U2's second chance

[U2Soar]

Ozeeko: “This is a pretty brilliant idea, except that, and it's funny, even in this totally logical linear presentation...i still feel like CT and SUC sound out of place, haha.

I'm not even a huge fan of breathe, but i could see it working in that context, maybe right after Magnificent. The whole "i found grace inside a sound part" sounds cathartic in that context, like the character finally finds what he's looking for. Still tho, CT and SUC, to pin it down what irks me about the songs, i think is the feeling like it's not coming from a character. It's more of just Bono up on stage behind the podium making a would-be inspirational speech. I mean, CT was inspired by Obama's campaign for crying out loud. And SUC dabbles a lot in self-deprication (poorly executed) with Bono poking fun at himself. These to me seem like songs about Bono and what Bono thinks. Not what the character thinks, but about what Bono, the celebrity, the philanthropist, the singer of U2, thinks. That to me is the biggest reason why these songs sound out of place.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think MERCY would sound a lot better than those songs in this tracklisting. And I've never been a huge fan of that number!

If I was putting cutting this tracklist to disc, I'd probably even take off GOYB. Again, too many soundbytes. Too many lines that sound torn from the speechbook of Bono. And Window In The Skies, I'm not sure it works as a closing song. It wraps things up a little too neatly and easily, like a contrived Hollywood ending. I'm not sure there is a suitable ending.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ozeeko, I can see what you mean about CT, Boots, and SUC as giving the impression that they are too autobiographical, too much interjection of Bono into the story. And if the “middle three songs” do not work for you. No problem. There may be some songs that you feel could work better like, for example, as you suggest, the song Mercy. What other songs could go well in this homecoming, reconciliation and recovery, celebration section of the story? The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Levitate, Always, ……?

Another route could be making the story even darker?

The song Smile could further add to the breakdown of the relationship. The songs Stateless and One Step Closer could supply more background to this character leaving home. How he is wandering the streets lost and stumbling around intoxicated. How he is sinking deeper into despair.

Then we are off to the War Trilogy, leading to the Epiphany Trilogy, and ending with the Homecoming Trilogy.

1. No Line
2. Fast Cars (Jacknife Lee Version)
3. Disappearing Act
4. Smile
5. Stateless
6. One Step Closer
7. Winter
8. White As Snow
9. Cedars Of Lebanon
10. Moment Of Surrender
11. Unknown Caller
12. Fez / Being Born
13. Mercy
14. Magnificent
15. Breathe

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

im not wearing any underwear

 

[U2387]

Ozeeko: “This is a pretty brilliant idea, except that, and it's funny, even in this totally logical linear presentation...i still feel like CT and SUC sound out of place, haha.

I'm not even a huge fan of breathe, but i could see it working in that context, maybe right after Magnificent. The whole "i found grace inside a sound part" sounds cathartic in that context, like the character finally finds what he's looking for. Still tho, CT and SUC, to pin it down what irks me about the songs, i think is the feeling like it's not coming from a character. It's more of just Bono up on stage behind the podium making a would-be inspirational speech. I mean, CT was inspired by Obama's campaign for crying out loud. And SUC dabbles a lot in self-deprication (poorly executed) with Bono poking fun at himself. These to me seem like songs about Bono and what Bono thinks. Not what the character thinks, but about what Bono, the celebrity, the philanthropist, the singer of U2, thinks. That to me is the biggest reason why these songs sound out of place.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think MERCY would sound a lot better than those songs in this tracklisting. And I've never been a huge fan of that number!

If I was putting cutting this tracklist to disc, I'd probably even take off GOYB. Again, too many soundbytes. Too many lines that sound torn from the speechbook of Bono. And Window In The Skies, I'm not sure it works as a closing song. It wraps things up a little too neatly and easily, like a contrived Hollywood ending. I'm not sure there is a suitable ending.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ozeeko, I can see what you mean about CT, Boots, and SUC as giving the impression that they are too autobiographical, too much interjection of Bono into the story. And if the “middle three songs” do not work for you. No problem. There may be some songs that you feel could work better like, for example, as you suggest, the song Mercy. What other songs could go well in this homecoming, reconciliation and recovery, celebration section of the story? The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Levitate, Always, ……?

