U2 have unveiled the first preview of their upcoming album with the release of the Jacknife Lee produced single ‘Street Of Dreams’. Watch and listen below.
The music video for the new song was filmed in Mexico City, where fans gathered around a bus while the band performed the track from its rooftop.
Sharing footage from the shoot, the band wrote: “Hopped a bus in Mexico City, destination: Street of Dreams. Justice an obsession, love is procession down the street of dreams”.
In a follow up post, U2 explained that a storm interrupted filming after heavy rain and thunder “crashed the generator for the film shoot”. While production was paused, a “bewildered but welcoming neighbour” invited the band onto their balcony, where they entertained the crowd with singalongs of ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Desire’ until filming could continue.
The band have now officially released the song, which showcases The Edge’s signature soaring guitar work while Bono sings: “La calle, calle de los sueños / All the doors are open on the street of dreams”. The official video can be watched below.
Notably, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. appears throughout the video after sitting out U2’s Las Vegas Sphere residency in 2023 and 2024 while recovering from back surgery.
The video features the band performing on top of a graffiti covered bus before cutting to scenes inside the vehicle as fans chase them through the streets of Mexico City.
The performance eventually comes to an unexpected halt when heavy rain arrives, forcing the group to finish the show from the balcony of a nearby resident.
The Irish rock band have been widely expected to be working on their fifteenth studio album, and they have already released two EPs featuring new music this year.
Speaking when the second EP, ‘Easter Lily’, was released, Bono said: “We are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, ‘unreasonably colour xerox’ album to play LIVE… which is where U2 lives.”
He continued: “We still look to vivid rock n roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens. These are for sure ‘wilderness years’ for so many of us looking at the mayhem out there in the world. It’s a time that has our band digging deeper into our lives to find a wellspring of songs to try to meet the moment…”
Hints about a new album have been circulating since 2024. At the time, The Edge suggested the project would not be “a straight up rock thing”. Last summer, Bono also said he was “ready for the future” with U2, revealing the band had written “25 great songs”. Earlier, while discussing the creative process, he explained that the group were leaving the past behind in pursuit of “the sound of the future”.
The upcoming release will mark U2’s first album of entirely new material since 2017’s ‘Songs Of Experience’. In its two star review, NME wrote: “There are brief flashes of ‘Vertigo’ vitality, notably when they bemoan the current political s**tstorms on ‘The Blackout’. But overall, U2 have built a stadium rock cruise liner they’ve zero interest in rocking, and ‘…Experience’ is 50 minutes of very plain sailing indeed.”
The band also released ‘Songs Of Surrender’ in 2023, a collection of newly recorded versions of songs from their catalogue that accompanied Bono’s memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.
As part of that book tour, Bono performed several shows alongside Jacknife Lee, who also directed the concerts while joining the frontman on stage.
Lee previously collaborated with U2 on their 2004 album ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’, the 2006 collaboration with Green Day on ‘The Saints Are Coming’, and the band's 2023 single ‘Atomic City’.
Beyond U2, Lee has worked with The Killers, R.E.M., Editors, Robbie Williams, and many other artists throughout his career.
U2 are set to celebrate their 50th anniversary in September, with their long awaited new album expected to arrive before the end of the year.
