U2 hits CD boasts new song, punk rock cover

NEW YORK - A new song and a cover of Scottish punk band the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming" with Green Day will be found on a U2 compilation due next month.

The as-yet-untitled Interscope Records set, which will also be available in a deluxe edition, will feature "16 of U2's best-songs," according to the band's website.

Both the new song and the Skids cover were recorded last month at London's Abbey Road Studio with producer Rick Rubin, who had long dreamed of adding U2 to a long list of such clients as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Johnny Cash and Slayer.

U2 and Green Day debuted the cover live last week at the re-opening of the New Orleans Superdome; it is available for download exclusively until October 30 in the US only via Rhapsody, after which point it will hit additional download retailers. A CD single will follow on November 6.

U2's most recent compilation, "The Best Of 1990-2000," was released in December 2002 and included material up through the 2000 album "All That You Can't Leave Behind."

The band will resume its Vertigo world tour November 7 in Brisbane, Australia, playing dates that were postponed earlier this year due to an illness in the U2 camp. U2 play two shows in Auckland on November 24 and 25.

- REUTERS/Billboard