U2 have confirmed that the new album, Songs of Experience, will be released on December 1st -- World AIDS Day.
Bono tells the New York Times, they let the "wickedness in the world...perforate the album," but adds that it "still had to be a very personal album, not a polemic. The elections were a shock to the system personally and a shock to the system politically, not just in America but in Europe. This is my lyrical response to both of those shocks. I leaned more on the personal than the political, but the political is there to put the personal songs in the context of time, of history.”
And The Edge adds, "We still really believe that we can make a great record, which is a very different motivation to go in to make an album than thinking, ‘Well, we’ve got to whip one out for the fans.’”
Bono says there's an important but subtle difference between this album and its predecessor, 2014's Songs of Innocence. "The core of Innocence to me is a lyric from our second album, which says, ‘I can’t change the world, but I can change the world in me.’ The core of Experience is -- and this is cheeky! -- ‘I can change the world, but I can’t change the world in me.’ And so you realize that the biggest obstacle in the way is yourself.”
U2 are back on the road with their 30th anniversary Joshua Tree tour, which hits Minneapolis Friday night.