Released: 2017

Genres: Pop Rock

The Musiquarium’s Songs of Surrender Album Score: 5 out of 10

Despite receiving some of the worst reviews of their career with Songs of Innocence, along with the iTunes fiasco where the album was automatically and permanently loaded onto everyone’s iTunes accounts against their will, U2 were undeterred by the bad reception and continue to work with OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder on Songs of Experience.

Love is All We Have Left starts the album off with an autotuned Bono, which sounds just as bad as you’d expect; where an artist like Kanye West cleverly uses autotune to elevate the music, Bono just comes off sounding like the “how do you do, fellow kids?” meme. You’re the Best Thing About Me is surprisingly catchy and one of the best U2 singles in a long time. American Soul features a spoken-word intro by Kendrick Lamar, who had sampled the song earlier in the year on his superior track XXX.

Summer of Love feels like typical mid 2010s pop rock slop. Red Flag Day feels like an homage to the post-punk of War, and while it’s not necessarily bad, it’s not even close to being as effective as anything off the aforementioned album. The Showman (Little More Better) is one of U2’s most embarrassing songs yet, with a chorus that’s got more cheese on it than a pizza. Bono does some grating wordless vocals throughout Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way. 13 (There Is a Light) does provide a light, as its the last track on the album.

Songs of Experience is marginally better than Songs of Innocence, but it’s still not an album I’d like to experience again.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view U2 on Discogs.

Back to the 2017 Album Guide or the U2 Album page

Written by Brett Nippard