U2 Band • Page 9

NLOTH has "Moment of Surrender" and "Breathe" tho!

 

make it make sense

 

Rattle and Hum is such a mixture. Some of their absolute best songs. And...some other stuff.

 

to that album's credit, it has Bono on absolute peak form. "Hawkmoon" might be his best vocal of all time

 

Thanks all!

I'm not pretending to know what I'm talking about, really just offering first impressions. Look forward to diving into each album more. Except maybe October. That one was a slog. I didn't even like Gloria and that was supposed to be the good song.

 

And "Magnificent"

 

There is no doubt in my mind that there are probably a couple of different extremely solid albums you could make out of the dozens of songs the band recorded throughout all of the sessions for NLOTH, but the one they ultimately released was not one of them. When I try to listen to it it honestly feels like they were onto a pretty cool idea for an expansive and experimental (by their standards) album but they overthought what they were doing and balked and felt the need to slam a couple absolutely abysmal and utterly shitty attempts at radio singles into the middle of the album. A few of the singles from the album are embarrassingly bad. All of this coupled with the fact that they left songs that were as good as "Winter" and "Soon" and fucking "Mercy" off of the album just kills it for me.

No Line for me is an opening trio of solid songs completely derailed by an utterly embarrassing midsection of pure shit where the back half isn't strong enough to recover. Whereas both SOI & SOE are very solid albums where the band almost got out of their own way and just made good albums.

 

"Mercy" was left off Atomic Bomb if my memory serves, not No Line. I do fully agree that "Winter" could have made the album instead of "Boots" and "Stand Up Comedy" but I don't think I'd change anything about that album otherwise

"Mangificent" and "Crazy" are two of their best modern singles imo

 

I know "Mercy" was originally made during the Atomic Bomb sessions, but I remember at the time when they scrapped it they said it was going to be on the next album. And then they turfed it again to the as yet to materialize Songs of Ascent. It's an absolutely incredible song that would easily fit on pretty much any of their albums they've released in the last few years and it's far, far too good to languish away unheard, especially while they continue to release albums containing pretty pedestrian filler tracks.

I'm with you on "Magnificent" being great but you completely lose me with "Crazy". I think that song is embarrassingly bad.

 

No Line starts out incredibly strong and ends respectably, but yeah, that mid-section loses me. I also just think Bono had a lot more to say on Experience, which for me is the most lyrically dialed-in he's been in a long time.

 

Gloria on October is dull. Gloria on Under a Blood Red Sky is fire!

 

Thanks will have to try that version.

One thing that has stuck out to me is how closely Arcade Fire is following U2's trajectory. They quickly became renowned as this super epic, super serious band. And when they took that to its peak (Arcade Fire won a Grammy, U2 sold 10 billion records) they transitioned to a more electro/dance sound. Then to keep that sound going they started trying really hard to shake the 'self-serious' tag. U2 arguably took it one record too far with Pop, wonder if Arcade Fire will go 'back to basics' All That You Can't Leave Behind style next.

 

You've hit on the widely touted theory that the next Arcade Fire record will be their All That You Can't Leave Behind move.

 

"Crazy" is just a great pop song, idk folks. it's nothing exceptional but it could easily slide into ATYCLB and that in itself is pretty sweet

also the best song on October is "Tomorrow", probably one of my favourites from the first decade of U2

 

Idk if i necessarily dislike “Crazy” on its own. I don’t even dislike “Boots.” I just don’t think those songs fit at all with what the rest of that album is doing. It’s a jarring shift back into their modern pop sound from an album that on the whole seems to tilt more toward their ‘80s direction.

 

Yeah I figured I wasn't the first person to think that. It seems so obvious. I was up to zooropa and pop when the suburbs 10 year pieces about the suburbs came out (yours being one of the best). And it was just so obvious.

 

Thanks!

Yeah, I'm hoping it's a return-to-form. I don't think they've worn the dance/pop/irony stage as well as U2 did.

 

Thanks!

Yeah, I'm hoping it's a return-to-form. I don't think they've worn the dance/pop/irony stage as well as U2 did.

 

Agreed. The reason the U2 'comeback' album worked is because the songs were really strong. I think Arcade Fire has enough residual goodwill to get critics back on board with the right record.

As for U2, revisiting War at present. It's making me think about how post-punk in the UK skewed atmospheric (sometimes noisy) pop rock, whereas in the US it skewed more aggressive (usually noisy). It makes sense that the UK 80s indie wave led to Britpop whilst US 80s indie led to grunge. It's not that simple of course but I think it's fair to generalise and draw those lines for the most part.
One other impact those diverging indie sounds had: Euro bands became legitimately huge -- U2, The Cure, The Smiths. I feel like in Australia at least even people with no interest in music know those bands (maybe not The Smiths but I included them because they went to number one in the UK several times). Whereas I don't think the average person would know a note of music by, say, Pixies or the Sonic Youth. Those bands got big but kind of in an indie way, not a global mainstream way it seems. The exception would be REM who, more than any other major US indie band, carried a jangle-pop sound more like what was popular in Europe.

 

Ready for a hot take:

Everything Now has more memorable melodies/songs on it than U2 managed in their dance/pop stage.

 

That’s certainly a take.

Are you including Achtung Baby in that? If so, I think you’re insane. If not, I still strongly disagree. I’m not the biggest fan of Zooropa or Pop, but I absolutely think they’re packed with interesting left turns and unexpected ear worms. I’m surprised how often I find myself humming “Last Night on Earth,” for instance.

Comparatively, I think there are maybe 2.5 good songs across Everything Now, and even those don’t reach the heights that any of their other albums do. I think that album is so off-puttingly cynical and so self-conscious, and I really can’t recall any of the melodies off the top of my head. I think my biggest complaint at the time was that it was forgettable and lacking in any of the musical urgency they’d excelled at previously. Even Reflektor, an album I do not like, has a lot more engaging musical ideas.

So yeah, I can’t agree with you on this one, Chris!

 

"Last Night on Earth"'s hook is insanely good considering Bono literally just improvised it on the last day of recording. king

 

I actually wasn't putting Achtung in there. I guess you could though. But it feels more like a bridge record for me.

And I think the thing that lets me like Everything Now that makes people hate it is...I share a lot of their cynicism about how modern society interacts with tech, etc.

 

I wrote about All That You Can't Leave Behind, which came out 20 years ago tomorrow.

U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind

 

Damn you, Craig - I don't want to admit what I was doing when this album came out when you phrase it that way. Only kidding though, I look forward to reading this.

 

Tell me about it. I was a few weeks out from my 10th birthday when this album came out. Haha