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Written by Sean Highkin & Liam Demamiel, One Thirty BPM

Sean Highkin and Liam Demamiel delve into the sprawling catalog and career of U2 in our next Discussions feature.

LIAM DEMAMIEL: Most U2 conversations invariably end up on the subject of Bono, and I can't really think of any other frontman who polarizes listeners as much as the man in the sunglasses. I know we are both big U2 fans, what are your thoughts on him?

SEAN HIGHKIN: I can sort of see why he's such a divisive figure. There is a strong contingent of rock fans that can't stand rock stars who have aspirations beyond being entertainers. I don't get it myself. The amount of money and awareness Bono has used his celebrity to raise for poverty, hunger, and AIDS is unparalleled in the pop music. People see him acting all buddy-buddy with world leaders and roll their eyes, because our first reaction when we see someone worth hundreds of millions of dollars talking about hunger in Africa is to question their intentions. But I don't think anyone can argue that Bono hasn't done a whole heck of a lot of good for society as a rock star.

by Bill Werde, Billboard

In the past few years, arguably no one has been a more prominent, more outspoken advocate on behalf of artists, record labels, publishers and other rights-holders in the digital age than U2 manager Paul McGuinness. McGuinness shepherded four young men (and himself) from the streets of Dublin to the top of the world, including a deal done in Steve Jobs' Palo Alto, Calif., kitchen in 2004: McGuinness, Bono, Interscope's Jimmy Iovine and Jobs ate lunch and agreed to a deal to use U2's "Vertigo" in an iPod TV ad, and for Apple to create a black-and-red U2-branded iPod.

U2 hadn't previously used its music in advertisements, and-heaven forbid-Apple had never released an iPod that wasn't white. McGuinness recalled this moment during a keynote speech at the MIDEM Music conference in Cannes in January 2008, while also beseeching Jobs to "bring his remarkable set of skills to bear on the problems of recorded music." McGuinness grouped Apple in with a number of other telcos and search companies that had "built multibillion-dollar industries on the backs of our content without paying for it" and urged them to take greater responsibility.

McGuinness caught up with us from his Dublin office, warmly remembering Steve Jobs the man, the music fan and, yes, the tough negotiator.

'I'm sure the next time we go out it will be quite different,' says the Edge

Rolling Stone

Last month, Rolling Stone Senior Writer Brian Hiatt traveled to Denver to catch up with U2 as they kicked off the final leg of their 360 Tour. He chatted with the Edge and Adam Clayton about the epic two-year tour, the difficult birth of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark and where exactly U2 goes from here. (For more, read our full account of U2's time on the road from the most recent issue of Rolling Stone.)

L.E. Eisenmenger, Boston Pro Soccer Examiner

Seth Ader, the Senior Director of Sports Marketing at ESPN, spoke with me at length about the making of ESPN's campaign for 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. He is passionate about getting the importance of the World Cup across to American and international audiences and worked with U2 to create the message. Since 2005, Ader has been responsible for all ESPN soccer properties including European Championship, English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Major League Soccer and USA Soccer, and also Major League Baseball, "This is Sports Center," and others. Prior to 2005, he was the director of marketing for the NBA and NFL, managed ESPN the Magazine, and launched ESPN Desportes and ESPN HD networks.

Ader oversees ESPN's World Cup promotions and production from concept to design, to creation, to presentation worldwide. His attention to detail within the big picture is amazing, his conviction in the importance of this work is strong. After successfully working with Bono and U2 for 2006 World Cup Germany, Ader approached them again and they agreed to partner in the 2010 message. U2 believe in the World Cup as much as ESPN believes in their music.

Read the full article here

Interview by Mike Pattenden

Times Online

The name on his passport says Dave Evans but the rest of the world knows him as The Edge, the moniker handed to him by a young Bono Vox in U2's early days in Seventies Dublin. Polite and self-effacing, the guitarist is a self-confessed "music obsessive" who finishes our interview asking what new bands he should catch up on. His status presents many opportunities, not least the chance to work and play with his musical heroes. At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concert in October he accompanied Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, Black Eyed Peas and Patti Smith. "That was amazing," he recalls. "You don't get many opportunities to play with artists of that calibre in your life." Actually, he gets more than most, as evidenced by his starring role alongside Jimmy Page and Jack White in the big-screen rockumentary It Might Get Loud. A guitar fan's wet dream, it traces the threesome's differing approaches to their art before bringing them together to jam."What came out of the movie," he says, "was that it doesn't matter what your influences are, it's whether you are an originator. It's about attempting to express the sound in your head you can't otherwise explain."

