U22025 in Review

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2025-12-31)

U2025: A Year in Review

2025 has been a quiet year for the most part when it comes to U2 and their releases. No surprise really, the band often “go away” in the months leading up to a new release, and I believe that’s where we are right now. There was no release for the Black Friday Record Store Day event this year. The last Record Store Day that the band skipped was the Black Friday 2022 event, which was in the lead up to Songs of Surrender. Likewise, the fan club annual gift for 2025 did not include any music this year. We did have a few blips of activity earlier in the year, most of it from Bono throughout the year.

Below we’ll cover a look at U2’s activity for 2025, including releases, solo projects, performances, a look at U2 X-Radio, and the band’s YouTube channel. We do this each year as a way to usher out the previous year. It’s more focused around U2’s recorded projects and isn’t meant as an extensive summary of all of U2’s activity throughout the year. The sections covered below include:

  • The Discography in 2025: U2 in 2025
  • The Discography in 2025: Bono in 2025
  • The Discography in 2025: Other Projects
  • U2 in Concert in 2025
  • U2 X-Radio in 2025
  • U2.Com in 2025
  • U2Songs.com in 2025

The Discography in 2025: U2 in 2025


Discography Entry: Original Soundtracks 1 – Passengers

2025 was the 30th anniversary of the Passengers album, Original Soundtracks 1. That album received a new mastering job, and was released on recycled black vinyl for Record Store Day in April. The album, one that U2 did with Brian Eno as a member of the band, as well as other “passengers”, originally came out in the Fall of 1995. Originally planned as a U2 album, with Eno to be credited alongside the band, the label expressed concerns about the album, and the band decided to release it under an alternate name instead.

The release was 3500 copies in the USA, an additional 3500 copies in the UK and Ireland, but a full print run worldwide is unknown. The new mastering job was by Scott Sedillo, and overseen by The Edge. The new version adds on the bonus track, “Bottoms (Watashitachi No Ookina Yuma)” which is a remix of “Zoo Station” that Eno did which had been included as a B-Side on the “Miss Sarajevo” single and a bonus track on the album itself in Japan.

The recycled vinyl is a first for U2. Sadly this pressing is filled with quality issues, and many complaints were made about the state of these records when opened, including dirty records, marks on the vinyl, and glue in the grooves. Not sure if that is a result of the recycling process, but these issues left many fans wary of further releases being pressed on this material. There was no accompanying digital release, which means sadly, fans are forced to seek out the vinyl if they wish to hear the new master.


Discography Entry: U2-V Film – U2

The film V-U2 continued to play in Las Vegas, after a debut in late 2024. The film captures a U2 concert filmed at Sphere, using special cameras so the footage can be displayed at Sphere. The film is part of a bigger experience, which is U2 themed and shows off the technology behind the Sphere. The 82-minute film includes just over half of a concert, and is described as a “Sphere Exclusive”. The film was directed by Morleigh Steinberg and The Edge. The film aired 2-3 times a week for most months in early 2025, however, with the debut of a new feature dedicated to the Wizard of Oz both the U2 film and the Postcard from Earth film are no longer in the scheduled rotation. We are told that it is likely they will appear gain in the future.

Available at the show was a number of merchandise items, including T-Shirts, posters, clothing, and dog tags, with new items introduced throughout this year. In January, U2 released a limited version photo book of their Sphere concerts, available both at Sphere, and online via U2.com. The photography spotlighted the work of Ross Andrew Stewart, who worked with U2 throughout their entire 40-show run to document the shows. The book proved to be popular and a second edition was later offered a month later, this time without limited numbering.

The Discography in 2025: Bono in 2025


Discography Entry: Stories of Surrender Film – Bono

Much of the early part of the year was focused on Bono’s Stories of Surrender project. Surrender, Bono’s memoir had been initially released in 2022, and lead to a series of performances based on excerpts from the book, including a residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York. At the end of that run of shows, Bono did a special day of filming at the Theatre, as well as making a special appearance at Teatro San Carlo, which also makes it into the film.

The film, directed by Andrew Dominick, was released at the end of May on Apple TV, and is available to stream on that service. A new edition of Bono’s book, cut down in size, and rearranged to flow more like the show was released in Canada, the US, and in UK / Ireland, under the new title Stories of Surrender. (A translated edition was released in Italy later.)