Another route could be making the story even darker?

The song Smile could further add to the breakdown of the relationship. The songs Stateless and One Step Closer could supply more background to this character leaving home. How he is wandering the streets lost and stumbling around intoxicated. How he is sinking deeper into despair.

Then we are off to the War Trilogy, leading to the Epiphany Trilogy, and ending with the Homecoming Trilogy.

1. No Line
2. Fast Cars (Jacknife Lee Version)
3. Disappearing Act
4. Smile
5. Stateless
6. One Step Closer
7. Winter
8. White As Snow
9. Cedars Of Lebanon
10. Moment Of Surrender
11. Unknown Caller
12. Fez / Being Born
13. Mercy
14. Magnificent
15. Breathe

I like this and the listing that keeps Crazy Boots and SUC.

Would work very well and would weave the story perfectly.

When looked at in this context, it really is amazing how many aspects of humanity U2's music can brilliantly portray.

It certainly seemed that this kind of coherent narrative was what they were seeking once upon a time in 07 or 08."unfolds over a day", daylight and darkness, even the Linear film.

 

[doctorwho]

im not wearing any underwear

You mean there's only a thin layer of cloth between the world and your...

 

[U2DMfan]

I think you've made a great post here, and I think this is a really good point which has been completely overlooked on this forum -- that NLOTH is one of the most compromised U2 albums ever.

I realize few people like HTAAB as much as I do, and I concur with the majority opinion that it was time to stretch their music more with last year's album -- in that sense, they almost got it right. But I do not support the opinion that NLOTH is a more "conceptual" or "more thematic" album than the two that precede it. If anything, it's their most calculated, compromised album since Rattle & Hum (which I actually prefer, but never mind).

The thing that was immediately obvious from first listening to NLOTH last year is that they had very carefully (over-)worked the tracks and the tracklisting (well, we know as fact that they cancelled the original version of the album to add some last-minute tinkerings) to try to cover all bases. That is, they knew they had to include some more out-there music, but they also wanted desperately to try to hold onto the mass audience they'd won (back) with the two previous albums. Not only this, but they spent longer doing it than on any other album in their history. The result is a typically good album (U2 are too talented and perfectionist to ever make a poor LP), but also their most overly-labored and compromised. The "labored" part I can forgive them for (they're almost 50 and have earned the right to take forever making albums -- the previous albums were also labored, too), but the compromised part is, for me, very disappointing.

Sorry dude, this is way off the mark.

U2 began recording what would end up as HTDAAB in December of 2001.
It was easily their most labored effort at 2.5 years in the studio.
NLOTH, for all intents and purposes took about a year and half or slightly more.

As far as being compromised, POP is admittedly (according to U2 themselves) unfinished. Yes, unfinished. You don't get much more compromised than that. HTDAAB is version 2.0 of an album they scrapped. You don't even have to go back much more than a decade to find TWO albums that are more compromised than NLOTH.

How on Earth is NLOTH more calculated than the two albums that preceded it?
Do you know why HTDAAB was delayed almost a year? It was the same reason NLOTH was delayed for six months. The band themselves describe ATYCLB as a pop album. Now, I'm not saying there aren't elements of this same calculation on NLOTH, but to claim it's more calculated is pretty silly, especially with a song in (essentially) it's initial form that sits on the album in the #3 slot. An album, with perhaps 3 or 4 exceptions, that has no obvious single material. The album that was eventually called ATYCLB was said to be a Beatles album, where every song could be a single. HTDAAB literally had about 6 singles on it and could have maybe had more. Proclamations of being the biggest band in the world, reworking Vertigo into a "scorching 45"...the laundry list of their calculation is LONG, trust me.

They hit Ctl-Alt-Del in September of 2003 because they had the same lack of songs (read:hits) that they felt they had 5 years later. One was a six month delay to try and find some radio hits (admitted calculation) and another was a totally rebooted album and a YEAR delay for the very same reason.

NLOTH is a calculated album because it's a U2 album. But if anything, IF ANYTHING, they loosened their neckties just a little bit. Just not enough. Which also means it is compromised but not anymore than what's previously mentioned.

 

[Saracene]

Yes, the middle act is jarring. It is different than acts one and three which seem to have much more in common with one another, but does that mean that it doesn't belong?

I tend to think that when something feels jarring it's pretty much an indication that it does not belong. There's a difference between an album that has variety and an album that simply has songs that feel out of place. Which is what the three middle songs on NLOTH feel like to me.

 

[phommel]

Well, then I disagree, and I'm completely sure U2 would too.

Well, maybe my choice of words did not reflect what I meant to say. Maybe it has smth to do with English not being my mother language. So I try to explain. When I said: "an "album" is not meant to be anything" I meant that an album is just a collection of related music tracks. It does not have to have only one sound or the tracks don't have to be cut from the same cloth, as you pointed out. But what I wanted to say is that it also doesn't have to be the opposite fom that.
I was referring to your comments:

An album is not meant to have only one sound

"Album" has never meant: "The songs all sound alike" or even "Are cut from the same cloth."

Who says what an album is meant to be? There is no definition of an album, other than that it is a collection of somehow related songs...It's what we or U2 wants an album to be.

My personal opinion if the three middle songs would not be on the album, what is left is not “one sound” or songs “cut from the same cloth”
Indeed, the middle 3 songs belong there, cause U2 put them there. And I like your analysis of SUC! I never looked at it that way. Still, my own opinion is that the flow of the album is interrupted by this middle section. Still a magnificient album imo, but this interruption makes it an album just below JT/AB.

 

[bram]

I agree with you (U2DMfan) that NLOTH is probably less 'compromised' in the sense you're describing. But the difference between HTDAAB and NLOTH is that the former was unabashedly about big sound, big hit calculation (I don't mean this pejoratively), while the latter was initially an African jam session with no goals, no boundaries, no limitations, no stresses. So when U2 reintroduced those hit song elements in the studio in late 2008/early 2009, it's more noticeable than with the type of 'compromise' you're talking about on HTDAAB. To be clear, I agree with your analysis--I just think that the definition of 'compromise' is not necessarily being used the same way by everyone here. I don't think one could suggest that CT or SUC would be jarring or out of place on HTDAAB, but plenty of people feel that way about them (one or both) on NLOTH.

So in one sense, I think you're right to suggest HTDAAB is more compromised than NLOTH (i.e. when you consider the excruciating process of getting the album where they wanted). But in another sense, HTDAAB is a very 'pure' record--it has, top to bottom, the most conventional songs of any U2 album. One sense has more to do with the process, the other has more to do with the outcome. The compromise may have been small on NLOTH, but this makes it more noticeable. If you compromise with an entire album, the compromise becomes invisible. I don't mean to suggest too much about either of these albums (i.e. I think 'compromise' is a pretty strong word or even the wrong word here), but I think the general point stands.

(For the record, I think NLOTH is a superior album--and by a good margin. There's probably only one track on HTDAAB that I'd put up with the best 5 or 6 from NLOTH).

 

[65980]

Good post, Bram. I agree that U2MDFan is perhaps using a different criterion for the word "compromise".

What I meant by compromised is "compromised artistically".

Where I part opinions with some of you is that some people think "commercially accessible" or "trad.rock sound" = compromised artistically, but I don't think that at all.

In other words, on HTDAAB, they seemed set on delivering some rockin' tunes, painted with thick lines and broad strokes, and in a hard-hitting, straightforward, post-punk pop/rock style -- and that is exactly what they delivered.

Whereas, I think (we can't really be sure) on NLOTH, they bounced from idea to idea, from concept to concept (not to mention country to country), and ended up taking bits and pieces of each tone they had captured in order to make an "artier-but-not-too-arty-to-sell-album" with some of this and some of that.

I'm all for diversity on a record, but when the result ends up sounding calculated to carefully cover all bases, I would prefer, given the choice, a one-style album played really well.

But that's just me.

(About "albums" -- bear in mind that the word was originally coined to mean "a collection of singles". The idea of a rock album as artistic statement is just a pretension of prog-rockers who misunderstood Sgt. Pepper.)

 

[bram]

Although our subjective opinions about these two albums differ considerably, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying. I think there's often a lot of resistance to nuanced positions regarding these issues (outcome/process/intent), but I see no contradictions with either of our positions.

 

[Niceman]

I tend to think that when something feels jarring it's pretty much an indication that it does not belong. There's a difference between an album that has variety and an album that simply has songs that feel out of place. Which is what the three middle songs on NLOTH feel like to me.

You don't like jarring? Well that's a matter of taste. I think it's an important part of art.

 

[Niceman]

Well, maybe my choice of words did not reflect what I meant to say. Maybe it has smth to do with English not being my mother language. So I try to explain. When I said: "an "album" is not meant to be anything" I meant that an album is just a collection of related music tracks. It does not have to have only one sound or the tracks don't have to be cut from the same cloth, as you pointed out. But what I wanted to say is that it also doesn't have to be the opposite fom that.
I was referring to your comments:



Who says what an album is meant to be? There is no definition of an album, other than that it is a collection of somehow related songs...It's what we or U2 wants an album to be.

My personal opinion if the three middle songs would not be on the album, what is left is not “one sound” or songs “cut from the same cloth”
Indeed, the middle 3 songs belong there, cause U2 put them there. And I like your analysis of SUC! I never looked at it that way. Still, my own opinion is that the flow of the album is interrupted by this middle section. Still a magnificient album imo, but this interruption makes it an album just below JT/AB.

I'm glad you liked my analysis of SUC. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on Interference don't understand what's going on in the song. I hope I have helped a bit.

I think there is a difference between a proper "album" and a collection of songs. For example; I like every song on HTDAAB, BUT it doesn't feel like an album to me. It feels like "The Best of 2000-2004." Which is what I think it is. NLOTH is an album. Achtung Baby is an album. The songs belong on those albums and couldn't just be on whatever the latest release is. They add up to something greater than the sum of their parts. they speak to each other, they work together.

 

[ozeeko]

I'm glad you liked my analysis of SUC. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people on Interference don't understand what's going on in the song. I hope I have helped a bit.

I think there is a difference between a proper "album" and a collection of songs. For example; I like every song on HTDAAB, BUT it doesn't feel like an album to me. It feels like "The Best of 2000-2004." Which is what I think it is. NLOTH is an album. Achtung Baby is an album. The songs belong on those albums and couldn't just be on whatever the latest release is. They add up to something greater than the sum of their parts. they speak to each other, they work together.

We all have our opinions about the true meaning of songs. You gotta remember that sometimes the true meaning of a song can be unclear even to the songwriter himself. It's happened before with Bono, with Tomorrow, a song he originally conceived of as a song about violence in Northern Ireland, which later reaveled itself to him as being a song about the loss of his mother, and in BTBS, the man with the red face appeared to him much later in life as Ronald Reagan.

I'm not saying that whatever he said SUC is about ISN'T what it's really about, but I wouldn't always just jump on a literal meaning right away. Someone once said in this forum that CT is a song about hedonism, and myself and many others failed to see that, and i still to this day fail to see that. Just because Bono said so in an interview doesn't mean i'm automatically convinced. I'd say if that was his intention he pretty much missed the mark.

As for SUC, when considering how it doesn't fit on the album, I find that the reason why extends even beyond the lyrical meaning. What I mean is that musically it sounds out of place. Jarring? Sure, I guess you could use that word, but not jarring in a way that feels like an artistic choice. For it to work, it would have to be jarring yet in a way that ADDS to the drama or even decreases the amount of drama. But in this case, it's jarring in the way that it just completely takes me out of the album. Look at it this way, imagine you're watching a film that you're emotionally invested in and about halfway through someone just changes the channel. That's the effect that SUC has on me.

Anyone can rack their brains long enough to suspend disbelief and argue a halfway decent case for the inclusion of such a song. But if you need to go to such lengths to argue that case, in the end it doesn't feel like a natural artistic choice. Instead it just feels random and out of place, regardless of its lyrical content.

 

[U2387]

How is it that we have had 3 or 4 pages now devoted to CT and SUC and how they are out of place, etc, and a good amount of posts have brought up AB as the obvious contrast here?

