Thought of the day

[CosmoKramer]

Since I see all these "rate the song" threads, I figure its been really slow around here, so I wanted to share a thought.

It was around this time in 2009 that I started counting down the days until NLOTH. I was trying like hell to avoid listening to the "samples" out there and any leaks that popped up on this forum or the next (I did really well btw).

I remember coming here 2-3x a day and reading reviews from some of you who heard the album, a track from the album. Hell, I was loving people who were posting reviews from a friend of a friend about each track.

The daily anticipation was so intense that I caved here and there and listed to parts (just a few seconds) of the samples that leaked from Amazon (the australian site).

This was the first album that I reserved from iTunes and I remember being worried that it wasn't going to work. At about 11:45 PM on 3/2/09, I was at my computer and I saw the tracks start to download automatically and I was so excited. I remember listening to them and writing down my first impressions and "ratings". I can remember thinking Magnificent was as great as the clips I heard, that IGCIIDGCT was good but Bono's voice cracking TWICE in the song killed it for me and I remember how surprised I was about Breathe (I loved it!).

Im writing this because I realize that this was 3 years ago! I can't believe that the time has flown by like this. The month leading up to the album felt like a lifetime and yet in the blink of an eye I am sitting here on February 11th, 2012. Scary to think about it.

Anyway, I hope that I have the same excitement and anticipation for U2's next album. Im pretty sure that I will but with the lack of U2 news, I haven't really been thinking about them all that much. Thanks for listening!

 

[j72]

enjoyed reading about your exccitement regarding the nloth album. writing this as i feed my baby daughter so please excuse clumsiness of presentation.

i guess i have two questions now, how do you and maybe other folk feel abot the album three years on???

Secondly as a newbie to this forum i think the rate the song thing is a great idea and obviously fits in with this location on the forum.

However i do agree with you thai it does seem to slow and possibly smother new posts and thoughts coming through. This is not meant to annoy as clearly it is popular and a good thing but sometmes it seems a bit formulaic ans dominant.

Is there a compromise to be possibly struck?

 

[digitize]

Your experience was a lot like mine... I miss those days.

 

[Galeongirl]

I definitely shared your excitement for the album release. It was very hard not to cave into temptation and download it like lots of people did, but I managed to hold out and the reward was even bigger when I got my hands on the cd and loved nearly every track.

Can hardly believe it's been 3 years already. Still love the album, it's not lost its strength on me.

 

[theedgeu2]

I remember when 30 second previews of NLOTH leaked on WalMart.com. I went to a friend's birthday party and then out with my folks afterwards the night the previews leaked (was February 17, 2009 if I remember right). I remember I was on my phone on atu2.com checking every minute for any news I could get. Then I saw the update that 30 sec previews were up on WalMart.com and I was chomping at the bit to get home. I didn't have my license yet so I couldn't just go home. Once we finally got home I went to the computer immediately and previewed each track. I remember Magnificent seemed to me like a surging anthem and I just knew I was gonna love it; I just knew it was gonna be a big hit. I remember even singing along to what 30 seconds I could hear. I followed the album like a nutcase since it was my first time following a new U2 album release (I became a fan midway through the Vertigo tour). Checked atu2 every chance I could. Man, 3 years really has flown by. I remember downloading GOYB when I pre-ordered NLOTH. I remember the day the album came out cos' it had snowed and our school was delayed by 2 hours, so I began downloading and listening to what I could before I had to leave for school. I was dying to get home! Thanks to this thread I've rediscovered some old memories (and made a helluva long post ).

 

[CosmoKramer]

enjoyed reading about your exccitement regarding the nloth album. writing this as i feed my baby daughter so please excuse clumsiness of presentation.

i guess i have two questions now, how do you and maybe other folk feel abot the album three years on???

Well, I have experienced 4 "real time releases" as I like to call them. POP, ATYCLB & HTDAAB I like more now then when they were released ( I LOVE HTDAAB). However, NLOTH hasn't held up for me and I don't like it as much as when it was released. It pains me to say that but it is the truth. Breathe, Magnificent, MOS are awesome songs but each of the rest of the songs are like being in a car and pushing down on the gas trying to get up a hill but you just don't make it. UC is a cool concept but lyrically they could have done so much better (there is a clip on YouTube of them playing UC in Morocco during the recording sessions and the lyrics are perfect and I connect with them unlike the final cut). GOYB & SUC have a great sound to them but again, the lyrics fail to connect with me.

To give you an example, when I first heard One Step Closer, I dismissed it as a bland song and kept going to the rockers for a listen. A few years later I red a story about the song and how Noel Gallagher of Oasis was with him either while his father was dying or after, and said "I guess he's one step closer to knowing" (i.e. knowing what is really out there) and at that moment.....POW. I listen to that song now and it resonates with me, I get the lyrics and can get emotionally connected to the song. I consider it a hidden treasure in U2's collection.

With that said, I don't think any back story could make GOYB or SUC hit me like that, the lyrics are too.....off/out there. One last thing, I really like I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight, but the two voice cracks in the song kill it for me.

 

[CosmoKramer]

I remember when 30 second previews of NLOTH leaked on WalMart.com. I went to a friend's birthday party and then out with my folks afterwards the night the previews leaked (was February 17, 2009 if I remember right). I remember I was on my phone on atu2.com checking every minute for any news I could get. Then I saw the update that 30 sec previews were up on WalMart.com and I was chomping at the bit to get home. I didn't have my license yet so I couldn't just go home. Once we finally got home I went to the computer immediately and previewed each track. I remember Magnificent seemed to me like a surging anthem and I just knew I was gonna love it; I just knew it was gonna be a big hit. I remember even singing along to what 30 seconds I could hear. I followed the album like a nutcase since it was my first time following a new U2 album release (I became a fan midway through the Vertigo tour). Checked atu2 every chance I could. Man, 3 years really has flown by. I remember downloading GOYB when I pre-ordered NLOTH. I remember the day the album came out cos' it had snowed and our school was delayed by 2 hours, so I began downloading and listening to what I could before I had to leave for school. I was dying to get home! Thanks to this thread I've rediscovered some old memories (and made a helluva long post ).

Before your "U2" time, in 2001 U2.com released 30 second clips of ATYCLB. This was before iTunes or online music really took off and was very out of the ordinary for U2. I remember hearing the clip for Walk On and I almost passed out at how cool it sounded....keep in mind that U2 were going down a very un-U2 like path with Zooropa & POP, so I was expecting more experimental stuff and Walk On sounded/sounds like it could have been on the JT.

On a side note, I was heading back to college when Beautiful Day was released to radio and I downloaded the song from my computer. It was an awful sounding version and it took me about 15 min to download (the good old days of dial up). I remember thinking, WTF, this is crap. Then when the album came out and I heard it properly ( I went to the record shop at midnight to buy it....something I am afraid will never happen again) and I realized how epic it really was.