The film picked up a number of award nominations, but to date, has not won any awards. These nominations included an Emmy Award nomination for “Outstanding Technical Direction and Camerawork for a Special”, a Critics Choice Documentary Award nomination for “Best Music Documentary”. The film was also nominated for Hollywood Music in Media Awards for “On-Screen Performance (Film)” for “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Music Documentary – Special Program” for the overall film.


Discography Entry: “Stories of Surrender” EP – Bono

Fans were also treated to a 3-song EP of songs taken from the show. These were songs recorded by Bono with the Jacknife Lee Ensemble, as done in the show. “Desire”, “The Showman” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” appear on the EP, which was a digital release, and also made available on a limited 7-Inch vinyl. Although never featured in the show, “The Showman” was rehearsed and worked on during the show’s final residency at the Beacon and recorded during those sessions.

The Discography in 2025: Other Projects


Discography Entry: “Angels for Each Other” and “Weightless” Singles – Martin Garrix

Bono was credited as co-writer on two Martin Garrix tracks this year. “Angels for Each Other” was released by Martin Garrix and Arijit Singh in March 2025. The song was released digitally and a number of promotional edits were also released of the song. Arijit Singh also appeared with Garrix on “Weightless” which was also co-written by Bono. That track was released in April 2025. Longtime U2 collaborator, Simon Carmody, was also listed among co-writers on the two tracks.


Discography Entry: Tha Carter VI Album – Lil Wayne

Another collaboration by Bono appeared in June. Lil Wayne released his long awaited album Tha Carter VI and Bono is a featured artist on “The Days”. Although two versions of the album were released to digital services (clean and explicit), the mix of “The Days” is the same on both. The Bono track remains a digital only offering at this time. Physical copies of the album on vinyl and CD do not include the track with Bono, nor is there any external track listing to suggest he wasn’t on there, annoying a few fans who went looking for a hard copy. The vocal by Bono used on this track dates back to 2013 / 2014 when the band were working with RedOne.


News Story: EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert Soundtrack featuring Bono with Elliott Wheeler on “American David”

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is a film that made its debut earlier this year at the Toronto International Film Festival. It features Bono heard over the final credits, reciting part of his poem “American David”. In the film Bono is speaking, and there’s a backing instrumental track composed by Elliott Wheeler. That poem, written in the mid-90s, became the basis for “Elvis Ate America” on the Passengers album. But the poem has never been released on its own, until now, as part of the film. The film gets a wide release this coming year, and the soundtrack will be out in February.


Discography Entry: Macalla – Clannad

Late in the year a new remaster of Clannad’s Macalla album was released on CD and vinyl, and digital platforms. The album includes Bono’s vocals on “In a Lifetime” and the new master of the track sounds lovely.


Discography Entry: ¡Ni Un Paso Atrás! – Various Artists

Another reissue late in the year saw the compilation album ¡Ni Un Paso Atrás! released for the first time on digital platforms including a high resolution version. On the album Bono appears and reads lyrics from “Mother of God” and reads lyrics to “Mothers of the Disappeared” in Spanish and English. The tracks were remastered for this release.

Other Related Release Notes

Although it has been a bit of a slow year with the band in studio working on a new album, there were other items of note outside of the items mentioned above. Adam Clayton continued his appearances in televisions with appearances throughout the three episodes of Greatest Basslines on SkyArts this Fall. Larry Mullen was out early in the year promoting the Left Behind film. Mullen executive produced the film and has two songs on the soundtrack. The film, released in 2024, got a wider release this year, and Larry made several appearances in the media including an appearance on the Kelly Clarkson show, filmed January 16. Another Larry solo project, Wrecking Ball (1995) by Emmylou Harris, which featured him on drums, was inducted into the Grammy Awards Hall of Fame this year.

It was the 40th anniversary of Live Aid this year, and a lot of new content was made available. A television documentary aired on CNN and BBC looking at Live Aid and the impact it has had over the years. A number of radio specials featured broadcasts of the show, interviews with artists at the show, interviews with fans who were in attendance and more. The Live Aid Musical hosted a 40th anniversary performance, and also released a cast recording soundtrack. And there were other features as well, including an exhibition at the British Music Experience in Liverpool, and a photographic archive at the National Library of Ireland. In November Live Aid: The Definitive 40 Year Story book by Paul Vallely was published looking back on the event.

