I love nloth but...

[Earnie Shavers]

But U2 are mainstream. They haven't released a record since The Joshua Tree that wasn't intended to be a mainstream record. They only exceptions are Passengers and maybe Zooropa, but Zooropa came on the heels of extraordinary critical and commercial success with Achtung Baby and ZooTV, and although they certainly probably intended to make Zooropa an even more adventurous record than Achtung, they were not trying to leave the mainstream, they weren't trying to all of a sudden not have commercial success. Remember Bono's line about 'fucking up the mainstream' - U2 weren't just all of a sudden trying to stop having mainstream commercial success, they were trying to see how adventurous and unique they could make their music while STILL maintaining their commercial success. Passengers is the only truly non-mainstream thing U2 have released since 1987. Pop, despite what actually happened, was intended to be U2's re-entrance into the mainstream after Passengers, but again, with the attitude of seeing how far they could push things while still maintaining their commercial success. Obviously Pop didn't pan out they way they wanted it to, but even though that record didn't achieve as much mainstream success as they wanted it to, they intended for it to. U2 have never wanted to leave the mainstream and they never have, at least not since they first achieved widespread mainstream status in 1987.

You are absolutely making 'our' point as well in here.

 

[namkcuR]

You are absolutely making 'our' point as well in here.

Which is what? And who does 'our' refer to? I can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing.

 

[ultraviolet353]

But U2 are mainstream. They haven't released a record since The Joshua Tree that wasn't intended to be a mainstream record. They only exceptions are Passengers and maybe Zooropa, but Zooropa came on the heels of extraordinary critical and commercial success with Achtung Baby and ZooTV, and although they certainly probably intended to make Zooropa an even more adventurous record than Achtung, they were not trying to leave the mainstream, they weren't trying to all of a sudden not have commercial success. Remember Bono's line about 'fucking up the mainstream' - U2 weren't just all of a sudden trying to stop having mainstream commercial success, they were trying to see how adventurous and unique they could make their music while STILL maintaining their commercial success. Passengers is the only truly non-mainstream thing U2 have released since 1987. Pop, despite what actually happened, was intended to be U2's re-entrance into the mainstream after Passengers, but again, with the attitude of seeing how far they could push things while still maintaining their commercial success. Obviously Pop didn't pan out they way they wanted it to, but even though that record didn't achieve as much mainstream success as they wanted it to, they intended for it to. U2 have never wanted to leave the mainstream and they never have, at least not since they first achieved widespread mainstream status in 1987.

This is true, they are mainstream, but I figured their approach to this album would be less so--I thought it would be more challenging sonically. Crazy and SUC especially bother me because they just sound like very lazy catchy constructions (it really seems these are the songs Iovine wanted). I am all for mainstream, but these two songs are just not well done. One is really dumbed down with Britney Spears lyrics, and the other just feels like 60 year old catchy rock, a la Rolling Stones. I love Stuck, Walk On, and others from the last two records because they are GREAT songs. Crazy and SUC fail on two counts in my book. 1.) Calculated and 2.) not all that good.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

Which is what? And who does 'our' refer to? I can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing.

I am agreeing with what you posted – 100% - but I suspect we’d be using it on different sides of the argument, i.e. you’d use it to defend SUC/Crazy Tonight, and I’d very much use it against those songs. But that would potentially be opening up a wider U2 pre/post 2000 debate, and I *think* we've seen that one a couple of times before in this forum?

I will say this though, if it takes you 16 months of hard work to hammer together something like Stand Up Comedy, but Moment of Surrender comes to you in one afternoon, perhaps the music gods are sending you a message?

 

[U2FloridaFan]

I love the new album but...is anyone having trouble distinguishing one song from another? The only one which stands out as different from the others, for me, is Boots. A few times I've caught myself when a song starts thinking it's another song, and then as it gets further in, I realize it's not the song I thought it was. I guess what I'm saying is that many of the songs sound similar...good, but similar. And in how many songs does Bono sing oh, oh, oh, oh?? Five or six??

 

[blue screen]

I think we realized upon hearing NLOTH, that it was not a huge departure in sound from their last two albums..at least not in the terms the band and its producers would have us believe...I do agree with a lot of you that having Crazy, SUC and Breathe and maybe Boots on NLOTH, still reminds me too much of their previous two albums, of which I am not a big fan of; and I just skip them...the rest of the album is interesting, but God, you can almost feel the restraint in most of the songs, like they didn't trust themselves enough to go all out with these songs, and you can certainly feel the potential some of these songs had..MOS I can't listen to because of the hype...because it's nowhere near WOWY or One or Stay...not even in the same vicinity...it's closer to Stuck than those classics....WAS should have been a masterpiece of a song, and while Magnificent is a strong song a reminds me a lot of JT...it's just not something entirely different than what the band has done before.

Of course, when you're a fan of a band that has albums like Boy, October TUF, JT, AB,Zooropa, Pop, heck Passengers, there is really not much more to experiment soundwise...they've pretty much done it all, but I also fell victim to the hype and I shouldn't have..I would've enjoyed this album so much more..I think it's great, but not a masterpiece...

 

[blue screen]

O

 

[namkcuR]

I am agreeing with what you posted – 100% - but I suspect we’d be using it on different sides of the argument, i.e. you’d use it to defend SUC/Crazy Tonight, and I’d very much use it against those songs. But that would potentially be opening up a wider U2 pre/post 2000 debate, and I *think* we've seen that one a couple of times before in this forum?

I will say this though, if it takes you 16 months of hard work to hammer together something like Stand Up Comedy, but Moment of Surrender comes to you in one afternoon, perhaps the music gods are sending you a message?

I wasn't saying all that to defend SUC/Crazy Tonight...you and I are generally on the same page concerning them. We agree that Crazy Tonight is a great pop song that might fit at certain places in the tracklist soundwise but that doesn't fit as well spiritwise with the rest of the record - except, I would argue that the backing track, which conjures memories of "Bad", imo, is keeping in the spirit of once again embracing atmospherics.

We agree that Boots is a good rock song that stands out on the album because it's louder and more upbeat - however, even though it isn't a great fit soundwise(it does stick out), I think shares the spirit of adventure of other songs on this record for two reasons: I think the Alice-In-Chains style chorus is brilliant and frankly, interesting beyond that of any rock song on Bomb, and I think the let me in the sound stuff is one of the coolest things U2 has done in a rock song in a decade, and is far removed from being just a replacement for Vertigo's "yeah yeah yeah yeah"s. I can understand why you or anyone else would think this song sounds a smidgen to much like Bomb for your comfort, but to me, it could have just as easily come from the Pop sessions. I can put it right next to Discotheque and not notice a huge drop in quality(I still think Discotheque is better, but still).

The one song we clearly differ on is Stand Up Comedy. You have it called it "terrible" and an "embarrassment". I don't think it's the greatest thing they've ever done, but I don't see how one can like "The Fly" and "Holy Joe" and not like the riff and the solo in this song, respectively. I think the last minute and a half is one U2's best moments, sonically speaking, in a rock song this decade, despite the lyrics that, while not terribly offensive to me, I can certainly understand why they would make others cringe. I honestly think there's "The Fly" and "Holy Joe" influences all over this song, and that can only be a good thing imo. We do agree that this song, more than any other on the record, doesn't fit well, and we do agree that it is the most Bomb-sounding song on the record, by a good distance. No argument there(although the Bomb song it sounds most like is Love And Peace, which is one of the few Bomb songs I've never had much of a problem with).

Back to the point - because I've started rambling - I wasn't really trying to defend any of these songs with that post, I was just addressing the silly notion that U2 was setting out to make anything but a mainstream record when they made Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, or Pop - and you will find few bigger fanatics of those records than me.

I guess, when it comes down to it, although I fully understand your base problem with those middle 3 songs, I'm choosing not to let it bother me, because I honestly didn't think U2 would ever would put a song like Fez-Being Born, or Moment Of Surrender, or White As Snow, or Cedars Of Lebanon on a record under their own moniker again, ever. I always fully believed they were capable of writing and recording such songs, but I didn't think they'd release them. To have a bunch of songs like that on a record, and to have news that sounds real about another full of record of stuff like that late this year or early next, is more than I ever could have hoped for at this point, and I guess I'm just too grateful for that to let myself be annoyed by the way those three songs might interrupt the flow, especially since I like all of them.

 

[Catman]

I guess, when it comes down to it, although I fully understand your base problem with those middle 3 songs, I'm choosing not to let it bother me, because I honestly didn't think U2 would ever would put a song like Fez-Being Born, or Moment Of Surrender, or White As Snow, or Cedars Of Lebanon on a record under their own moniker again, ever. I always fully believed they were capable of writing and recording such songs, but I didn't think they'd release them. To have a bunch of songs like that on a record, and to have news that sounds real about another full of record of stuff like that late this year or early next, is more than I ever could have hoped for at this point, and I guess I'm just too grateful for that to let myself be annoyed by the way those three songs might interrupt the flow, especially since I like all of them.

This... x100

 

[Earnie Shavers]

This... x100

We agree and feel the same on all things (except SUC, and yeah, it’s shitloads better than most of the Bomb, I’ll give it that). And please, please don’t get me wrong. Your last paragraph is exactly how I feel as well. I think the break makes it a 9/10 instead of a 10/10, but fuck, I was preparing for 2/10 and certainly not this U2 back again on so many tracks. On first listen I was pretty much in tears by the 2nd verse of No Line. Like an old friend I hadn’t seen for 10 years, thought they were dead, had just wandered in.

 

[namkcuR]

We agree and feel the same on all things (except SUC, and yeah, it’s shitloads better than most of the Bomb, I’ll give it that). And please, please don’t get me wrong. Your last paragraph is exactly how I feel as well. I think the break makes it a 9/10 instead of a 10/10, but fuck, I was preparing for 2/10 and certainly not this U2 back again on so many tracks. On first listen I was pretty much in tears by the 2nd verse of No Line. Like an old friend I hadn’t seen for 10 years, thought they were dead, had just wandered in.

Although I have to say...although Bomb still falls in the lower half of my U2 album rankings, I gave it a listen yesterday, for the first time in a quite a while, in an order I've never listened to it in, and I'll be damned if I didn't find myself actually enjoying it for the first time in I don't know long. Maybe it was just because I hadn't heard it in a while, maybe if I listened to it five times in a row, what enjoyment I felt would go away, I don't know. But I genuinely enjoyed it. It still has an overall stale feel to it, and it's still overproduced to death, but...the last minute of Sometimes, Fast Cars, Love And Peace, A Man And A Woman, Edge's solo and vocal verse in Miracle Drug, the intro to COBL, parts of Crumbs, even parts of Vertigo. I don't know. It's still the most "U2 trying to sound like U2" U2 album, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it if I'm in the right mood. I enjoy all U2. I actually think just knowing that U2 are now willing to stuff like Fez-Being Born, Moment Of Surrender, Cedars Of Lebanon, etc has enabled me to enjoy Bomb more, knowing that it's just a document of that point in time and not a prototype for the rest of their career. In fact, looking back, I think the fear of what Bomb might have meant for U2's future upset me more than Bomb itself.

 

[youngformyage]

I think the change from the beach clips to the album versions is a good indication that they decided to go safe in the end of the the summer:

In Magnificent we can really here the trance influence in the beach clip. It sounds like their is a cello doubling the riff, creating a hypnotic effect. To me it is clearly a different song. Bono spoke of the trance influence many times in early 2008 and we hear it on this beach clip. What we got was an updated version of New Year's Day which Eno tricks thown in.

In the Breathe bc we definitely have noisier guitars ("molten metal" anyone?)

What they did with Crazy Tonight is disappointing too. The bc had a really interesting rhythm, more syncopated. They turned it into a typical U2 style power ballad.

I must be the only person on this board who hasn't heard these Beach Clips. I really like the album but I'm curious to hear these now - is there really that much difference?