"Song for Someone" - U2

Streaming Single

Track Listing:

Background Information

On September 4, 2015, U2 released a single for “Song for Someone” but not in the usual traditional manner. Instead this single was released to the music streaming service Spotify in most countries. The single, could only be listened to while streaming. A download option was not available. Spotify streams in two formats, a free subscription has the track stream in 160kbps quality, while a paid subscription let users stream in 320kbps quality.

One digital store front in the Czech Republic did carry this track for sale. The site, supraphonline.cz made the tracks available in mp3 format (320kbps) and flac (uncompressed). Other digital stores in Europe did not carry the tracks, so this may have been made available in error. The version listed at this store contained the UPC of 00602547576224, which matches the UPC for the streaming single at Spotify. It was also released here on September 4, 2015.

The single contained two songs, “Song for Someone (Radio Mix)” which had previously been heard on promotional CD releases, and a second version of “Song for Someone”, this time a live version of the song, recorded on May 18, 2015 in San Jose during U2’s Innocence and Experience tour. The single was accompanied by the artwork which had also been seen on the U2.com website for the single, and used by Interscope in promotion of the song.

The version of “Song for Someone (Radio Mix)” here is slightly shorter than the version found on the promotional CD by about one second, as some silence at the start of the track has been removed. This mix for radio was mixed by The Edge, most noticeably, the entire song is mixed hotter, with more compression, for radio. Also Edge’s backing vocals are a little louder in the overall mix. This lead to Bono joking that the mix was pretty much unchanged.

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