U2 also made it onto a number of lists this year. At #162 on Rolling Stone’s “The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far” was All That You Can’t Leave Behind. “Beautiful Day” came in at #57 on Rolling Stone’s “The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far”. And “Sunday Bloody Sunday” took spot #30 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Best Protest Songs of All Time”. The band also popped up at #40 on Spin’s “The 40 Greatest Musicians of the Last 40 Years” list.

Bono spent a bit of time on tour with Halsey this year, via a pre-recorded voice over used during her shows. The production had an Alice in Wonderland theme, and Bono is the voice of the rabbit in a video played through the interludes of the show. It’s not the only voice work Bono has done. We saw him play a lion in Sing 2 a few years back and next up he’s due to play a hound dog in the animated film, Outfoxed!.

U2’s “Three” was the highest priced item on Discogs for two different months, September and November. The 12-Inch numbered CBS release has hit new levels on the site. On September 26 a copy sold for 4900 Euro, and on November 13, another copy sold for 4500 Euro. The release is limited to 1000 numbered copies, stickered on the outer sleeve, and hand numbered by Jackie Hayden of CBS Records for the 1979 release. It was the first item that U2 released and came out on September 26, 1979. The 7-inch single was released in greater quantities in the weeks that followed. Additional 12-Inch singles from the initial print run, but not numbered were later sold, as were a number of repressings. A cassette single was also issued in 1985.

U2 in Concert in 2025

U2 had a quiet year when it came to performances. The band spent a large chunk of the year in studio working on their next album, and there were few performances, either as a band or solo.

The band reformed in May at an award show at Grosvenor House in London. Accepting the Fellowship of the Ivors Academy, all four members of U2 took the stage together to accept the award, and later performed “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Angel of Harlem” together. The performance is the first where Larry has been able to perform with the band since undergoing a number of surgeries to correct years of damage from his career drumming. By all reports the surgeries went well and he’s back with the band, better than ever. It was certainly nice to see him back on stage with the band, and reports from the studio share that he’s taking a lead on development of the new album.

A number of solo performances are collected in our show database from 2025. At the Palais des Festivals et des Congres in Cannes, Bono walked the red carpet for the debut of his film. While he was walking the carpet, the EP “Stories of Surrender” was playing, and Bono was seen singing along to “The Showman”. Later, after a seven minute standing ovation at the end of the film, Bono leads the crowd in singing a bit of “Pride”. The Edge did a speaking engagement at the Titanic Museum in Belfast, and did a short instrumental performance of “One”. In June, for the retirement of longtime U2 associate Bob Koch, Bono and The Edge recorded a performance of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” which was played at Bob’s retirement gathering. U2 tribute act, The Unforgettable Fire played live at the retirement party. And at the end of the year Bono popped up to sing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” at the annual Busk in Dublin.

Another award took Bono and The Edge to Tulsa to accept the Woody Guthrie Prize on behalf of the entire band. While there, they did a sit down discussion with T Bone Burnett, during which Bono previewed lyrics to one of the new songs the band is working on, “One Life at a Time”. They also did a six song acoustic performance, including two longer snippets. That performance, as well as the discussion, was later aired on U2 X-Radio on SiriusXM, and was also broadcast on commercial radio in Italy, France, Ireland and Poland. These broadcasts did not include the live performance of “Mothers of the Disappeared” performed that night. U2 are now sharing this performance via their YouTube channel. (See below)

U2 X-Radio in 2025

U2 X-Radio has been renewed and will run for at least a few more years. The station is getting older, and has been falling into a more established format, with hosted shows filling the morning and evenings, and a rotating series of guest shows otherwise. Jenny Huston airs in the morning while Philly Taggart takes over late in the day through the week. Rocky O’Riordan has a weekly show, and Elevation continues on Sunday Morning with John Kelly. Gavin Friday and Adam Clayton both host shows which appear on a monthly basis. Dan Hegarty has the afternoon slot on both Saturdays and Sundays.

