Songs of Innocence is the thirteenth studio album by the Irish rock band U2, released on 9 September 2014. It was produced by Danger Mouse, with additional production from Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Declan Gaffney, and Flood. After the surprise announcement of the album at an Apple product launch event, it was digitally released the same day to all iTunes Store customers at no cost. It was exclusive to iTunes, iTunes Radio, and Beats Music until 13 October 2014, when it was released to retailers by Island and Interscope Records. The digital release made the record available to more than 500 million iTunes customers, for what Apple's CEO Tim Cook called "the largest album release of all time".
After the relatively low sales of U2's previous record, No Line on the Horizon (2009), lead vocalist Bono expressed uncertainty about their relevance. Over five and a half years—the longest gap between U2 albums at that point—the group worked on projects with multiple producers, including Songs of Ascent, an aborted companion to their previous record. However, they struggled to complete an album to their satisfaction and continually delayed a release. After working with Danger Mouse for two years, they collaborated with Flood, Epworth, and Tedder to complete Songs of Innocence. The album revisits the group members' youth in Ireland in the 1970s, touching on childhood memories, loves, and losses, and it pays tribute to musical inspirations of theirs such as the Ramones and the Clash. Bono described it as U2's most personal album.
The lead single, "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)", was featured in an Apple television advertisement as part of a promotional campaign, on which Apple reportedly spent US$100 million. Approximately 81 million iTunes users listened to Songs of Innocence in its first month, 26 million of whom downloaded the entire record. Songs of Innocence received generally mixed reviews and was criticised for its digital release; it was automatically added to users' iTunes accounts, triggering unprompted downloads to Apple devices for many users.
Upon its retail release, Songs of Innocence sold 101,000 copies in North America and charted for eight weeks in the US and nine weeks in the UK. The record received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Album. U2's press tour was interrupted after Bono was seriously injured in a bicycle accident. Following his recuperation, U2 supported the album with the successful Innocence + Experience Tour in 2015, and released a companion record, Songs of Experience, in 2017. The iTunes release of Songs of Innocence has since been regarded as a marketing misstep that overshadowed the album and hurt the band's reputation.
Background In February 2009, U2 released their 12th studio album, No Line on the Horizon. The album received generally favourable reviews and debuted at number one in more than 30 countries, but its sales of 5 million units were comparatively low by U2 standards and it did not contain a hit single. Having spent time in Fez, Morocco, recording and absorbing exotic musical influences, the group intended the record to be more experimental than their previous two. However, critics found it to be more conventional than expected. During the five-and-a-half-year gestation period for Songs of Innocence, lead singer Bono expressed uncertainty on several occasions that U2 could remain relevant musically after the relatively lukewarm commercial performance of No Line on the Horizon.
Writing and recording Revelation of Songs of Ascent
Around the release date of No Line on the Horizon, Bono mentioned tentative plans for the group to release a follow-up record of songs from the album's recording sessions called Songs of Ascent. Planned as a sister release to No Line on the Horizon (similar to Zooropas relationship to Achtung Baby), the project was described by Bono as "a meditative, reflective piece of work" with the theme of pilgrimage. The band said that the first single was intended to be "Every Breaking Wave". However, the project was continually delayed, as U2 struggled to complete an album to their satisfaction and were limited by other commitments; these included the group's U2 360° Tour from 2009 to 2011, as well as Bono's and guitarist the Edge's commitment to writing the music and lyrics to the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which itself experienced numerous delays and creative changes before its debut in June 2011.
In June 2009, Bono said that although the group had nine pieces of music they considered worth pursuing, the album would only be released if its quality surpassed that of No Line on the Horizon. In September, he first made claims that U2 were working on three separate album projects: a "rocking club album" comprising material the group previously wrote with producer Rick Rubin but shelved; the songs that he and the Edge had written for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark; and Songs of Ascent. Bassist Adam Clayton was sceptical about Bono's statements, believing their material to still be in its infancy, while the Edge said he was not sure if the Spider-Man songs would be released as a U2 album or a cast recording, adding: "The Spider-Man collection is the most developed but the least appropriate to the band. We've got so much material at different stages of completion, it's going to be a nice problem when we've got a few weeks to look at it." After the band performed at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in November, Bono and the Edge traveled to the South of France for a two-week songwriting session, followed by a studio session in New York City in December.
