Preliminary Head to Head - SOI - SOE

[Peter Parker]

So, next single. Get out of your own way.

 

[kiwilad]

At this point I'd put Much More Better above Boots.

 

[Axver]

I don't know where the idea has come from that The Blackout is not on the album or that what we have is just a live version like the 360 Tour tracks. That's not the soundboard of one live take, that's an official release with a video that just happens to have some crowd noise layered into the mix because the video takes the form of a concert film. They could have removed it from the mix if they wanted, and clearly modify the levels for specific parts of the song to suit the video. I will be surprised if the album version is meaningfully different beyond having no crowd noise.

I don't see the point in making an SOI comparison yet, but:

The Blackout: 6/10, maybe 6.5/10
Little Things: 3/10
Best Thing: 2/10

The clip of Get Out of Your Own Way suggests it might be around a 4 or 5/10 but whatever.

 

[Hollow Island]

All of the songs released so far are worse than anything on SOI and Get Out seems like it will keep the streak alive. It'll be a shock if this isn't their worst album, and it seems unlikely it'll even have any failed experiments to respect.

 

[CosmoKramer]

This place is hysterical.

 

[purpleblackeye]

All of the songs released so far are worse than anything on SOI and Get Out seems like it will keep the streak alive. It'll be a shock if this isn't their worst album, and it seems unlikely it'll even have any failed experiments to respect.

Stop torturing yourself and take a break from U2 and the forum. Your comments are a little extreme to say the least but I respect your opinion.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Stop torturing yourself and take a break from U2 and the forum. Your comments are a little extreme to say the least but I respect your opinion.

Are you saying that it's extreme to declare an unreleased album likely their worst ever based off of:

1 released single, which like it or not is far from their worst song in the millennium let alone their career

1 song that was played on Facebook that has crowd noise over most of the song and a fairly basic audio source that doesn't allow you to hear any additional layers past what's up front (btw even with that it still sounded good)

1 song that has been played only live a dozen or so times and while it's not their most exiting song and one might not like it and find it boring, I hardly see anything that would make it one of their worst songs

1 song that was recorded with an iPhone(or like device) of a recording playing for a video shoot

I'm all for differing opinions but when people make statements like "it will be a shock if this isn't their worst album" based on nothingness, it's as if they made up their minds no matter what song U2 records now it stinks.

 

[kiwilad]

I get where Hollow's coming from. I mean this seems like it's going to be utterly pop.
But the bright side is, it does tie in to the Songs of Ascent idea. Get all the pop done now, finish up with SoA - an experimental sonic kaleidoscope (from Venus)

 

[purpleblackeye]

I didn’t think SOI was pop oriented at all aside from the first 4 songs perhaps. I doubt SOE will be as mainstream as The Best Thing and this new one suggests.

 

[kiwilad]

I didn’t think SOI was pop oriented at all aside from the first 4 songs perhaps. I doubt SOE will be as mainstream as The Best Thing and this new one suggests.

SOI isn't pop. SOE appears to be. The Edge's 'every song could be a single' comment kinda infers that.

 

[lazarus]

Are you saying that it's extreme to declare an unreleased album likely their worst ever based off of:

1 released single, which like it or not is far from their worst song in the millennium let alone their career

1 song that was played on Facebook that has crowd noise over most of the song and a fairly basic audio source that doesn't allow you to hear any additional layers past what's up front (btw even with that it still sounded good)

1 song that has been played only live a dozen or so times and while it's not their most exiting song and one might not like it and find it boring, I hardly see anything that would make it one of their worst songs

1 song that was recorded with an iPhone(or like device) of a recording playing for a video shoot

I'm all for differing opinions but when people make statements like "it will be a shock if this isn't their worst album" based on nothingness, it's as if they made up their minds no matter what song U2 records now it stinks.

Sorry, but logic and any attempt at objectivity is frowned upon around these parts.

Please get back to prematurely ranking songs.

 

[Catman]

This is tricky, but I'll give it a go, yo (just comparing the tunes w/ songs I feel, in this current pre-album gestation period, will be most relative of one another on their respective records):

The Miracle - 5
The Best Thing - 7

Volcano - 4.5
Blackout - 6.5

California - 5
GOOYOW - 7.5

The Troubles - 9
Sleep Like a Baby - 8
The Little Things - 8.5

 

[Hollow Island]

Are you saying that it's extreme to declare an unreleased album likely their worst ever based off of:

1 released single, which like it or not is far from their worst song in the millennium let alone their career

1 song that was played on Facebook that has crowd noise over most of the song and a fairly basic audio source that doesn't allow you to hear any additional layers past what's up front (btw even with that it still sounded good)

1 song that has been played only live a dozen or so times and while it's not their most exiting song and one might not like it and find it boring, I hardly see anything that would make it one of their worst songs

1 song that was recorded with an iPhone(or like device) of a recording playing for a video shoot

I'm all for differing opinions but when people make statements like "it will be a shock if this isn't their worst album" based on nothingness, it's as if they made up their minds no matter what song U2 records now it stinks.