“Desire” used to be a fan lead show where fans would send in five songs and talk about their fandom and why they chose the songs. This year that show came to an end and has now transitioned to a hosted format. Each week a theme is given out and fans are asked to pick songs that fit the theme. Each fan can be heard speaking about the theme and the song they chose, but it seems to be a step backwards when it comes to fan engagement, as fans used to get an entire show to themselves on “Desire”. Fans also have lost another opportunity to share their stories on air with the end of Tassoula’s U2 Stories program. It ended earlier this year, and the station lost a bit of heart with it leaving the air. For those who may have missed it, an article on U2.com earlier this year provided an update on some of the stories that had aired.

Adam Clayton has two shows on the station currently, both a bit sporadic on when they show up. His playlist show saw Adam walk through his favourites from Marianne Faithfull, his favourite U2 collaborations, he presented a “painters playlist”, and his favourite songs from Hollywood. The most recent was a playlist of songs from 1975. He’s also put together two episodes of “Don’t Ask Me I’m the Bass Player” with Jenny Lee Lindberg from Warpaint and Laura Lee from Khruangbin where he sits down with other bass players for a conversation about music. In August, Adam also hosted a special discussion where he interviewed former U2 manager, Paul McGuinness.

A surprise this year was the revival of Edge’s “Close to the Edge”. After no episodes since 2022, there were two this year, with an interview with Chuck D in May, and more recently an interview with Kevin Parker from Tame Impala. The Edge has two smaller programs that randomly appear on the station. “Best Ever Guitar Sound” sees him interviewing friends, family, and colleagues asking them what their favourite guitar track is, and then playing the song. “Respect” is a similar segment where Edge talks about artists who he respects, and then playing their songs. These get scattered throughout the daily programming on the station, although “Respect” has been edited together as a full special on demand as well. The Edge also popped by for an interview with Jenny Huston in April. In May Bono shared excerpts from his audiobook to spotlight the book with the upcoming film. These snippets from the book also were played throughout programming randomly like the Edge shows above, but a 70-minute special was also available.

A few seasonal themed specials appeared on the station this year. “Sweetest Things” appeared for Valentines Day, “Ireland Now” appeared in March for St. Patrick’s Day, and “Haunted 20” appeared on Hallowe’en. “Sweetest Things” featured U2’s love songs, as chosen by the fans, including voice overs introducing each song. “Ireland Now” featured hosts Jenny Huston, Dan Hegarty and Philly Taggart spotlighting Irish culture of recent years to celebrate Ireland along with a selection of new Irish entertainers. Gavin Friday hosted the Haunted 20 countdown, the scarier tunes of U2.

Last year U2 X-Radio hosted a broadcast of the final night from the Sphere, before it was eventually broadcast on commercial radio in other countries. This year the station had the first play of the Woody Guthrie Prize concert and talk from Tulsa OK. The broadcast happened on Thanksgiving day in the US via SiriusXM to subscribers to the satellite service. A month later the same material was broadcast on Virgin Radio Italy, RTL2 Radio in France, AntyRadio in Poland and TodayFM in Ireland. U2 are now streaming the same content via their YouTube page.

U2.Com in 2025

U2.Com has been a bit tough to love over the years, but there’s signs this year they are trying to turn things around. After some well publicized delays on annual gifts, the 2024 gift started shipping in 2025, and it is a lovely addition to the bookshelf. As with the first volume of lyrics, it seems to be taking them a while to get copies out to everyone, and copies are still being sent. The 2025 gifts were announced to be a hoodie with logos through the years. Although there were a lot of people who spoke up to say they would prefer music, we saw very positive response to a gift in general among fans. It seemed to get people interested in the gift, and even better? U2.Com were able to turn it around and start to get it out only a few weeks after it had been announced.

They’ve also been working to clean up other past issues. The 2023 subscription gift, which was long delayed to some who had chosen it, also started to show up at the end of the year.

When a Christmas sweater was announced in late November, many fans suggested it would never arrive in time for Christmas, but again there seems to have been improvements made, and the item started showing up a couple of days later to those who had ordered. Speaking of that sweater? It’s a nice quality, and feels a bit better put together than some of the more recent merchandise. Thanks for putting together a nice little item!

One thing that is still very broken is the communication system. Both the help form and the email they’ve used for avenues where the fans can reach out seem to stop working for long periods of time. And we’ll see when that 2026 gift gets announced…we are nearing the period over the next few weeks where most people start looking to resubscribe and at this time there is still no 2026 offer on the site.

U2 on YouTube in 2025

In May and June, U2 posted a series of lyric videos for songs that have never had a video of their own. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Bad” from the 1980s, “Wake Up Dead Man” from the 90s, and a handful of more recent songs. These are all done in a similar style, using a mix of photos from the era, mixed with live footage of the band performing (sometimes not even performing the song in question.)

The full list of videos was:

An end of the year present to fans was the debut of the Woody Guthrie Prize broadcast on the YouTube channel. Both the discussion with T-Bone Burnett and the acoustic performance by Bono and the Edge (minus “Mothers of the Disappeared” like other broadcasts):

These recordings from The Woody Guthrie Prize were previously broadcast on SiriusXM Radio, and in edited form on RTL2 Radio (France), Virgin Radio (Italy), AntyRadio (Poland), and TodayFM (Ireland).

As part of the promotion of Bono’s Stories of Surrender film, and new version of his memoir, the U2 YouTube channel was also used for promotion of that project, via a series of “Audiobook Versions” of songs. The music is from the Songs of Surrender album, and we hear Bono speaking from his audiobook recording, released in 2022. They are accompanied with visuals from the book, and the text of Bono’s book.

The channel also carried video versions of the songs from Bono and the Jacknife Lee Ensemble, recorded for the “Stories of Surrender” EP including “The Showman“, “Desire“ and “Sunday Bloody Sunday“. This is the audio from the EP with a very minimally animated version of the cover art.

U2Songs.com in 2025

This year has been a quieter one for us, which always gives us an opportunity to work on improvements to the site. It has also been our 30th anniversary. The first version of the site went online at the University of Ohio State in April 1995. It’s odd to look back and realize you’ve been doing this for 30 years.

A couple of new bits and pieces have been added into the site discography. We’ve started a catalog of Radio Shows that the band have participated in over the years. It’s still a work in progress, but it gives us a place to work at content in the future. We’ve also added in a spot for promotional series of discs. This includes things like the Italian jukebox singles, the Brazilian label’s issues of 12-inch singles, and popular radio promotion series like those offered via services like Promo Only. It too is a work in progress. But we are making progress. We also took some time to polish up the “Unreleased Mixes“ section of the site.

Over in the shows archive we continue to flesh out our entries for past shows. We’re currently having a bit of work underway on the 2015 tour dates. We’ve also found a couple of past performances from 1978 and 1979 and have added these to our site. We are working with several contacts to continue to add a few additional items as well.

We don’t talk about our lyrics section as often as we once did but we are still actively maintaining and updating things. We have recently added a bit of new navigation over in that area, as well as some additional resources for finding song lyrics in a different manner, including listings for spoken word items, instrumental songs, solo songs for most of the members of U2, and sections where you can look up songs that U2 have covered and released, as well as songs they’ve covered on solo projects. We have more coming to this area in the near future.

Over in “Demos“ we’ve launched our tracking for the new album, with songs that we know of that may be included on the next album. It’s worth a look if you are interested in hearing about some of the newer songs that Bono has been mentioning since 2020.

Under videos we’ve been tracking the lyric videos mentioned above, as well as the older lyric videos the band have done in a new section. Our books section has been updated with new worldwide releases for Surrender and Stories of Surrender. And in the news section we’ve added a formal page collecting our “Breaking Waves“ news bits so you can quickly find them all in one location.

We’d love it if you’d take a look through the site, and we’re always happy if you have an idea for something else you’d like us to work on. We also have about five new sections that we’re currently working on for launch in 2026, so there will be lots of new items ahead.

Thanks for all of your support over the last 30 years. Appreciate all the hellos, sharing of information, and the questions that we get. We do try to get back to everyone, but sometimes that is easier than others, but we do value all of your input and wanted to thank everyone for that!

Past Years

If you are interested in the previous year summaries that we have compiled over the year, we provide links back to those below. We’ll be back at the end of 2026 with the next, which will hopefully include news of U2’s new album, two or three singles, and a bunch of promotional appearances for the new album. We are gearing up for a busy year ahead.

If you are looking for us on social media for live updates and information you can find us most often on Twitter, Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, and more sporadically on Instagram and YouTube.

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