In this all new expanded Boy episode released in tandem with our new U2 Origin Story episode, we pick up the story after U2 pulls off the big rouse at their now legendary gig at the National Stadium in Dublin that gets them signed to Island Records. We go over why they turn from Joy Division producer Martin Hannett and pivot to Steve Lillywhite to produce Boy. We cover Lillywhite's crucial contributions to the Boy sessions and go through all the tracks. We cover the controversy over the album artwork and themes of the record and the seminal moments of the band's first world tour. From the outside, everything appears copacetic, but inside, pressure from the Shalom Group starts to splinter the Lypton Village and the three Christians of U2 try and reconcile rock and roll and their faith.

You thought you knew U2's origin story? Well, did you know no one actually responded to Larry Mullen's post about wanting to start a band on the Mt Temple bulletin board? Or, did you know that the band once had a flutist and two female backing vocalists onstage? Or that they scored their first TV appearance by fooling the RTE booker into thinking they wrote the Ramones' "Glad to See You Go"? Or that the trace elements of Zoo TV's embrace of Dada and surrealism actually dates back to when Bono and Gavin Friday studied mime in 1979 and that theatricality became a big part of U2's stage show at the time? Or, that after every record label in the UK gave U2 a hard pass on all 4 demos they'd done from 1978-1980, they pulled off one of the great cons ever which finally got them signed to Island Records? We've got the stories behind the stories in this deep dive into the U2 Origin Story.

In our final episode (at least until a new U2 record surfaces), we cover everything from the beginning of the lockdown to the present: Bono's voiceover in the Sing 2 movie; U2's underwhelming single "Your Song Saved My Life"; Bono & Edge’s surprise appearance in a Ukraine subway station turned bomb shelter; Bono's book and book tour. Songs of Surrender; the Disney+ documentary: A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman; U2 changing managers. The Sphere residency, the latest on Larry's illness, all the U2 projects in the pipeline; all the up to the minute news about the new album and tour & the just released 20th Anniversary "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" Deluxe Edition including the Shadow Album "How to Re-Assemble An Atomic Bomb."