How have we had that without anyone bringing up Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World? Jarring much? A different theme? A little different lyrically and in mood than Ultraviolet or Acrobat or LIB or So Cruel?

Albums do not have to have 1 sound to be related, I think we have established that. I just do not get how we make the leap from this very true statement to "yes, but the NLOTH middle 3 are glaring compared to anything else they have done."

 

[ozeeko]

How is it that we have had 3 or 4 pages now devoted to CT and SUC and how they are out of place, etc, and a good amount of posts have brought up AB as the obvious contrast here?

How have we had that without anyone bringing up Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World? Jarring much? A different theme? A little different lyrically and in mood than Ultraviolet or Acrobat or LIB or So Cruel?

Albums do not have to have 1 sound to be related, I think we have established that. I just do not get how we make the leap from this very true statement to "yes, but the NLOTH middle 3 are glaring compared to anything else they have done."

TTTYAATW sounds perfect in that position on the album. It's weary, a little drunk sounding, maybe a bit hungover. After all the dark songs about love, sex, betrayl, murder, drugs, partying...it's the come down song, and like the rest of the album, it retains that drugged up hazy atmosphere, a little bit lighthearted but with a subtle element of danger thrown in. Like a calm before the storm. Or after i guess.

Now if you were to put, lets say Running To Stand Still, in place of TTTYAATW, regardless of the fact that it's my favorite U2 song, it would sound out of place on the album. It doesn't belong. It isn't playful enough. It isn't dark enough. It isn't personal enough. It isn't European enough. It's isn't anything enough to be enough for AB. Sounds like it came from a different project. Which it did.

That's the way i feel about SUC.

 

[Mrs. Garrison]

You mean there's only a thin layer of cloth between the world and your...

just trying to keep things in perspective....its amazing what happens around here in between albums, tours...etc.

 

[LemonMelon]

You don't like jarring? Well that's a matter of taste. I think it's an important part of art.

Crappy sequencing is the enemy of art.

 

[gvox]

We all have our opinions about the true meaning of songs. You gotta remember that sometimes the true meaning of a song can be unclear even to the songwriter himself. It's happened before with Bono, with Tomorrow, a song he originally conceived of as a song about violence in Northern Ireland, which later reaveled itself to him as being a song about the loss of his mother, and in BTBS, the man with the red face appeared to him much later in life as Ronald Reagan.

Not to pick that apart but I'm pretty sure that Ronald Reagan occurred to Bono when he wrote BTBS, not "much later in life". If anything, the live renditions since, especially in the past decade, have moved away from that, not towards it.

 

[ozeeko]

Not to pick that apart but I'm pretty sure that Ronald Reagan occurred to Bono right when he wrote BTBS, not "much later in life". If anything, the live renditions since, especially in the past decade, have moved away from that, not towards it.

in that HBO special with the Eurythmics dude, he said it occured to him later (not sure exactly how much later) that he was writing about Ronald Reagan. maybe i'm just remembering it wrong.

 

[gvox]

Yeah, "later" as in "after he first wrote it", not "much later in life". Context.

 

[ozeeko]

Yeah, "later" as in "after he first wrote it", not "much later in life". Context.

So then you agree with me, it occured to him later.

 

[ozeeko]

forget the "much later"...what i meant was it occured to him after it was written

 

[Niceman]

I think people are over-complicating it. I'm yet to hear anyone say; "Wow, I really like Stand Up Comedy, but don't think it belonged on them album." A number of you don't like the song and are equating that with it not belonging. Those who like the song seem to be happy it was there. Am, I mistaken???

btw; I seem to remember a JT era bootleg where Bono sang "And President Reagan comes up to me...and I can see those fighter planes.."

 

[ozeeko]

I think people are over-complicating it. I'm yet to hear anyone say; "Wow, I really like Stand Up Comedy, but don't think it belonged on them album." A number of you don't like the song and are equating that with it not belonging. Those who like the song seem to be happy it was there. Am, I mistaken???

btw; I seem to remember a JT era bootleg where Bono sang "And President Reagan comes up to me...and I can see those fighter planes.."

