Linked ?

For the second time this month, an online music store has started prematurely selling No Line on the Horizon. This time, the Universal Music Australia store has made the entire album available as digital downloads, and fans all over the world are buying it up, putting it on file sharing sites, and sending it to friends. The album's out there now; no turning back. Update: Universal Australia is no longer selling the album; it was available for about 1-2 hours.

Little did anyone know that NLOTH was also available on the Napster Mobile online store. An @U2 reader found it and bought the album on February 8th; it was available all last week, and finally removed yesterday (Feb. 16).

Everyone seems to love NLOTH. Join the discussion, or just see what they're saying in our forum. Link is below. (Note: no file sharing/trading is allowed in the forum.)

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LIVE FROM NYC MARCH 6th

The location of the unprecedented morning TV event has yet to be announced, but the group's performance coincides with the release of its highly anticipated new album, "No Line on the Horizon," which hits stores Tuesday March 3.

Welcome to U2's Store

Failed to make the top 10 list

The lead single from U2's much-hyped new album last night failed to breach the U.K. Top Ten, with the band hitting the charts at their lowest point in over a decade.

"Get On Your Boots" was the highest new entry of the week in the U.K., but fans were bitterly disappointed that it only charted at 12.

This is in contrast to the Irish charts, where the first single from album No Line on the Horizon shot straight to the top spot.

Online U2 fan forums last night blamed a host of factors for the relatively low U.K. placing, ranging from the changed nature of the charts to internet leaks.

Certainly the changed attitudes of the record-buying public mean that album sales will be the true barometer of the band's popularity. But unless the single rises up the charts in the coming weeks it will mark U2's worst performance since 1997's "If God Will Send His Angels."

That song was the fifth single from the Pop album and was not aggressively hyped or marketed in the way "Get On Your Boots" has been. And while number 12 is a respectable position for most bands, the world-conquering might of U2 has only failed to dent the U.K. top 10 four times in 25 years.

The band have enjoyed a remarkable run of success since their very first number 10 hit "New Year's Day" in 1983.

Elsewhere in the charts, last week's Brit Awards had a huge impact on the record-buying public.

They said no, we did not do it ! However what really happened

Welcome to U2's Store

The controversy started with the leak of U2's "No Line On The Horizon" last week. The album appeared on file-sharing sites after Universal Music's Australian arm accidentally began selling downloads two weeks early. But on Friday, the technology blog Techcrunch sparked privacy concerns when they posted a rumor claiming that Last.fm, the CBS-owned music streaming and social networking site that allows registered user to keep track over their digital listening habits by "scrobbling" tracks played on computers, MP3s players and other streaming sites, had shared private user data with the RIAA that could identify individuals who had listened to the unreleased U2 tracks.

Daniel Lanois says new U2 album is 'fantastically innovative'

If you ask Canadian record producer Daniel Lanois about how U2's work-in-progress album sounds, he'll say it's "fantastically innovative" and "some of their best work."

But before Lanois gets back to tinkering with the tracks -- the album is one of 2009's most anticipated releases -- he's tackling his real "dream project," touring in support of his own music.

Lanois just finished two weeks of recording work with the Irish mega-band in New York and will now play a handful of shows in Ontario and Boston before flying to London, England, for another 10 days in the studio with U2.

Playing music live is a critical part of being a good producer because it helps reinforce what makes a good song that connects with listeners, Lanois said in a telephone interview.

"By performing live it really helps me to do better work in the studio, because you become aware of what works in the presence of an audience," he said.

"It's a necessary part of one's awareness and education, and you'll make better records if you play live."

Lanois has several albums and dozens of production credits to his name, and has worked with some of the biggest acts in music including Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel and Emmylou Harris.

He helped mould some of U2's classic albums by co-producing The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. He also co-produced All That You Can't Leave Behind and one song off How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

Got Questions ?

Welcome to U2's Store

Bono and The Edge will appear on the Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio this Thursday at (gasp) 6:00 a.m.

If you'd like to submit a question for them, enter to win a signed copy of No Line on the Horizon, or share your favorite U2 song with the station, follow the link.