By Steve Pond

With six nominations and one win between them, the members of U2 are no strangers to the Golden Globes. They'll be back this year as nominees for "Winter," the closing-credits song they wrote for Jim Sheridan's movie "Brothers."

U2's guitarist, the Edge, who's also a central figure in Davis Guggenheim's terrific rock doc "It Might Get Loud," checked in with theWrap to talk about old pal Sheridan, writing for movies and being an outsider on Hollywood's big nights.

"We are still capable of potentially doing our best-ever album"

David Fricke, Rolling Stone

The Rolling Stone editors picked eight stars -- from Bruce and Beyoncé to Radiohead and U2 -- who not only made the best music but also led the way as Artists of the Decade in our new issue. Here's more of our conversation with U2's The Edge.

U2 in Photos: three decades of the world's biggest band, onstage and backstage.

U2 ended this decade by playing to some of the biggest audiences of your career, in those stadiums, in the round. How has that affected the music -- your connection to rock & roll in those dimensions?
It's only made possible because of the technology, the in-ear monitors. We can hear each other perfectly. Otherwise it would be an absolute disaster. Because of the in-ear technology, I'm right next to Larry, right next to Adam and Bono, in sonic terms.

by Joshua Klein, Pitchfork Media

"Eno is a postman's son," sums up friend and frequent collaborator Daniel Lanois. "He grew up essentially in a peasant environment, but he had a brilliant mind and was able to get to his mountaintop."

"Brian Eno is someone that you don't want to sound stupid in front of, and everything he said, I was just like, 'Wow'," noted (um) Natalie Imbruglia, who recently collaborated with Eno (and Coldplay's Chris Martin) for parts of her comeback album, on the BBC.

Any way you look at it, Brian Eno is one of the preeminent producers and thinkers of our time. Hell, an extemporaneous conversation between him and scholar Richard Dawkins recently packed the house in Oxford, and Eno's as well known these days for his politics, theories, and criticism as he is for his music. Indeed, the once prolific Eno's own output has slowed considerably since the 1970s and 80s, in part due to these extracurriculars and of course thanks to his ongoing work with U2 and Coldplay, something Eno addressed-- in addition to ABBA and Phil Collins-- when he opened some of his packed schedule for a brief conversation.

By Ray Waddell

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - As U2 wraps the 2009 dates of its groundbreaking 360 world stadium tour, the band is expected to gross about $300 million and sell about 3 million tickets to fewer than 50 shows.

Rather than a high-end ticket price, the big numbers are more about a unique staging concept that boosts configurations at stadiums, and fans know that U2 is again pushing the production envelope. The tour is in support of the band's latest album, "No Line on the Horizon," and if it isn't scaling the sales heights of previous sets -- since its March release, "Line" has sold 991,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan -- the band's manager, Paul McGuinness, credits that more to overall market conditions than a decline in the act's popularity.

Though sometimes outspoken about industry issues -- his 2008 MIDEM keynote excoriating the industry for its lackluster response to digital distribution still resonates -- McGuinness is anything but riled as he sits in an office backstage at Chicago's Soldier Field just before U2 went onstage. "What do I possibly have to be pissed off about?" he wonders. Both pragmatist and gambler, McGuinness guides the career of what has become arguably the biggest band in the world, and it has been a banner year for the group he has represented since the start of its career.

By Jane Stevenson, Sun Media

U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr. sat down with Sun Media in an exclusive Canadian newspaper interview late Thursday backstage at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, just hours before the band performed their second show at the venue.

Mullen gets the credit for the formation of U2, as he was the one who posted an ad on his high school notice board when he was just 14, looking for bandmates. The rest is history. He used to joke it was The Larry Mullen Band for about 10 minutes, before frontman Bono walked in.

Here's the best of what Mullen had to say during our 20-minute chat. Contrary to his reputation for being quiet, he was chatty and warm in person: