U2 Release New EP “Easter Lily”

0:00In Ireland, nothing gets us talking like lions. Tea? Small talk. Well, Jimmy, shark and weather were having. Big talk. Even I got to play county. Office talk. I'm MIA in the AM, but I'll circle back on the KP guys. Real talk. Milk before tea? Should be a criminal offense. You could say we talk too much. But the truth is... We don't talk nearly enough. Lions. What's the talk into tea? The last word. With life pharmacy. Over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help. Life pharmacy. Live better together. And so, let's get to music. John Caddell is tonight joined by Dave Hanrafi and let's start with Dave's pick of the week. Because I know John has lots of views about it as well. It's the new U2EP. The one that came out from Friday called Easter Lily. Let's hear one of the songs. That's your song for Hal.

1:24Okay, that's song for Hal. Part of this new Easter Lily EP from U2. Which comes only a matter of weeks after the previous EP Days of Ash. First new music since 2017. Okay, Dave Hanrafi, what do you make of it all? Yeah, they've really cornered the market in surprise Lenton releases. Haven't they? Which I don't think anybody really saw coming. Which is quite interesting. I think I'm conflicted about these recordings, Matt. I must admit. I've seen a lot of people say that they sang Revitalized and that they sang like Instant Classics. I think the biggest compliment I can pay in is that they go to the song that we just heard. It's song for Hal, which is dedicated to their late friend and producer,

2:26Hal Wilner, who died in 2020. This does sound like a U2 song that may have been out there for decades. And you can take from that whether you think it's should the span move on and be a bit more fresh. Or is it just great to hear them saying like themselves again? Which I think is kind of the thing a lot of people have been looking for with U2. And for a lot of legacy acts as well. People just kind of want the same but different. I don't know how adventurous these two EP's have been. I think that they've been good, solid releases that kind of remind the world that U2 still have some fire in them. But I do think the reaction to them has been a bit over a song. And I'm curious if Sean Cadillac agrees with me or probably disagrees with me. Well, I'm all about the melodies when it comes to songs. I'm less of a lyric lover than I am a melody. And the thing that certainly this EP has even over the days of Ash EP is really, really strong melodies on all of the songs. Maybe co-exist is a bit strange and it's a bit of a... You sort of have to sort of put up with it more than anything. But the songs that proceed...

3:27I mean, that's the edge singing song for Hal, by the way. He sounds like he and Bono are now symbiotic. That's the edge. I actually thought it was Bono. Yeah, it's the edge. Oh, right. Yeah, but that's the only one edge things. And my first thought when I got to a bass song three or four was the melodies are just incredible. The melodies are brilliant. We're back to you two creating strong melodies, which they hadn't always. I mean, songs of innocence and even to a certain extent, songs of experience. There was some weak songs on both of those albums. But of the 12 that now that they've released in the last six weeks, I mean, at least nine of them for me are very, very strong melodically. Okay, well, let's hear another one in a life. I'll meet you when you're not there. We're shopping lists of all you missed. Let's go there. I'll meet you in the surreal.

4:27I'll meet you in the joy of steel. Stones and sticks. You're kicking the brakes. And still I'm burning out. To kneel. And what not to feel. And when we reach the circle line. And when we stop the clock, stop in time. To wake up in a forgiving sun. Wake in the dream that overcomes in a life. Okay, that's in a life. Nice nods to the song, the electric co-there, and to start with a sort of jagged guitar. But does that come back then to Dave's criticism that they're sort of just repackaging old stuff?

5:27Well, I don't think Dave said that much. Well, I'm playing it a little bit. Don't imply it, Matt. Don't put words in the man's mouth. Well, well, well, well. But they are in their comfort zone here. I think it's fair to say. And I think that the, again, the positives here are the melodies. And also the cinematic nature of these tracks. They do feel like they're built to play live, which in fairness, we all know that's YouTube's bread and butter. That's what they do best. And I think even their kind of time in the sphere probably taught them even something more about presentation. If you could teach YouTube anything more about presentation, they always try and innovate in that regard. So what would I have taught them about presentation? Because I would have felt a little bit about that having been at the sphere is that even to a certain degree, the performance and the music got a little bit overwhelmed by the visuals. Yeah, I mean, I guess that is kind of the gamble. And I actually know a sound engineer friend of mine who was there and said that the sound wasn't up to scratch, but in fairness, he's never happy. I'm sorry. I have to say Gavin Friday, who was very involved, did tell me that the sound in the sphere is the best in any venue that he's ever been in.

6:27He thought it was absolutely phenomenal. You know what I mean? Cheers. He would, Gavin Friday would, because he's involved with the band, which is fine. I have a lot of time for Gavin Friday, but I think when it comes to YouTube, if they're always trying to reinvent themselves, they'll always come out with statements like, you know, we're trying to dream it up all up again. You know, they, they once said, it's a bit one of their albums that it was effective. They could job application to be the biggest band in the world again. I wonder if they do have those aspirations because while these songs will work for fans, they don't feel terribly for thinking to me. And I don't like the production on it, I will say. That's perhaps not their decision, not their fault. The curious thing to me is that Edge has kind of been stressing, this is not an album, by the way. This is two different things. We are working on a new album. That will come out. And I kind of feel like they need to do something totally radically different. I don't know if they will. What's Brian Inos' involvement with all of this? He produced the last song, The Album Coexist, which is basically Bono's voice through a vocoder and some instrumental backing. Okay, we don't have that. I just check in there. I just wonder how long has Brian Inos been around? He's 77 now. Oh, he sure wasn't. He's in Roxy Music in 1972.

7:29No, bother to him. But he's locked about 50 for 50 years. Okay, we'll play one more clip from the new EP, Easter Lily. This is a track called Scars. We got some scars and some other sufferings. You keep on reaching for the lights. The doors of your heart were kept open. And your healing is straightforward. I can't break what's already been broken. And now it's time. No, no, no.

8:29Only you will be in through. So I know, no, no, no. Who you are? Who you are? Let them show, show, show. It's your scars that give you a beauty. Okay, that is Scars. I maybe just think if I take the song called Scars, it's by Roch, but that's me. There you see John. Out of five, what would you give it as a rating? I'd give it about a four. Dave mentions them needing to do something radical. I think what they've done, these two EP's, it's pretty radical for you too. They've just gone back to the four of them in a room and pressed record, which is what I've wanted for ages from them. What would you give it out of five? Dave? It's a three for me, but I'm being generous. It's your pick at the week. Are we picking stuff we don't like now? I pick things that provoke a reaction, John, which you've just done. So there we go. Job done. Oh, you fell into his trap there, John.

9:30There was me taking things at face value. All right. Well, in that case, what's your pick at the week, John? Well, I've gone for it. Given that you've only gone for something that you really like, which is why you picked it. Strangely, yes. This is another iconic Irish band. They announced, well, Universal Records announced the reissue of the cranberries first album. Everybody else is doing it. So I can't read a big box sentence coming out in May. And as part of that box, they have sort of rejigged a couple of the singles. So there's a remix of linger and there's a remix of dreams. And what they've done here is they have got two sort of Latin American open-coming boozy artists to sort of contribute to the remix of these songs. So what you're hearing now is the Spanish mix of linger and added features at Mexican artist Barati.

10:50You know, I'm such a food for you. You gotta be right to round your finger. Explain to me, John. Is that the Laura Sorredin's voice in English and then somebody else coming in, singing in Spanish? Yes. Okay. In a nutshell. And is it sort of A.I.A. did or whatever it sort of seems seamless or what? No, it's just you remember like Natalie Cole did an album where she dueted with her dad, not King Cole, years after his death. It's just that. I remember the Elvis duet albums that they put out every now and again, were contemporary artists that fill the bits of songs

11:51that were previously sung by the other artist. So it's just like that. They've replaced Laura's vocal on the track or rather a raced vocal from the track and Brati in this instance is singing to line in Spanish. What would you make of that, Dave? I like it. There's actually a wonderful cover of Dreams by an artist called Fey Wang. So a Cantonese cover of it, back from 1994, which went along with a great film called Chung King Express. So I'd highly recommend anyone listening to Look That Up on YouTube because it's a, it's incredibly different interpretation, but it's wonderfully done. And I think it shows you just how far the cranberries did travel and how respected they were and still are. OK. Now, can you rest? We were talking recently, John, about how he would be playing in London for three nights at the wireless festival. But he's been blocked from entering the UK. Tell us about this. Yeah. So he's been blocked and the wireless festival has subsequently been cancelled. He was due to play to headline all three nights. It's now not happening at all.

12:51Reason being that the UK government have refused him an ETA, which is basically a visa to travel to the UK for the UK. Like the Esk for the U.K. Yes. The United States they have an ETA to get into the UK. So they've said no because of his previous pronouncements and actions when he said that he was a Nazi and that he loved Hitler. So he's not getting in because they think that his presence there wouldn't be good for good for the good of the country. Hmm. What you make of that, Dave? This story is such a headache and watching it kind of change here today like I'm working in the Irish independent office and just seeing the updates every five minutes being like Kanye blocked, festival gone, you're like Jesus. I just think it could have been all very easily avoided because obviously we saw a statement from Melvin Ben, a festival organizer last night effectively saying calling on the public to forgive Kanye West and to basically give him a chance and kind of is trying to reckon with the things Kanye West has said. Obviously we know Kanye West has put out an apology earlier this year and did actually reckon with this as well