A December 2009 report indicated that U2 had been working in the studio with the goal of a mid-2010 release. By April 2010, U2's manager Paul McGuinness confirmed the group would not be finished by June, but said that a release "before the end of the year is increasingly likely." In May, Bono was forced to undergo emergency back surgery after suffering a compressed sciatic nerve. The group rescheduled their North American tour dates that year and an appearance at Glastonbury Festival 2010 for the following year, but were able to spend their downtime writing and recording new songs.
Sessions with Danger Mouse
In August 2010, new reports emerged regarding U2's multiple album projects, claiming that the band were working on: a traditional rock album produced by Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton; a dance-centric album produced by David Guetta, RedOne, and will.i.am; and the meditative material comprising Songs of Ascent. Bono and the Edge continued to express an interest in releasing the songs written for the Spider-Man musical. When the U2 360° Tour resumed that month, the group debuted several unreleased tracks live, including "Every Breaking Wave". In October 2010, Bono said that U2's new album would be produced by Burton, and that 12 songs had been completed, while McGuinness said it was slated for an early 2011 release. Bono described the music from the sessions with Burton as "more airborne, more light-footed". The band continued to make "great progress" on the record in January 2011 working with Burton in New York. However, after holding a creative meeting to review their schedule, they realized they would not be able to complete the record that year; their touring commitments limited their availability to work on the album and they had not yet completed the material written during Bono's rehabilitation.
In February 2011, McGuinness said that the album was almost complete and had a tentative release date of May 2011, although he noted that Songs of Ascent was no longer the likely title. The Songs of Ascent project ultimately did not come to fruition and has not been released; its evolution and apparent abandonment are examined in the book The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear.MacDonald (2014), pp. 232–235 Bassist Adam Clayton said: "We thought there was more material left over from No Line... we now feel a long way from that material." The dance-centric album was ultimately aborted as well; Clayton said: "The work we did with RedOne was very, very exciting. But again, I'm not sure it was the essence of what U2 is good at... we have to do what we do best and we have to focus on that, and the work we did with Danger Mouse came closest to that." Guetta clarified in June that he was not involved in the dance project and had only discussed a possible collaboration with Bono.
U2 spent three months in the studio in late 2011, taking a break only for Bono to recuperate from the flu. In June 2012, he appeared on The Late Late Show and said that the group had just concluded its "best three weeks in the studio since 1979". In January 2013, the band members said their new album would be released by September and that its working title was 10 Reasons to Exist. Early that year, at Burton's invitation, Swedish singer Lykke Li travelled to Los Angeles to record backing vocals for the song "The Troubles" without U2 present. In May, U2 spent time at New York's Electric Lady Studios with Burton, who was completing his mixing duties for the record. After working with the band for two years, Burton was forced to return to his side project Broken Bells.
At that point, U2 had a collection of songs that could have been released, but the group were still not satisfied. The Edge said that during mixing: "we found the songs falling apart. They hadn't full arrived. We'd allowed ourselves to think that 'interesting' was enough." The songs, described by Rolling Stone as "guitar-light, electronics heavy, with uncharacteristically subtle choruses", were missing what the Edge called "the hallmarks of [their] work—the big music." The band also took to heart advice that Rubin had given them during recording sessions with him in 2006; Rubin pointed out that the group used unique sounds and arrangements to "disguise the fact that you don't have a song", and he stressed the importance of songcraft and writing music that could play well even when stripped down to vocals and piano.
Sessions with Tedder, Epworth, Gaffney, and Flood
The group subsequently enlisted Ryan Tedder, Paul Epworth, Declan Gaffney, and long-time collaborator Flood to help them complete the album, hoping their opposing perspectives from Burton would benefit the songs. Flood's time working on the record briefly overlapped with Burton's, and Gaffney served as U2's recording engineer for the entirety of the album sessions, but otherwise the group worked with each producer separately. Tedder initially critiqued in-progress songs and identified which ones were "worth chasing because [the band] had a limited amount of time". He compared himself to a music critic in the way he had "to sit there and tear their songs apart and give [his] honest opinion". Tedder alternated between working remotely and joining the band in the studio. One of the songs that he changed most was "Every Breaking Wave", as he devised a new chorus melody and moved the old one to the song's bridge.