U2 May Postpone Release of Album to Early 2009

In a telephone interview from France that was posted on the official website (http://www.u2.com) on September 3, 2008, Bono strongly suggested that the follow-up to 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb would not be released in November 2008 as had been previously announced.

U2 typically allow 3 to 5 years to pass between albums and frequently push back original release dates, so the wait is nothing new to their fans. What is new is the timing Bono intimated for the actual release. Paul McGuinness, the band's manager, has stated more than once that it is, in his opinion, a waste to release a new album at any other time than October or November in order to take advantage of the Christmas shopping season. U2's release patterns reflect that opinion. In over 30 years of recording, U2 have released only two albums at other times- Zooropa during a break in the Zoo TV tour in 1993 and Pop in June of 1997. So why the unusual timing for the as yet officially unnamed album?

"I'm always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply 'put out the songs now', if it was just up to me they'd be out already!" Bono is quoted as saying. "But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we've been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we're going to start making an impression very early on ..."

Simply put, the album isn't ready. And this little bit of a cryptic remark- "very early on"- is all we're given.

Notice that the unusual release dates correspond to some of U2's most innovative albums. That could partly explain the current change in schedule. From the ending dates of the Vertigo tour in 2006, U2 were already promising their fans that the next release would be different. Bono said early on that the band were drawing on hip-hop as an inspiration. Daniel Lanois hinted in an interview that the band were reentering the arena of electronica, but with much humbler expectations than they had when they experimented with it on the Pop album.