U2 album, tour plans pushed back to 2015

This post has been updated. Please see note below for details.

You might have thought everything was building toward a new U2 album and tour this year after the group’s performances at the Academy Awards and on the first episode of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” its Super Bowl commercial and other recent high-profile appearances.

But now Billboard reports that the new album with which U2 has been working with producer Danger Mouse won’t be ready until 2015, and therefore touring plans are also being pushed back.

“It seems to be taking longer for them to finish an album as they get older, but the great thing about U2 is that the whole of a record is always better than the sum of its parts,” Billboard quotes a source close to the project. “That magic that the band always seems to capture ... they have yet to capture it.”

GRAPHIC: Times music staff best of 2013 list

The group reportedly also has scheduled more recording sessions with producers Ryan Tedder and Paul Epworth, although Danger Mouse remains the album’s central producer.

In December, the band members indicated to The Times that they were targeting the new album for an April release. But technically, this development doesn’t qualify as a postponement, because a firm release date was never announced by the group or its label, Interscope Records.

The group took home a Golden Globe award for best original song for “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,” and on Super Bowl Sunday released its latest single, “Invisible.”

Update March 10 at 10:43 a.m.: An earlier edition of this post listed the title of Jimmy Fallon’s show as “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.” It is “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

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U2 talks new album

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U2 manager Paul McGuinness turning reins over to Guy Oseary

Follow Randy Lewis on Twitter: @RandyLewis2