U2 have finally found what they are looking for: mediocrity?

[gvox]

Anyone who thinks Invisible is a horrible song or inferior to other recent songs like Window In the Skies should walk - nay, run - to their nearest drug store and purchase an ear irrigation kit.

They might need other professional help also but they can start with that.

 

[U2girl]

I wish U2 were ready to be lumped in with Springsteen. Since 2002 we've gotten 7 albums, almost constant touring and unpredictable live shows.

Some of his newer stuff has it's detractors of course but I'd put The Rising, Magic or Wrecking Ball up against Bomb and No Line any day.

U2 should release a record of old songs and covers and see how well that goes over with U2 fans.

 

[corianderstem]

That's not an apt comparison at all - the latest Springsteen came out pretty hot on the heels of an excellent album, so it's just a bonus. It's not like an album of old tracks/covers was his first album in years.

So, if U2 put out an album of new material and then a year later put out an album a la High Hopes, I think U2 fans would be just fucking fine with it, thanks.

 

[allbecauseofu2]

lol u2 and high hopes shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence.

 

[last unicorn]

That's not an apt comparison at all - the latest Springsteen came out pretty hot on the heels of an excellent album, so it's just a bonus. It's not like an album of old tracks/covers was his first album in years.

So, if U2 put out an album of new material and then a year later put out an album a la High Hopes, I think U2 fans would be just fucking fine with it, thanks.

I love Bruce, but his latest efforts, to me, are very weak. I have hardly listened to High Hopes. I feel he's throwing out album after album to stay on the road and be on a never-ending tour. I prefer U2's release habits, if it means we get fresh songs and a great album, not any warmed up old material or fillers.

 

[popacrobat]

I love Bruce, but his latest efforts, to me, are very weak. I have hardly listened to High Hopes. I feel he's throwing out album after album to stay on the road and be on a never-ending tour. I prefer U2's release habits, if it means we get fresh songs and a great album, not any warmed up old material or fillers.

I dunno.

At this point, I want as much material from U2 as possible. It would be nice if they actually released "This Is" as a download or something, I enjoyed the cover. I'm sure I'd enjoy plenty of the songs they've written over the last 3-4 years as well. As I've said before, I'm not expecting anything as good as AB, JT, Zooropa, UF, Pop, whatever. If the songs are better than songs from those albums, awesome, but it's not and shouldn't be a competition -- especially within their own catalog. I just want new songs to like from them.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

That's not an apt comparison at all - the latest Springsteen came out pretty hot on the heels of an excellent album, so it's just a bonus. It's not like an album of old tracks/covers was his first album in years.

So, if U2 put out an album of new material and then a year later put out an album a la High Hopes, I think U2 fans would be just fucking fine with it, thanks.

You realize you're arguing with somebody who does not need silly things like facts to back up their points, right?



Bruce decided he really enjoyed playing with Tom Morello and wanted to record with him. So he did. Thus we have High Hopes. He does what he wants to do, when he feels like doing it. Full band? Sure. Moody solo acoustic? Okay. An album full of songs influenced by Pete Seeger? Fuck it, how 'bout a tour, too!

Meanwhile U2 sits around and waits for devine inspiration. Too bad. God's busy.

 

[U2girl]

That's not an apt comparison at all - the latest Springsteen came out pretty hot on the heels of an excellent album, so it's just a bonus. It's not like an album of old tracks/covers was his first album in years.

So, if U2 put out an album of new material and then a year later put out an album a la High Hopes, I think U2 fans would be just fucking fine with it, thanks.

Wrecking Ball was a work of new material. High Hopes is a compilation of covers and old songs that now seems to fuel a Dylan-ish neverending tour, and the record has its share of complaints among the fans.

U2 will get absolutely shredded if they pull a High Hopes.

 

[Salome]

He does what he wants to do, when he feels like doing it.

So does U2.
Which is why we all sit around here complaining.

 

[jeevey]

Yes, but for a while they were doing exactly what we wanted them to! Bono got skinny, Edge put on grownup shoes again, Adam solved his hair problem, they made us believe it was really going to happen and everything was going to be perfect---and then they wanted to change their minds! That's a shitty thing to want! Why can't they just want the right thing, which is to release right now? *stamps feet, cries a little*

 

[corianderstem]

Wrecking Ball was a work of new material. High Hopes is a compilation of covers and old songs

No shit, Sherlock. You didn't even read my post, did you

... that now seems to fuel a Dylan-ish neverending tour...

Oh no! Popular entertainer decides to keep touring, allowing thousands upon thousands of fans to see him in concert again!

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN POOR SPRINGSTEEN FANS???

 

[mikal]

No shit, Sherlock. You didn't even read my post, did you?

Sent from my Note 3 using my S-pen.

 

[The Slow Loris]

One thing many here are forgetting is that U2 are artists, and they must be honest with themselves. Leonard Cohen wrote this in his album, Ten New Songs:

For the innermost decision,
That we cannot but obey -
For what’s left of our religion,
I lift my voice and pray:
May the lights in The Land of Plenty
Shine on the truth some day.

Perhaps after listening to these songs for the past few years, working on them, reworking them, etc….perhaps U2 have realized they just don't feel right? It's called having artistic integrity. At the end of the day, you have to grant them that. Bringing in a hip producer like Danger Mouse to bring them relevancy might have worked on a surface level, but that's not what U2 is about. Perhaps U2 just couldn't look at these songs as a true reflection of themselves as artists? If this is indeed the case, I applaud them for listening to their instincts. People talk about U2 selling out. I think this might just be the exact opposite.

 

[corianderstem]

Bringing in a hip producer like Danger Mouse to bring them relevancy might have worked on a surface level, but that's not what U2 is about.

And yet they're supposedly bringing in Ryan Tedder as (one of) the new producer(s).

Look, I mostly don't give a shit what producer they use, and I am the last person who's going to pull the whole "selling out" bullshit, or who's going to crap on pop music, and obviously, they don't feel the songs are "right," for whatever reason. But I don't think your comment point works here.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

So does U2.
Which is why we all sit around here complaining.

So U2 want to do nothing?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Ryan Tedder is MUCH more of a pander to the charts, hit maker producer than Danger Mouse.

By like a million miles.

I mean come on... He produces One Direction.

 

[The Slow Loris]

And yet they're supposedly bringing in Ryan Tedder as (one of) the new producer(s).

Look, I mostly don't give a shit what producer they use, and I am the last person who's going to pull the whole "selling out" bullshit, or who's going to crap on pop music, and obviously, they don't feel the songs are "right," for whatever reason. But I don't think your comment point works here.

I should have clarified that the end result might have been not what they were looking for. Bringing in another producer might be to give them more breathing room as artists -- focussing on their strengths. One thing I noticed with Danger Mouse is that he seems to have muffled U2's strengths: For example, one of Bono's strengths is emotive singing (just look at the hight point of NLOTH in 'Moment of Surrender'). Well, Danger Mouse apparently muted Bono by telling him not to give in to the temptation of using that strength and instead "sticking to the melody" and not the "moment". Well, forgive me, but isn't U2 all about the freaking moment????. "Live" is where they live, according to Larry. And is it really a coincidence that Larry looks depressed as we've ever seen him? My feeling is he is not excited at all, and doesn't agree with this "mutation" of U2…..but I could be wrong of course.

 

[ozeeko]

I'll be honest. I was never that into the idea of Danger Mouse producing U2. Curious but not excited about it. His style always seemed too gimmicky for U2. And I am not blown away by either OL or Inivisible.

This may seem like a radical and even stupid idea, but I think Edge should produce it. I think it would force him to actually try new shit. Rather than have some overbearing type that wants to push his vision of U2 onto them, or even worse, some fanboy who is just delighted to be working with them.

This...Edge the producer. (with Flood as engineer)

 

[deep]

U2 needs to be more like Kanye

A little auto-tune and a sack over his head would go a long way

 

[dazzledbylight]

That's not an apt comparison at all - the latest Springsteen came out pretty hot on the heels of an excellent album, so it's just a bonus. It's not like an album of old tracks/covers was his first album in years.

So, if U2 put out an album of new material and then a year later put out an album a la High Hopes, I think U2 fans would be just fucking fine with it, thanks.

Paragraph 1

Para#2- i think you might be right


I can remember my mom asking me like 15 yrs or so ago (since she had "conspired" with me, & friends even way earlier on to make sure she had extra $$ socked away so we could get tickets while my dad was pretty grumpy about it) ...
"are U2 as good as Bruce and The Who?" I said "Yeah, mom, they are!"

and next iteration of


YAY for NLOTH!!!!!

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

Aside from song downloads I'm sure U2 look at the amount of YouTube views as a relevancy indicator.

OneRepublic - Counting Stars 200+ Million Views.

Invisible (with the help of a Super Bowl ad) - 2.9 Million Views.

U2 - "Let's get that producer to help us write a hit like that to get there"

I'm sure they look at invisible as missing the mark and now they are going back to the drawing board with these other two to find the next beautiful day.

I'm sure Danger Mouse challenged them somewhat creatively for a few interesting deep cuts but a "hit" they have yet to find.

 

[ahittle]

Good lord, you could give old guys like U2 the most infectious pop tune and it's not going to be a hit. It's not going to happen. It's only a little bit about the song itself.

Maybe they should just pull a Rod Stewart and cash in on the Great American Songbook.

 

[corianderstem]

Maybe they should just pull a Rod Stewart and cash in on the Great American Songbook.

 

[dazzledbylight]

Good lord, you could give old guys like U2 the most infectious pop tune and it's not going to be a hit. It's not going to happen. It's only a little bit about the song itself.

Maybe they should just pull a Rod Stewart and cash in on the Great American Songbook.

Oh, for fuck's sake.



don't worry i don't usally cast real aspersions on people when it comes to Music

 

[Scorpionac]

.

 

[Salome]

So U2 want to do nothing?

Well, at least they do not want to release what has been recorded so far.

