Tiger Edge
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
U2 is the featured article for today on Wikipedia. 
I can't wait to see what the trolls will update the page with.
I can't wait to see what the trolls will update the page with.
Congrats!
- Thread starter Tiger Edge
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
last unicorn
Blue Crack Addict
I think the article is pretty decent, but there isn't enough about the new album and the upcoming tour.
mikal
Blue Crack Addict
i hate u2 cuz bono uses africa to make his own career better and hes egotestical about everything and they rip off coldplay!!!!!11111
zooropop40
Refugee
ya and da edge onlee plays like 1 note per song...like he should def learn to play solos like that guy from nickelback before i listen. and all da songs sound the same, i mean ive only heard 2 of their songs but i know they must all be like that. lulz. yea. u2 suckz. and bono suckz too.
OP
OP
Tiger Edge
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
Compliment? I think so!
AtomicBono
ONE love, blood, life
everything in the article is really well-cited
i like it
go U2 go
i like it
go U2 go
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
I found this out yesterday when I went there to look up something unrelated to u2, and there they were on the front page. I felt like someone must be spying on me. 
Galeongirl
Galeonbroad
Ah, so U2 are big then? 
nice.
nice.
Lila64
Blue Crack Distributor
I found this out yesterday when I went there to look up something unrelated to u2, and there they were on the front page. I felt like someone must be spying on me.
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
derrick_rossign
Acrobat
This may sound ridiculous (it does a little to me), but could this possibly boost record sales for NLOTH? A lot of people use Wikipedia, and them being the feature article is probably reminding people that U2 does, in fact, still exist.
last unicorn
Blue Crack Addict
Ah, so U2 are big then?
Yeah, I didn't know that either.
alanah
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
eviltwin
The Fly
Superman gets a mention, but A Clockwork Orange is missing
I think the entire lay-out (segmentation in trios) is OR. It misses the Euro/USA/Euro/USA rhythm of albums and songs.
I also hate it when they throw the term "techno" around when it should be dance music, electronica, electro-pop or even hip-hop.
Lastly, I think the influence of some bands, like Joy Division or the Ramones, is overstated, while others are left out:
Bowie, Roxy Music, the Jam, the Skids (stuart adamson), the Police (watch the ceremonial passing of the torch on youtube)
I think the entire lay-out (segmentation in trios) is OR. It misses the Euro/USA/Euro/USA rhythm of albums and songs.
I also hate it when they throw the term "techno" around when it should be dance music, electronica, electro-pop or even hip-hop.
Lastly, I think the influence of some bands, like Joy Division or the Ramones, is overstated, while others are left out:
Bowie, Roxy Music, the Jam, the Skids (stuart adamson), the Police (watch the ceremonial passing of the torch on youtube)
Good points by EvilTwin. Those early-mid-70s bands influenced U2 a lot -- including Bowie and The Police (late 70s), and let's not forget the Stones!
It's one of those things. Bands don't like to admit that big groups influenced them. If they're asked who influenced them, they'll say, "Well, The Velvet Underground, Nitzer Eb, Ultravox B-sides, obscure punk bands, and a rare bootleg of John Lennon farting in the Dakota!" No one is honest and answers, "Well, I was largely influenced by pop radio, The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, The Police, and U2."
It's one of those things. Bands don't like to admit that big groups influenced them. If they're asked who influenced them, they'll say, "Well, The Velvet Underground, Nitzer Eb, Ultravox B-sides, obscure punk bands, and a rare bootleg of John Lennon farting in the Dakota!" No one is honest and answers, "Well, I was largely influenced by pop radio, The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, The Police, and U2."
eviltwin
The Fly
Why should it? Those albums got great reviews, sold well, spawned lucrative tours and are generally well liked.
I personally think the article is slightly skewed by using terms like "mixed reception", just because someone somewhere managed to dig up a less than favourable review in a sea of positive ones.
Take this one from Rolling Stone (4of5stars):
It gets offset by a single review (written 7years later!) probably by someone shilling his own website, but even that review praises "Pop".
Also the fact that the band would later be critical of their own work (usually related to the fact that they would've liked to have had more time) means nothing. That's just part of the process of artistic growth.
Incidentally Howard Bernstein gets no mention in the main U2 article, neither does Flood.
believer75
War Child
U2 was honest about who influenced them. They made a whole movie about it. Some critics did not appreciate their honesty even then.
eviltwin
The Fly
R&H is not really about who influenced them, but about them uncovering artists and styles they missed (or dismissed) while growing up. It also shows them going to the source.
So rather than show Bowie there is Elvis, no Patti Smith but Billie Holiday, Dylan in stead of Lou Reed, etc.
It wasn't until Pop that they started to admit to the Abba and Monkees influence.
Window in the Skies video comes to mind as well...
Outside of U2-fandom, Pop is almost always seen as their biggest failure. The initial reviews were solid, but the PopMart Tour was a commercial disaster, and the fifth leg of the ZooTV Tour had a very hard time selling tickets, too. There were only 30,000 people or so in Adelaide, for instance.
believer75
War Child
R&H is not really about who influenced them, but about them uncovering artists and styles they missed (or dismissed) while growing up. It also shows them going to the source.
So rather than show Bowie there is Elvis, no Patti Smith but Billie Holiday, Dylan in stead of Lou Reed, etc.
It wasn't until Pop that they started to admit to the Abba and Monkees influence.
Window in the Skies video comes to mind as well...
I can see that point but, they DO mention and play The Beatles and Larry does talk about how the Elvis films did influence him as a child. Bono has mentioned many times how Lennon was a big influence on him as a child. So, I do not think U2 only discovered The Beatles or Elvis during the Rattle and Hum era. Plus, you have the Stones and Van Morrison snippets in Bad. The American sounds and those artists you mention did influence the songs on that album. MLK, although not a musical artist, is another influence that they reference in the film. The way I saw it, they talked about their present and past influences in that film and with the songs on the album. And, they were very honest about it all and not hiding who influenced them past or present.
