A day-by-day history of U2, now in its second edition.

Frustration sets in…

By on November 26, 2007 in Researching with 4 Comments

I’m barely an hour into the discography-type research to make sure I have all the releases in the book, all the release dates correct, and so forth … and now this:

Aaron, whom I trust implicitly, says October was released on October 20, 1981.

U2.com says it was released in September, 1981 (see red text at top), then says “summer of 1981” further down the page.

In my manuscript, I have October being released on October 12, 1981 — but I have no notes about where that date came from.

Sigh.

Have I mentioned how frustrating this research can be sometimes?

Update!

I figured out why I have October 12 in the manuscript already. Have a look at this scan from the clippings book U2 did covering 1979-1983:

October release date

Whew! Nice save….

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There Are 4 Brilliant Comments

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  1. u2search says:

    Don’t forget there can be different release dates for different countries and for different versions of an album. There were 3 or 4 dates for the Popmart DVD release alone. For the Joshua Tree 20th Anniversary I have seen at least 4 different dates ranging from 19 November to 17 December, plus a different date for the vinyl version.

    I think I’d better not mention singles? 😉

    So good luck!

  2. Matt says:

    That’s true, but the different dates thing wasn’t nearly as prevalent back in the early ’80s. It happened with BOY, actually, but October was released at the same time worldwide so I’ll stick with this date and call it good. 🙂

  3. Claudia says:

    I would not trust the U2.com website for historical facts, it has a ton of errors

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