I don't like really any of the songs on HTDAAB, but I will say that it sounds like they all belong together!

I don't think much of Peace On Earth, but I think it sounds right on ATYCLB.

I love Walk To The Water, but I'd be lying if I said it would've fit perfectly on JT. On the other hand, Deep In The Heart would've been killer as the song that precedes Exit.

But these are just my opinions.

On the other hand, bands cut songs from albums all the time, sometimes for mysterious reasons, sometimes because they weren't good enough, other times because they were good but didn't fit the sound of the album, sometimes because there was nowhere to put them in the tracklisting.

Bands make judgement calls. They can be good or bad.

 

[ozeeko]

found HBO Off The Record with Dave Stewart and U2 on youtube. I'll find out exactly what Bono said about Reagan and BTBS

 

[Niceman]

I don't like really any of the songs on HTDAAB, but I will say that it sounds like they all belong together!

I don't think much of Peace On Earth, but I think it sounds right on ATYCLB.

I love Walk To The Water, but I'd be lying if I said it would've fit perfectly on JT. On the other hand, Deep In The Heart would've been killer as the song that precedes Exit.

But these are just my opinions.

On the other hand, bands cut songs from albums all the time, sometimes for mysterious reasons, sometimes because they weren't good enough, other times because they were good but didn't fit the sound of the album, sometimes because there was nowhere to put them in the tracklisting.

Bands make judgement calls. They can be good or bad.

I don't think the songs on HTDAAB belong on the same album.....

I think Walk To The water would have fit great on JT.

Peace on Earth would have been great, if Bono sang it with any emotion whatsoever. And it belongs on ATYCLB.

My opinions.

 

[ozeeko]

yea i was wrong. he did write it with Reagan in mind. my bad

 

[ozeeko]

sorry i don't normally quote or paraphrase Bono unless it's factual. for some reason i was 100% totally convinced he said that about BTBS and Reagan, that it occured to him sometime later after it was already written.

 

[BVS]

My issues with SUC is that it sounds so neutered. It has a few clunky lyrics but it still could have been a big song, instead it sounds like a song that had a lot of small ideas glued together and the whole never measured up the parts. By all counts this should have been a big stadium song, but I think it's telling that U2 haven't played it...

It has a few good lines.

It has a nice hook even if it's slightly Oasis like...

The "love love love" part is kinda cool.

There are small little transitions that are interesting...

Yet when I don't look at the parts and just listen to the song as a whole, I find I'm bored. It's actually one of the few times I can say that...

 

[U2387]

I think people are over-complicating it. I'm yet to hear anyone say; "Wow, I really like Stand Up Comedy, but don't think it belonged on them album." A number of you don't like the song and are equating that with it not belonging. Those who like the song seem to be happy it was there. Am, I mistaken???

This is what I get out of it!

The song fits fine, unless someone wants to say that UC into CT or SUC into F-BB is somehow less fitting than Pride into Wire.

The album does not tell the same chronological story envisioned in Linear or in previous posts with various material(good job if you made a list!), but I just don't see how SUC could possibly be interpreted as sounding like it came from a completely different project.

It certainly sounds nothing like anything from Bomb, it is complete new ground for U2. The CT-Boots-SUC trilogy has so much more going on musically than anything from Bomb.

CT, GOYB and SUC were all being worked on in some form alongside the title track, Magnificent, MOS, UC, F-BB, WAS, Cedars, etc. They went through many incarnations and were intended right from the beginning.

I know its all opinion but I just can't see how the NLOTH middle 3 can be in any way represented as sticking out like a big, disruptive sore thumb.

If this is the case, then I surmise that a thread arguing that LIB, The Fly, So Cruel and One could have all come from different projects could do just as well here.

No coherent U2 album lacks diversity, JT had Trip, WOWY and Exit, War had Like a Song and Drowning Man, UF had Wire and Promenade, etc. It does not mean the overall atmosphere of the album or the flow of the album is broken.

I always get the same vibe throughout my listens of NLOTH, AB, JT, UF and War. That is certainly not true of Bomb, where all songs supposedly fit.