For example Stories for Boys and 11 O’Clock Tick Tock were alluring “flat-out” post-punk songs that put U2 on the map. Confining the accompaniment to acoustic guitars and pianos completely undermines the Post Punk vibe that was rife in those early albums. More upsetting is how songs from the albums Boy and October were re-imagined. If these songs have to be included then maybe more recent live versions of these songs would have been a better choice. There are numerous examples of unnecessary re-imagining, but some of the worst offenders are Where The Streets Have No Name, Vertigo, Until the End of The World and Sunday Bloody Sunday. These songs come across as very flat without the magnificent drums, bass lines and electric guitar codas that make these songs classics. The go-to treatment of a majority of the songs is acoustic guitar and pianos with very little percussion or bass, which takes away from the power of what U2 does best which is providing inspired anthemic sonic magic. Tracks like Beautiful Day, Pride (In the Name of Love) and Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own are already perfect so the re-arranging of the songs causes the listener to wonder why anyone would want to pull them around in the first place. When these huge, easily recognizable songs are compared to the re-imagined tracks the originals win the battle. One of the major mistakes in Songs of Surrender is the re-configuring of U2’s epic blockbusters. Band guitarist The Edge oversaw the production to re-approaching the songs from a different angle.Īs a disclaimer, I have to confess I am a dyed-in-the-wool fan of U2 so I am extremely familiar with their music. There are forty songs in total, ten under each band member’s heading. Unlike their other between-album offerings, this one is characterized as a re-imagination of songs that span throughout the band’s existence. Their latest compilation Songs of Surrender is released on March 17 th following up their 2017 album Songs of Experience. U2 has a long storied history of releasing interesting live recordings and album compilations between their official studio releases.

Nik collection 4 review