And don't forget the Diamond (Neil that is) during Pop era
Vlad n U 2
Blue Crack Addict
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2008
- Messages
- 28,386
A few weeks ago or so I checked on the U2 wiki page and I discovered that U2 had an Australia xylophone player.
THIS MEANS WAR!!! I'll even spam the Coldplay page if I have to.
THIS MEANS WAR!!! I'll even spam the Coldplay page if I have to.
The Sad Punk
Blue Crack Addict
I don't doubt it, but you couldn't fit much more than 30,000 in Football Park at that time.
But I think the Brisbane show only had about 20,000 or something, so yeah.
eviltwin
The Fly
I don't know why you're saying that, it got 4/5 stars from Rolling Stone upon release and the 2007 DVD 4of4. That says something about its endurance and relevance.
Pop (7M) and Zooropa (7,5M) sold about as many copies as War (9,5) or TUF (8million) So relative to their own biggest successes (JT/28M, AB/18M) they may not have been commercial killers, but still very respectable. Also realise that millions of people bought tickets to see PopMart.
U2 presold the rights for $100Million, so they took no commercial risk. For them it was a commercial success from the get-go.
The promotor arguably made a large profit as well, there seems to be some wiki discussion about this, but let's do the math:
94 shows:
@ $35, 35k attendees = $115Million gross/3.3Million attendees
@ $45, 45k att avg. = $190M gross/4.2M
@ $50, 50k att avg. = $235M gross/4.7M
@ $55, 55k = $284M/5.2M
costs were quoted @ $250k/day = $87M (April07-March08)
The promotor would've required roughly 45.000 attendees, $45pp to break even, and he expected to gross $260M. (~50/55k)
I'm pretty confident they got there, considering the 150.000 concert in Italy, or 100.000 in Rio for example. Don't underestimate T-shirt and food sales, TV rights, either.
My best guess would be 60.000avg, $45pp = $253M/5.6M
...44k and 35k at Melbourne Cricket Ground, even that leg of the tour would probably still have been profitable. Once you get revenue over $1M it's usually worth it, but it might explain why they chose to do a single PopMart show at Waverly Park (35.000).
Not Rattle and Hum ?
I already acknowledged that RS liked Pop (rightfully, although it deserved 5/5), and the latter is PopMart, not Pop. But RS doesn't necessarily determine commercial viability - didn't they rank TV On The Radio's album from last year as the best of the year?
But much less than Achtung and ATYCLB, the albums surrounding them. And in lopsided ways (Pop was decent in Europe, not so much in America). In the mainstream mind, at least here in America (not sure about the rest of the world, I don't live there), Pop is almost universally considered U2's worst album. It's pretty sad.
There were good shows and terrible shows. There were 100,000+ shows, but they was rare. Many of the German shows had under 20,000 people in them, and the US wasn't much better. Only a very few shows in the US would have a hope of 45,000+ people (one Chicago night, one or two New York nights, maybe Boston, probably Los Angeles). I believe they played to 19,000 in Denver, though, for instance.
One 35,000-person show? That's pretty bad.
Cactus Annie
Refugee
Wikepedia is both really good and really shit at the same time. It has some way to go before it can officially be considered internet's true version of the encyclopedia because some of the "facts" you find of there are way of the mark. I read on their once that Mariah Carrey had an 8 octave range! Yeah right so you're telling me that she can sing every note of a full sized piano and sing lower than Barry White can she? 
Can she really sing as low as a man? I heard the range was more closer to 4.1 but then she has a lighter voice. Maria Callis was an opera singer but her maximum range for her voice was 3 octaves but then she had a heavy voice. I find Mariah's voice to light for me.
There's a brand of toothpaste that claims to keep on fighting against plaque between brushings, do people people believe that as well?
And people say I'm gullible
Can she really sing as low as a man? I heard the range was more closer to 4.1 but then she has a lighter voice. Maria Callis was an opera singer but her maximum range for her voice was 3 octaves but then she had a heavy voice. I find Mariah's voice to light for me. There's a brand of toothpaste that claims to keep on fighting against plaque between brushings, do people people believe that as well?
And people say I'm gullible
eviltwin
The Fly
Rattle and Hum was huge, critically and commercially. Biggest single pressing of CD's ever. Even if the movie was considered a bit superfluous, it was accepted as a way to allow people to see the band, who couldn't get tickets (no US tour, much smaller venues in Europe) and a glimpse into their artistic life. It was compared to seminal musical movies such as The Last Waltz, and although it didn't surpass those it was still appreciated.
You have to realise that 60s retro revival shit was huge in the late 80s early 90s (case in point: the 1991 Doors movie)
It's only much later that (a new generation of) journos got queezy and started to spin things the other way, at the time praise for R&H was universal. What the people or critics try to spin things into five years on or twenty years on is irrelevant.
The most relevant bands of the early nineties (Nirvana, Pearl Jam etc.) can directly be linked to that revival, through Led Zep, Hendrix or the Stooges.
What you're basically saying is that most people are idiots, we already knew that. There are people, even here, who seriously do not understand concepts like irony, satire, pastiches, homage and try to take everything at face value or literally. There are dozens of threads here that prove it.
But saying "universally" is just plain wrong; you are ignoring the facts: critics appreciated it, nine million people bought it, millions saw the shows, who knows how many illegal downloads. If that's the worst U2 can do...I'm pretty sure 99,99% of all bands would sign up for that.
If people want to denounce it ten years on, for whatever reason, go ahead, but equally, there are people REappreciating it. Such as Bono himself.
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