It has been said that you can measure the greatness of a song if it holds up accompanied by just a guitar or a piano. Which is true to a point—but also plays into the idea that music production is somehow cheating, that sonic treatments are there to cover up flaws, not serve as actual compositional tools.If there’s one band whose body of work challenges this rule completely, though, it’s U2, who have always been defined by the totality of their expansive, atmospheric sound more than just their words and notes on a page. Consider the scene in the 2008 guitar documentary It Might Get Loud, when The Edge switches off all his pedals and effects—the rig that Bono once described to me as looking “like Cape Canaveral”—to show that the swaggering introduction to “Elevation” is actually just him plinking two simple chords.But with their new collection Songs of Surrender, their first release in six years, Ireland’s Finest are taking that plunge, reinterpreting forty songs from their catalog with new arrangements that are mostly intimate and acoustic, and frequently replacing Edge’s electric arsenal with quiet keyboards. Inevitably, it’s a bit hit-or-miss, and likely not essential for those who aren’t superfans, but there are many pleasures and discoveries to be found.There’s a grand tradition of rock stars stripping down or reworking their material, from Elvis in the boxing ring on the “comeback special” to the MTV Unplugged… Click below to read the full story from Esquire
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Songs of Surrender Puts U2’s Songwriting Legacy on the Line