Based on nothingness? There are 3 full songs, and the best on is mediocre and every track from the SOI era is better. We got a verse and chorus for the one they filmed the video for and I think that's enough to think that the so g is UNLIKELY to be good. So that's 1/3 of the album and every song g is worse than and SOI era song.

Even if the remaining 7/8 songs are AMAZING, 4 bad to mediocre songs would still place it at the bottom, or maybe second.

And yeah, Blackout has crowd noise. It doesnt exactly his the music, words or structure! And I can't imagine any way that they could make Little Things anything more than a forgettable, bland mediocrity.

 

[Catman]

And I can't imagine any way that they could make Little Things anything more than a forgettable, bland mediocrity.

dude... I'm all for respecting people's opinions (just so long as they coincide with mine), but BLAND?? Sure, it's a little slow to ignition, but I love the gentle groove established in the first half before a well-paced emotional ascension. The song speaks to me, man <3

When I think of "bland U2 song," the first one that comes to mind is Love You Like Mad. Oof.

 

[Hollow Island]

dude... I'm all for respecting people's opinions (just so long as they coincide with mine), but BLAND?? Sure, it's a little slow to ignition, but I love the gentle groove established in the first half before a well-paced emotional ascension. The song speaks to me, man <3

When I think of "bland U2 song," the first one that comes to mind is Love You Like Mad. Oof.

I really like the lyrics a lot - they're heavy! - but the music and melody are pretty generic. It's a decent song, but there are a lot of decent songs and I expect more than "serviceable" from good bands, especially if they're as good as U2.

Their output has been inconsistent and sometimes awful over the last 17 years, and that, combined with what they've shown of the SOE era so far has lowered my expectations. They were high, since I think SOI is excellent if craftsman like.

 

[Catman]

At least we can agree that SoI is excellent. Then again, i sometimes wonder if I just might be "in too deep" w/ U2--there's honestly not a whole lot I have to fuss over regarding their discography (yes, even post-POP). So maybe I'm just more inclined to enjoy the material "because it's U2" rather than a genuine appreciation for the output. THEN AGAIN, I don't think one can quite accurately quantify my initial disappointingly tepid reaction upon hearing TBT. BUT EVEN THEN-ER AGAIN... i really like the song now lol--there's a certain joyfulness in the tune that the band hasn't quite captured in their past couple of albums.

So to sum things up, I'm simple and easily pleased.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Based on nothingness? There are 3 full songs, and the best on is mediocre and every track from the SOI era is better. We got a verse and chorus for the one they filmed the video for and I think that's enough to think that the so g is UNLIKELY to be good. So that's 1/3 of the album and every song g is worse than and SOI era song.

You heard a verse and the chorus of a recording of a live video recording and that's all you needed to determine the lyrics were garbage (you posted that in another thread) and that the song is bad to mediocre? What did you think of Edges solo? What did you think of the strings? What did you think of the bridge? What did you think of the intro? Ah, that's all filler anyway.

Song might be crap, song might be great but come on.....

Even if the remaining 7/8 songs are AMAZING, 4 bad to mediocre songs would still place it at the bottom, or maybe second.

So if SOE has 7 or 8 amazing songs, you would put this at the bottom? I can't even take this seriously.

And yeah, Blackout has crowd noise. It doesnt exactly his the music, words or structure! And I can't imagine any way that they could make Little Things anything more than a forgettable, bland mediocrity.

I like what I heard of The Blackout but I can't hear any of the production of the song and it could still sound like crap or be seriously enhanced (one artist posted on twitter something about how they worked on the song and added strings to it and I didn't hear any on that live performance). If you don't like it though, that's fair because it is most likely not going to change enough to make someone who likes it hate it or hates it like it.

As for the Little Things being bland mediocrity, that's all subjective, however that bar for me is set much lower than Little Things is likely(again, need to hear the studio version) to be.

Recent U2 bland mediocrity:

SOI: enjoy this album very much and there is none of it...perhaps we agree on something
NLOTH: Ceaders and White as Snow
ATYCLB: Peace on Earth, Wild Honey

But it's all subjective. If you have already written this album off as their worst or second worst ever based on what is out there then so be it. I'm very optimistic but I always am until I can properly listen to it.

 

[patternshirt170]

So far...