13:53and did say I'm coming to London to put on a show. I'm not looking to extol any kind of negative virtues, et cetera, et cetera. But it's tricky. I think it's the right call because ultimately he went beyond the pale. You can't release a song called Heil Hitler, which he did and expect to just be welcome back in with open arms. No problem when you do your comeback shows. He had an album recently, but the reality is he's still a massively commercial artist. There's a poster of his new album up in a prominent record store right now. I saw it this morning. I myself am a lapsed Kanye West fan. I have heard the new album. I listened to it with some degree of, you know, should I really be listening to this? I just think there's a lot more work to do. And Kanye has said that he will do that work, but we've had to really see much of that. He is back playing. He played two shows in LA over the weekend, both sold out. There were some big names on there, like Lauren Hill performed with them. Travis Scott was there as well. So it is interesting to see that some suites of the music industry have effectively welcomed him back with open arms. Other people, in my opinion, quite rightly are standing up and saying, we're not there yet. We might never be.

14:53And I think to put him as your lead act for a major festival in the UK attended by 50,000 people per day for three nights. It was asking for serious trouble. And serious trouble is what we have. Okay. I see as well, John. Before the British government intervened, well, Pepsi and Diagio had withdrawn their sponsorship of the festival. Kanye West had offered to meet with the British Jewish community ahead of the shows. They said they would meet with him, but that he should still also cancel the show. And he did apologize, didn't he? He took out a full page advert on the Wall Street Journal titled to those I've heard. Yeah. Is he forever damned if he sounds up and said, I did wrong. I made a mistake. I will never do this again. Who knows what was going on in his head at the time? Well, to be careful here. But in an ear when everybody's talking about take care of your mental health and understand people and be kind, it's a known fact that he had a four or five month long serious mental breakdown in 2025.

16:00And he also says that he wasn't properly diagnosed in 2023 of a brain injury from a car crash 25 years ago. And that, yeah, he says that medical oversight calls serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type one diagnosis. Yeah. So he is bipolar. I just wonder, I mean, he did take out this full page ad. He has made a full apology in black and white. He has explained what led him to do these things. It is a case of mental illness. And he has received treatment for it. He got personal enough to say that he was out of his mind for four or five months and cannot recall a lot of what he did now. There's a lot of people have to take responsibility. He's also if they record a track with them. And if they actually distribute it on his behalf. And, you know, I will also say I myself am not bipolar and I myself am not Jewish. So there are people who far more qualified than me to decide whether or not the canceling of his concerts.

17:03His concerts is justified or not. I just think he is making a genuine effort and is explaining himself. I just think canceling his three concerts. What about this be kind stuff? What about giving people a second chance when they explain themselves and they show that they've proven. They've proven themselves and explained what led them to say these admittedly horrific things and to write these disgusting songs. He has had a long, long history of mental illness and that should be remembered. So if he says that he said these things and wrote these things in a time that he was out of his mind, given that we know his mental health history, isn't not, isn't not time to give him a second chance. But then again, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't personally offended by what he said because I'm not Jewish. Okay. One last one. Sorry. Could I just add real quick? Sorry. Because I think a lot of what John is saying is correct.

18:03And I think it's totally fair. And I think we should look at this from as many angles as we can. And we should try and be three-dimensional about these things as human beings. And I will say, in my opinion, Kanye West, someone who I've defended a lot, but there comes a time when you find it very, very hard to do that. And I would say that mental health issues, mental illness, it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. And the only thing I would take issue with what John said is that there may be people who would think that he hasn't proven, like the word proven. Like he may not have proven that he's sorry. He has to do that. And that will take time. And that will take effort. And perhaps headlining a three-night festival is not the way to do it. And maybe some people could see this as a reward for, you know, like you said you were sorry. It's grand. Like I think there's more to this. I don't want him to be canceled. I don't want him to be, you know, like stricken and torn out of society. I want the man to get better. I really, really do. And I think the part of it could be taking action and doing smaller things, maybe building up to something. But right now I think the public just is not ready. Yeah. I just wonder as well though. I mean, the people who facilitated him are putting up that single called

19:03Heil Hitler, who put up the t-shirts adorned as posticas on the online shopping platform. Other people around him were acting utterly irresponsible. Well, superstars are surrounded by yes, man. You know, when's the last time anybody ever told a superstar? No. You tell them no one gets sucked. You just sounded like we're talking about the president of the United States of America yet again. We spent enough time on him earlier tonight. We're all the time here with the music spot. Dave Hanrat, he thank you for joining us alongside John Kadel. The last word. With life pharmacy. Over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help. Life pharmacy. Live better together.