking to The Associated Press at the Golden Globes ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Clooney said that more than 40 celebrities are expected to attend the Jan. 22 event. The actor said the aim of the benefit is “to show the people of Haiti that the whole world is paying attention.”

The benefit, which Clooney and Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean will host, will be broadcast on more than a dozen broadcast and cable networks. It will be held in New York, with CNN’s Anderson Cooper chiming in from Haiti.

The show will benefit the Red Cross, UNICEF, Oxfam America, Partners in Health and Jean’s Yele Haiti Foundation.

Clooney said that songs from participating artists will also be available on iTunes, with proceeds going to the relief effort.

You can support Hait too by visiting our Haiti link.

U2’s ‘Bad’ gets a NASCAR makeover

U2 3-D Car Promotion #19Heroin and NASCAR, who knew? U2 fans watching the NFL playoffs on Fox this weekend surely heard what would seem to be an oddly placed song scoring the network’s preview of the upcoming Daytona 500: U2’s mid-’80s hit “Bad.”

The commercial features little more than a snippet of one of the Edge’s most recognizable guitar riffs — the few slow, glistening notes that set the table for the song’s explosive rock ‘n’ roll release. 

U2 hasn’t exactly shied away from commercial endorsements of late, or massive sporting events.

Also, anyone who has attended any NFL, NBA or MLB game in recent years has likely heard “Beautiful Day” piped throughout the arena or stadium, further linking U2 with the sporting world.

Yet judging by some previous NASCAR-branded music releases, U2 seems to be a bit out of place with the barroom hits and country rock more closely tied to the sport.

Granted, it’s more a story these days when rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t appear in a commercial, but are U2 fans ready to have one of the band’s most iconic songs forever associated with auto racing? If the quick responses on Twitter are any gauge, then no.

Though Bono’s lyrics in “Bad” are vague and open to interpretation, it’s a song long believed to be about heroin addiction, making it feel a bit out of place in hyping the Feb. 14 race. It should be noted, of course, that it’s not the first time a rock ‘n’ roll tune about drug use has appeared in a commercial, as Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” more famously promoted a cruise line.

Sheridan:’U2 sure bet for an Oscar’

OscarDIRECTOR Jim Sheridan last night tipped U2 to walk off with an Oscar after the group failed to win a Golden Globe for the soundtrack to his new film ‘Brothers’.

The band’s song ‘Winter’ was beaten in the Best Song category by singer Ryan Bingham with the theme from film ‘Crazy Heart’ at a star-studded ceremony in Hollywood on Sunday night.

“I’m sorry the lads didn’t win a Golden Globe but I think there’s a good chance they could get an Oscar instead for Best Song,” Sheridan told the Irish Independent.

The collaboration between Jim Sheridan and U2 came about after Sheridan showed U2 a rough cut of the movie.

‘Brothers’, a remake of the Danish film ‘Brodre’, tells the story of a decorated marine who goes missing overseas while his younger brother cares for his wife.

Another Irish nominee who failed to pick up a gong was Dublin actor Brendan Gleeson, in the running for best actor in a TV movie for his portrayal of British prime minister Winston Churchill. But Kevin Bacon won that award for his role in ‘Taking Chance’.

Ex-U2 worker has her assets frozen

A former personal assistant of U2 guitarist Adam Clayton has had her assets frozen indefinitely over allegations she defrauded 1.8 million euro from him.

Clayton sacked Carol Hawkins late last year after she allegedly used his debit and credit cards to buy cars, a house and jewellery.

Dublin’s High Court was told lawyers for the former PA are examining an employment contract which they said contains a mediation clause.

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‘Artificial Horizon’: U2’s Limited Edition Remix CD

ARTIFICIAL HORIZON, a U2 remix album produced only for subscribers to U2.com. If you thought the U2360° remix of I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight was going to bring the house down, wait till you hear the Grand Jury Mix of If God Will Send his Angels, Trent Reznor’s version of Vertigo, Jacknife Lee’s remake of Fast Cars or David Holmes’s remix of Beautiful Day. This is one special collection - check the full tracklisting below.

ARTIFICIAL HORIZON comes off the presses in late January and will be mailed to subscribers within a few weeks

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