The Little Things.. sb live studio recording c/o Kimmel.
The Best Thing - studio audio and J Fallon Live version.
The Black Out - studio/crowd noise video which is not exactly Metal Machine Music, one can hear the actual song.
Get Out Of - several mins of the Mexican video shoot and probably enough of the song (a third) to get a sense of the melody.

I think at this point one can judge them as songs at the very least, y'know are they grabbing you from the get go, because no matter the sound quality (okay, so within reason) you can usually tell early on whether the song itself is something you will be replaying a lot, other times it's a 'grower' and takes more than a few listens to grab you. However so far none of these four new songs are doing that for me, but there at at least seven or eight unheard songs and possibly bonus material, so we'll see...

As for studio production regarding 3 out of the 4? nah not yet, so it's probably a little early to do a true 2014 vs. 2017 ratings thread, but my guess we will come back to it...

...December 2nd?

 

[Nick66]

Huh?

Have we even heard a single song that we can confirm is going to be on the record? (as it will be presented on the record)

 

[Hollow Island]

You heard a verse and the chorus of a recording of a live video recording and that's all you needed to determine the lyrics were garbage (you posted that in another thread) and that the song is bad to mediocre? What did you think of Edges solo? What did you think of the strings? What did you think of the bridge? What did you think of the intro? Ah, that's all filler anyway.

Song might be crap, song might be great but come on.....




So if SOE has 7 or 8 amazing songs, you would put this at the bottom? I can't even take this seriously.






I like what I heard of The Blackout but I can't hear any of the production of the song and it could still sound like crap or be seriously enhanced (one artist posted on twitter something about how they worked on the song and added strings to it and I didn't hear any on that live performance). If you don't like it though, that's fair because it is most likely not going to change enough to make someone who likes it hate it or hates it like it.

As for the Little Things being bland mediocrity, that's all subjective, however that bar for me is set much lower than Little Things is likely(again, need to hear the studio version) to be.

Recent U2 bland mediocrity:

SOI: enjoy this album very much and there is none of it...perhaps we agree on something
NLOTH: Ceaders and White as Snow
ATYCLB: Peace on Earth, Wild Honey

But it's all subjective. If you have already written this album off as their worst or second worst ever based on what is out there then so be it. I'm very optimistic but I always am until I can properly listen to it.

A solo or intro or strings can't save a weak song, and hearing the primary components of a song - verse and chorus - are enough to form an opinion of its likely quality.

An album that is 1/3 weak cannot be a good album. That would be a weak album with a handful of excellent songs, like NLOTH. Bad album with good songs. It's second from the bottom for me since U2 have several albums where every song is good.

There's nothing bland about the folky tracks on NLOTH; they're understated and we're new territory for the band. Little Things is a basic, predictable pop ballad with good words.

I'm not writing it off - after all, they could ditch Blackout, Little Things and the Best Thing because they're nuts. But an album with 4 weak songs is by definition not good.

 

[Catman]

Does anyone else find that criticism of unreleased material is more often met w/ hostility than those holding positive viewpoints? I mean, it's to be expected that negative opinions will not go over well on a fan forum, but if the argument is that you haven't heard enough to gage any sort of quality of the material and, therefore, should refrain from opining, then many of these pre-album discussions would be pretty empty. I think it's fair game to assess anything that's out there, just so long as you're willing to reassess your opinion in good-faith if the resulting material deviates from your initial assessment.

 

[patternshirt170]

Again, regarding the newest song? I think if we had heard really good "on set" video clips of.. say 75secs - 2mins of Vertigo or Beautiful Day way back when, we would have gotten enough of the sense of the song in question to judge it as a piece of music.

Just as an aside and perhaps how some of us are not as wowed right now? there are albums I own where on the release date I loved them but over time it sunk in that - wow there's some "not so good" material on this record, filler... and I just played them less and less over the years. Likewise, there are other records where they didn't quite live up to expectation yet... now I find myself liking them. Hindsight. R.E.M.'s Around The Sun is an example of the latter, I kinda loathed around 5/13 of it's songs back in 2004, yet now there's only one I dislike and suffer through. Whereas Bomb and ATYCLB, are examples of the former.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Does anyone else find that criticism of unreleased material is more often met w/ hostility than those holding positive viewpoints?

I haven’t read anything where a poster said “this is easily going to be one of their two best albums” and if they did, they would be met with at minimum 4 eye roll memes.

Posters who write, “I like what I hear” or “sounds great so far” are the same as posters who write “I don’t like what I hear” or “sounds bad so far”. It’s when people are so absolute that something is the best ever (new toy response) or worst ever that it’s like “really?”

There is also an underlying distaste for anything “millennial U2” puts out that while at times is completely understandable (I question a lot of things) but other times is just odd.

