Atomic Bomb Appreciation

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I'm a pretty big fan of Bomb, and haven't soured on it like some others. I don't think there's an awful track on there, which is more than I can say for the last few album.

But Edge's best? No fucking way. It's easily his least adventurous.

No way Bomb is less adventurous than Experience...

 

[Hewson]

No way Bomb is less adventurous than Experience...

Does Edge even use a guitar on SOE?

 

[Thesearethedays]

Does Edge even use a guitar on SOE?

Seriously? I think you need listen again. Lots of incredible guitar work. Not sure what album you're listening to.

 

[ImOuttaControl]

This thread inspired me to listen to the album for the first time in years. Aside from issues with the horrendous production (loudness wars), this really is a great collection of songs and I really enjoyed the listen. A few things that stood out:
- I hadn't listened to it for ages, but I'd love to hear LAPOE live again. I remember it as one of the highlights of the Vertigo Tour.
- It was refreshing to hear U2 not try to squeeze songs down to a 3 minute pop song which is one of my only complaints with the new record. Most of these songs had room to breathe and grow and don't feel rushed like many of their recent songs. I can imagine U2 of 2018 taking a song like City of Blinding Lights and cutting out the intro, cutting down the verses, cutting out the bridge and turning the song into a 3 minute and 15 second pop song.
- Years ago I tweaked the track listing and it actually gave the album some much needed cohesiveness This is how I've always listened to it:
1. Vertigo
2. All Because of You
3. Miracle Drug
4. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
5. One Step Closer
6. City Of Blinding Lights
7. Original of The Species
8. A Man And A Woman
9. Crumbs
10. Love and Peace or Else
11. Yahweh

This running order, particularly songs 3-8, feels like there is a narrative taking place regarding the death of Bono's father. The hope for a Miracle Drug (I know the song is not about his father, but it makes sense), the grief of loss with Sometimes and One Step Closer, and a sort of return to innocence and life with COBL, OOTS and AMAAW. This track listing turns a collection of songs into an actual album for me.

-The omission of Mercy and Xanax and Wine is criminal. I do like Fast Cars, especially the Jacknife Lee version also, but prefer Xanax.

 

[AtomicHorizon]

This thread inspired me to listen to the album for the first time in years. Aside from issues with the horrendous production (loudness wars), this really is a great collection of songs and I really enjoyed the listen. A few things that stood out:
- I hadn't listened to it for ages, but I'd love to hear LAPOE live again. I remember it as one of the highlights of the Vertigo Tour.
- It was refreshing to hear U2 not try to squeeze songs down to a 3 minute pop song which is one of my only complaints with the new record. Most of these songs had room to breathe and grow and don't feel rushed like many of their recent songs. I can imagine U2 of 2018 taking a song like City of Blinding Lights and cutting out the intro, cutting down the verses, cutting out the bridge and turning the song into a 3 minute and 15 second pop song.
- Years ago I tweaked the track listing and it actually gave the album some much needed cohesiveness This is how I've always listened to it:
1. Vertigo
2. All Because of You
3. Miracle Drug
4. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
5. One Step Closer
6. City Of Blinding Lights
7. Original of The Species
8. A Man And A Woman
9. Crumbs
10. Love and Peace or Else
11. Yahweh

This running order, particularly songs 3-8, feels like there is a narrative taking place regarding the death of Bono's father. The hope for a Miracle Drug (I know the song is not about his father, but it makes sense), the grief of loss with Sometimes and One Step Closer, and a sort of return to innocence and life with COBL, OOTS and AMAAW. This track listing turns a collection of songs into an actual album for me.

-The omission of Mercy and Xanax and Wine is criminal. I do like Fast Cars, especially the Jacknife Lee version also, but prefer Xanax.

I agree with you. Also, you have a very good take on the tracklist. I tried to make an alternate tracklist that incorporates U2's original idea of starting from a place of doubt and fear and then ending with faith. Here is a tracklist I use to keep U2's themes for the album while changing things up.

1. Love and Peace
2. Vertigo
3. Fast Cars
4. Smile
5. Crumbs
6. Sometimes (103BPM version)
7. One Step Closer
8. City of Blinding Lights
9. All Because of You (Single Version)
10. Miracle Drug
11. Original of the Species
12. Mercy
13. Yahweh

Mercy and Yahweh can be flipped. A Man and a Woman is good but I preferred to have Smile, Mercy, and Fast Cars on the album.

 

[AtomicHorizon]

Another alternate take on the album without trying to keep to a specific theme:

Side 1
1. City of Blinding Lights
2. Vertigo
3. All Because of You (Single Version)
4. Original of the Species
5. Sometimes (103BPM version)
6. One Step Closer

Side 2
7. Love and Peace or Else
8. Xanax and Wine or Fast Cars (Depending on preference)
9. Smile
10. Crumbs
11. Miracle Drug
12. Mercy

 

[ImOuttaControl]

Mercy and Yahweh can be flipped. A Man and a Woman is good but I preferred to have Smile, Mercy, and Fast Cars on the album.

Ahh, I forgot about Smile. Great song.

 

[AtomicHorizon]

Ahh, I forgot about Smile. Great song.

Yes, Smile is great! The Edge made a comment where he stated that they came upon Smile too late in the recording process. I think that means he did not have time to tinker with it and create 100 different versions. If that is the case, I am glad they released it as it is. It is really haunting and has great atmosphere.