New Look, New Site

House cleaning has begun to welcome the new album. If you have not been over to the new site. Now would be a good to stop over. just days ahead of the new album. We've moved the furniture around and given the place a lick of paint. The title of the story is a line from one of the new tracks, Unknown Caller, but it kind of captures what we're doing with U2.Com. We've spent a few months giving the site a complete makeover - and responding to some of the features you said you wanted to improve your U2 online experience.

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Whats in the linner notes ?

Linear Film Credits

An ANTON CORBIJN moving image/SEE-SAW FILMS PRODUCTION

Said Taghmaoui

Music by U2 with Brian Eno and Danny Lanois

Line ProducerRosa Romero EditorJames Rose Art DirectorMark Digby Make-Up & HairAaf Corbijn CinematographerMartin Ruhe Executive ProducersBono, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr

Story by Anton Corbijn/Bono

Produced by Iain Canning, Emile Sherman
Directed by Anton Corbijn

01. UNKNOWN CALLER
02. BREATHE
03. WINTER
04. WHITE AS SNOW
05. NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
06. FEZ-Being Born
07. MAGNIFICENT
08. STAND UP COMEDY
09. GET ON YOUR BOOTS
10. MOMENT OF SURRENDER
11. CEDARS OF LEBANON

Titles written by U2/Brian Eno/Danny Lanois and published by Universal Music Publishing BV/Opal Music, except in North America by Upala Music Inc/BMI

* "Cedars of Lebanon" includes a sample of the recording "Against The Sky" performed by Harold Budd and Brian Eno from the album "The Pearl" (Virgin/EMI 1984 - ENOCD13). Licensed courtesy of Virgin Records Limited.

The composition "Cedars of Lebanon" contains elements from "Against the Sky" written Harold Budd and Brian Eno and published by Universal Songs of Polygram International Inc / Toyon Music / Opal Music London. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

© 2009 U2 Limited. The copyright in this film and artwork is owned by U2 Limited and is under exclusive licence to Mercury Records Limited in the UK, Interscope Records in the US, and Universal Music Group for the rest of the world.

"Late May 2008 - at a band meeting I was introduced to the new songs. The reason for letting me in so early on this sonically and lyrically different U2 record is that the band have this idea for me to make some kind of moving imagery to go with the record. The thinking is that as a lot of people buy music from the internet and are likely to hear this on a computer or mp3 player, their listening pleasure could be heightened by visuals. Instead of just seeing a pack shot of the record sleeve, or a still photograph of the band for 45 plus minutes, as is often the case now, why not have a moving image for the duration of the record? It is not essential to the record, you can either watch it or ignore it. Brilliant! As always, U2 are thinking ahead, not so much having one foot in tomorrow's door, as having built the house to which that door is the entrance.

"Bono talked me through the songs and the record as a whole. For the first time he had created characters for this record, and wrote lyrics about their lives or from their perspectives. The record had an essence of time to it, most songs had a number or time references connected to them, as if going through a 24 hour period. Although I didn't want to translate the lyrics visually, I felt that making use of one the characters Bono wrote about would be interesting. It became the Parisian motorcycle cop of northern African descent, who threw it all in to go back to see his girlfriend in Tripoli. I was going to make a silent movie, with a touch of a story to it. We prepped late June-early July, shot late July, edited in August and were ready for the record's November release. Fantastic! However, it was at this point that the band decided to go back into the studio and work on the record a bit more. As U2 never do anything in half measures, the record that emerged from the studio in late December 2008 was a very different one than the one I'd made images for. Not only had the running order changed, now there were completely new songs on the record while another song had gone, new lyrics without the characters had emerged, and different sounds dominated the songs I had worked on. Disaster! Thankfully, we worked on a solution that saw LINEAR keeping its own running order and songs, whilst only changing edits for the 10 songs, those that are also on the new U2 record, to their newly created identities. Thus LINEAR is a very interesting hybrid version of No Line On The Horizon, partly how it was in May 2008 and partly how it is now. Tomorrow is always partly yesterday. Apparently."

Anton Corbijn
January 2009

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