I personally get irked when people say “millennial U2” has terrible/embarrassing lyrics and that 90s U2 was so deep and meaningful or they complain about long song titles or the “oohs” and “whoas” sounds Bono makes in songs “now”.....and then point to 90s U2 as a blissful period of greatness!

IMO Zooropa and POP have some of the most dodgy lyrics of any U2 album. And dare I say worst song title could easily go to “Daddy’s going to Pay for your Crashed Car” or “If you Wear that Velvet Dress”.

As far as oohs and all that other moaning Bono does...I mean, Bad, Running to Stand Still and Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World (another long ass title) are all guilty of that with Bono almost ruining the latter with his “yeah, yeah,yeah yeahs” near the end.

Not to mention the shit these guys take for crowd surfing in a video now vs when they dressed up as the village people for Discotheque or wore muscle suits for Popmart....they have always had some cheese!

 

[rennowba]

I confuse myself with soi. I love the record, don't skip a track. Would put the record very highly in my top u2 album list.

Now this is the bit that confuses me, I probably wouldn't put any of the songs in my top 20 song list.

Now if I like the album that much surely I should be putting some of the songs in that top 20??

I love all the tracks that we've heard for soe so far. From what I've heard I think it could be better

 

[womanfish]

There’s an air of excitement that happens every lead up to an album here. Just an FYI - that’s a good thing!! Let people enjoy themselves. Let them think what they want about clips. Let them discuss it and argue a bit. It’s all good.

We got shafted out of that for the most part last time around with everything dropping at once. We have a wealth of it this time. So enjoy it.

As for 90’s U2 vs. post 2000 U2. I get it.
There are plenty of people in this board that became fans during and after ATYCLB.
God bless em, cause that why U2 continued on and remained successful.
They could have been toast after TUF, after Rattle and Hum, after POP, and they came about as close to toast as they could come after SOI.
But this band has swaths if fans from each era. Some appreciate only some of their work, others, like me and most here, appreciate it all in different degrees.

I will probably never think that a full album, post 2000, is better than AB, Zooropa or POP. I skip half of of the 200-2009 albums, but SOI I just love. Top 5or 6 album for me.
While I don’t find them as consistent, songs like Kite, WILATW, Vertigo, COBL, NLOTH, Fez, MOS, The Troubles, RBW, EBW, SLABT, Crystal Ballroom, etc... stand up to anything pre-2000.

It’s fun to speculate when we hear clips and live versions. It’s kind of annoying to start to write off an entire album cause you don’t love some of the pieces you’ve heard.
For right now, from what I’ve heard, I like every song, but haven’t been blown away yet. Nothing, holy shit inducing.
Doesn’t mean I won’t be blown away by the full studio version of one of these. Or there aren’t 3 holy shit inducing songs just waiting, yet to be heard.
Also doesn’t mean there aren’t 3 what the fuck is this shit type songs waiting in the wings.

So enjoy what we have. New music from one of our favorite bands. Maybe some of the last new stuff we get.

 

[kiwilad]

Magnificent post womanfish

 

[dudeman]

Magnificent post womanfish

Agreed.

I remember back pre-ATYCLB they had a shitty website and at one point you could access 40 second or so clips of all the tunes. It was exciting to hear all of them, but a couple of those snippets really HIT me. Kite and Walk on really stuck out.

When the album came out - some of the clips did a pretty good job of summing up the whole song. Others didn’t compare. As for Kite and Walk On: Kite felt well-represented, but the song as a whole just blew the expectations away. Walk On was also a good representation, but when I heard the whole song it sorta dragged.

I think the point is that the new album listen through will be interesting. And fun.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Agreed.

I remember back pre-ATYCLB they had a shitty website and at one point you could access 40 second or so clips of all the tunes. It was exciting to hear all of them, but a couple of those snippets really HIT me. Kite and Walk on really stuck out.

When the album came out - some of the clips did a pretty good job of summing up the whole song. Others didn’t compare. As for Kite and Walk On: Kite felt well-represented, but the song as a whole just blew the expectations away. Walk On was also a good representation, but when I heard the whole song it sorta dragged.

I think the point is that the new album listen through will be interesting. And fun.

I remember those clips well. They were releasing a new preview clip every week but then someone figured out that if you change the URL slightly you could access all of them.

Walk On and Elevation were the most exciting for me and both lived up to expectations. If I recall, WILATW and Kite were also interesting but didn't blow me away when I heard them.

Those were fun times!

 

[Zoomerang96]

At least we can agree that SoI is excellent.

i respectfully disagree that there's any degree of agreement that SoI is even remotely tolerable.

 

[Catman]

i respectfully disagree that there's any degree of agreement that SoI is even remotely tolerable.

Nah... it's the band's best output since Zooropa, yo ;D