If U2 produced their own album?

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Edge did a lot of production on Zooropa, I think. I think much of the problem might stem from Bono's lack of musicality. Unlike Thom Yorke or Robert Smith who do so much, Bono is less creative, I think. Edge has to do so much already. Still, I think it's possible, but I really don't know.
 
But what would it sound like? Would be a basic, clean sound? Punkier? Acoustic? Electronic? What role does the Edge play in deciding the musical direction of every album? What do you think?

As an aside, I think their best song and best sound in recent years was "Window in the Skies". Why didn´t they work more with Rick Rubin I wonder?
 
U2 has few songs (b-sides, unreleased) that they have produced - the covers from the 1989 sessions, for instance.

It'd be stipped and clean sound, but there's no garantee that it'd be bad.
 
EdgI think much of the problem might stem from Bono's lack of musicality. Unlike Thom Yorke or Robert Smith who do so much, Bono is less creative, I think.

May of been true back in the day. I don't think he's a virtuoso by any means but I think he's grown a lot and done a lot to learn more about theory and what not... And I'm not sure what you base the "less creative" bit on...
 
I'd say Bono is actually the most creative in the band.

Creativity, on the other hand, doesn't have much to do with production skills.
 
I think much of the problem might stem from Bono's lack of musicality.

According to Flanagan's book, McGuiness is quoted as saying that under traditional songwriting structures 50% of a song's royalty is lyrics, the other 50% music. Bono writes the lyrics (though that has changed some over the past few years), and "certainly writes at least 25% of the music." So there you go.

I agree that the album would probably be talked to death before it would see the light of day. U2 function as a democracy -- someone has to wear the black hat, and usually that person is the producer...which is why they regularly drive such people batty. (Nellee Hooper, Chris Thomas, even Eno & Lanois on occasion.)
 
It'd be very uninspired. The band needs to sort of be lead in different directions by a producer. It is those little 'experiments' that often make up the best moments of the album. Without a producer they wouldn't know what to do with all these peices. I also agree it would never get finished because the band needs to be convinced of the quality of their material.
 
Edge did a lot of production on Zooropa, I think. I think much of the problem might stem from Bono's lack of musicality. Unlike Thom Yorke or Robert Smith who do so much, Bono is less creative, I think. Edge has to do so much already. Still, I think it's possible, but I really don't know.

what on earth are you talking about...what do you mean "Bono is less creative" ??? First of all, that has almost nothing to do with U2 producing their own album, which is the topic of the thread. And, contrary to what you think, Bono probably adds as much if not more to any given song than Edge does during the song writing process...But that's just looking at things logically...this is really only an assumption on my part as nobody outside the U2 camp knows. Seriously though, you don't know shit about "Bono's lack of musicality"...have you been in the studio with them for the past 3 years? You have absolutely no idea, sorry. :rolleyes:
 
I think, ironically, that if U2 produced an album themselves, it would come out sounding a lot more like their influences and a lot less like U2.
 
what on earth are you talking about...what do you mean "Bono is less creative" ??? First of all, that has almost nothing to do with U2 producing their own album, which is the topic of the thread. And, contrary to what you think, Bono probably adds as much if not more to any given song than Edge does during the song writing process...But that's just looking at things logically...this is really only an assumption on my part as nobody outside the U2 camp knows. Seriously though, you don't know shit about "Bono's lack of musicality"...have you been in the studio with them for the past 3 years? You have absolutely no idea, sorry. :rolleyes:

1st: there is no need to be a dick when an opposing view is presented

2nd: learn how to understand what you read. he posted "Unlike Thom Yorke or Robert Smith who do so much, Bono is less creative"

it was a comparative comment based on we do know about these 3 artists'.
 
1st: there is no need to be a dick when an opposing view is presented

2nd: learn how to understand what you read. he posted "Unlike Thom Yorke or Robert Smith who do so much, Bono is less creative"

it was a comparative comment based on we do know about these 3 artists'.

1st: Unfortunately, that's probably impossible for some (most) of the more rabid fans here

2nd: You have a good point there.

3rd: If U2 did produce their own album, it'd probably never get finished, no. Especially if they did it in this decade.
 
I suspect it would be a disaster.

producers excel in producing.

artists excel in performing.
 
I don't think there is any merit to Mudfeld comparing Bono to Robert Smith or Thom Yorke in terms of who creates what, I think it was a flawed premise to base an assertion that it would be Bono's fault that a U2 produced album wouldn't work. Robert Smith doesn't have The Edge writing with him either, so what? It's apples to oranges.
 
I suspect it would be a disaster.

producers excel in producing.

artists excel in performing.

Actually there are tons of artists that successfully produced their own albums. The thing though is that in a lot of cases they slowly learned the craft of production by co-producing an album first. Even when producing, most rely heavily on the engineers.
 
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