Atomic Bomb, as Bono once said, is arguably their greatest collection of songs, but the album is not greater than the sum of its parts. A few tweaks to the running order and a few different mixes/mastering changes and the album would have been far greater than the released version. I am not complaining about the finished product, but I do prefer to make my own versions of the album which show me how strong the material from this album is.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Alternative tracklist

Bomb - as is
Mercy - in the shitter where it belongs

 

[Aygo]

My alternative HTDAAB playlist in my iPod over the past 4 years is:

1) Love And Peace Or Else
2) Vertigo
3) Miracle Drug
4) Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
5) One Step Closer
6) Fast Cars
7) All Because Of You
8) City Of Blinding Lights
9) Original Of The Species
10) Yahweh
11) Mercy

 

[georgemccauley]

Production wise this is the album I wanted U2 to release last year. Raw sounding hard hitting rock records. Adam says that what they have is "good little rock tunes" but they're not really rock are they.

Rock is on the Bomb album. Vertigo, Crumbs, All Because Of You.

That's what SOE was lacking, all four of them in the room together captured. I still like SOE though

 

[AtomicHorizon]

Alternative tracklist

Bomb - as is
Mercy - in the shitter where it belongs

Bomb as is works fine, but I thought you were a big Mercy Fan.
I can understand why you do not like the Mercy hype as being one of the the greatest things the band has ever done, but your level of hate for the song is baffling. What do you not like about the song, just curious?

 

[xtrmx]

When it came out I absolutely hated Vertigo (still do) and that videoclip, so at the time I didn't really appreciate it, although city of blinding lights and Miracle Drug were instantly among my favorite U2 songs. As time goes on however, it's my clear #1 album, even surpassing Achtung/POP etc for me, which used to be my #1 and #2 then.

On recent albums I dislike/don't care for at least half of the songs, but on Bomb there's only 2, which makes it the final album I really really loved, until it started going downhill, I miss the Edge's sound these days so badly, which is so prominent on this album. The chiming guitar

Helps that the DVD of Chicago 2005 has a great setlist, great SOUND (recent DVDs, especially 360, is unlistenable, feels really empty) and atmosphere, really adds to it for reliving that period.

Seriously? I think you need listen again. Lots of incredible guitar work. Not sure what album you're listening to.

On the 2nd part of the album I can hear great melodies in my head the Edge should be playing, or would've played if it was ~2003, but instead you either get silence, or a really low-volume guitar, it's like he wants to be invisible. It's just not the same, feels like a regular guitarist, not "da edge"

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

On the 2nd part of the album I can hear great melodies in my head the Edge should be playing, or would've played if it was ~2003, but instead you either get silence, or a really low-volume guitar, it's like he wants to be invisible. It's just not the same, feels like a regular guitarist, not "da edge"

I listened to Achtung Baby after listening to SOE and I completely agree. The lack of guitar in the songs is baffling. They’re trying to complement the songs with guitar rather than leading with guitar more so than ever. Edge is trying to “compliment the singer” but I want to hear him go the fuck off with some riffs! I listened to the fly and you really wonder is this the same fucking band?! This has been a complaint for quite some time from a few posters asking where edge disappeared to.

 

[Montrose]

This thread inspired me to listen to the album for the first time in years. Aside from issues with the horrendous production (loudness wars), this really is a great collection of songs and I really enjoyed the listen. A few things that stood out:
- I hadn't listened to it for ages, but I'd love to hear LAPOE live again. I remember it as one of the highlights of the Vertigo Tour.
- It was refreshing to hear U2 not try to squeeze songs down to a 3 minute pop song which is one of my only complaints with the new record. Most of these songs had room to breathe and grow and don't feel rushed like many of their recent songs. I can imagine U2 of 2018 taking a song like City of Blinding Lights and cutting out the intro, cutting down the verses, cutting out the bridge and turning the song into a 3 minute and 15 second pop song.

They kinda did this anyhow. The single version of CoBL is shorter than the album version, and has some parts chopped out.

From Wikipedia:

Length
5:47 (album)
4:11 (single)

Not that I minded too much - that song had enough meat to it that a little trimming here and there left the song pretty much intact, and in possession of its original 'feel'. I still prefer the unedited version, and almost always like the album vs the single version of songs.

I think for SOE there was a conscious decision to get each track down to a 'single' length on the album simply because there's a lot more unpredictability with the band as to which songs will get 'airplay', if that's even a thing for them. Why spend time on 'radio edits' when there's less 'radio', and the band might be just trying to get a feel for which song will catch on or not? Keep it short on the album, let it stream, see which tunes get buzz, then worry about alternate edits.

That said, yeah - I wish some SOE songs were longer, because it would have been nice to inhabit them longer. Little Things is the main one - I can't believe it's actually as short as it is. This was a song meant to be 6-7 minutes in another age. I believe in the 'measure twice, cut once' idea that it's better to start with too much and cut back than to go the other way, and it applies to songs as well.

But all this reminds me of how much CoBL has become one of my all-time favorites. It was the last 'U2 trying to make another classic U2' song that felt natural, and it absolutely soars live.

 

[Hewson]

I listened to Achtung Baby after listening to SOE and I completely agree. The lack of guitar in the songs is baffling. They’re trying to complement the songs with guitar rather than leading with guitar more so than ever. Edge is trying to “compliment the singer” but I want to hear him go the fuck off with some riffs! I listened to the fly and you really wonder is this the same fucking band?! This has been a complaint for quite some time from a few posters asking where edge disappeared to.

Preach brother!

 

[Thesearethedays]

Let's just see what happens live