Which is in line with what the band members have been saying: the album is not finished yet.
The band has also stated that to finish it they want to bring in other producers, which is what is happening now.
Around the same time statements came from the band alluding to an album release around summer.
So basically, the band has remained quite consistent the last couple of months about the next album.

The only thing that has changed is the Billboard statement about part of the tour being moved from 2014 to 2015. I do regard that as a fact.
Any comment about the state of the next album seems to have been deduced from this: part of tour moved to 2015, so album must have been delayed.
I don't know how accurate this is.
It could just as well be the other way around, staging the tour won't be possible until early 2015 so the release date of the album is pushed back to accommodate.

Which would be in line with whatever evidence we have. The band seems happy with the work so far (they even have already released 2 songs ahead of the album, last time that happened was before Boy). They look "fit" for the album promo & tour cycle.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Danger Mouse's comments seem to contradict the "the band's happy with the material they just aren't finished" argument.

His comments actually seem to point to the band NOT being happy with the material.

Add in The Edge's comments from earlier about how a song needs to be great acoustic to really be great... which also seems to be a direct shot at Mr Mouse.

I think the band was more or less done... and they started playing some of the songs from the album in a live setting and realized that they would have to sound drastically different... that they couldn't perform the songs live.

So they brought in other producers to mix up the arrangements into things that worked better in a live setting, and this has proven to be a much harder thing to do than previously thought. Some of the songs probably sound terrible without Danger Mouse's production elements added in. So it's back to the drawing board to finish the album.

 

[jeevey]

Interesting posts from both Salome and Headache here. Hooray for reasoned discussion!
Both of your comments make me think of Lillywhite's prediction (or wish) that the band start recording fresh with same songs, bang it out in fairly short order and 'knock us all for six.' I wish they would. Does anyone have that quote?

 

[gvox]

they started playing some of the songs from the album in a live setting and realized that they would have to sound drastically different... that they couldn't perform the songs live.

So they brought in other producers to mix up the arrangements into things that worked better in a live setting, and this has proven to be a much harder thing to do than previously thought. Some of the songs probably sound terrible without Danger Mouse's production elements added in.

Interesting hypothesis and probably not too far off the mark. Take Invisible by way of example. A hell of alot going on in that song that, while possible to reproduce live, don't necessarily lend itself to the "4 guys on stage rock band" asthetic.

For example..the second guitar. Who will play that? Bono? Some of the phrasings and the way that rhythm is played is a bit beyond what Bono traditionally does live. The electronic drums that for much of the song mean Larry takes on a lesser role? Some of those sounds are certainly possible to reproduce live with real humans etc, but even if they use electronic drums, for instance, there are nuances in man v machine that will cause things to sound a bit different than the album. Now..most U2 songs do sound a bit different live..but maybe this time they don't like how different.

See..it's all good and fine to do what they did for Fallon ie use tricks and tracks..but do they want to do that every night? And if there are more songs like that coming from the DM sessions..well that could put a real dent in the part of the show where they are trying to promote the new album.

From what I learned from someone this past weekend, Broken Bells use a shit-ton of backing music in their live shows, and they can decide on a nightly basis how much will be "live" and how much won't be. *if that is the sort thing DM had in mind when he envisioned the production of U2s music...they may have realized once they did Fallon that there was a heck of alot of it across many of the songs. What I don't get is why this realization didnt come to them alot sooner. I mean, during the recording process

So, while those DM production elements belong to U2 and they could in fact use them live...it might alter the way the show is presented quite a bit and they might not want to do 6-8 new songs per show that head in that direction.

Think Crazy Tonight live. That's an extreme example but there's definitley no way a rock band like U2 is going to want to do too many of those in a given 2hr show..

I should temper these thoughts though with a reminder that most of the Zooropa album has stuff on it that would be considered pretty complex production wise..so it's not like they can't do those types of songs live..but maybe just don't want to..

 

[Aygo]

I'll be honest. I was never that into the idea of Danger Mouse producing U2. Curious but not excited about it. His style always seemed too gimmicky for U2. And I am not blown away by either OL or Inivisible.

This may seem like a radical and even stupid idea, but I think Edge should produce it. I think it would force him to actually try new shit. Rather than have some overbearing type that wants to push his vision of U2 onto them, or even worse, some fanboy who is just delighted to be working with them.

This...Edge the producer. (with Flood as engineer)

I got more or less the same feeling. I like Danger Mouse work as a producer for Gorillaz/Damon Albarn, Beck, Broken Bells or Sparklehorse, but I'm not a big fan of his hands on The Black Keys (I don't think he changed the sound at all).
I was, most of all, curious to see what fruits this partnership was bringing, and the ability of the band to renew its identity and sound by bringing someone to to defy them. Judging on "Invisible" and the ordinary song, it's such a huge disappointment for me.

But now that we're led to think that DM's work with U2 may not be perfect or what the band was expecting, or in the way they wanted to...
...Well, if Chris Thomas didn't work, Rick Rubin didn't work, Lillywhite gets bashed here by having the image of leading the band to cliché-chimey tunes and not pushing them out of their box, Eno/Lanois not only didn't fully succeed in NLOTH (and in ATYCLB in my opinion) as it's public they're creative differences and visions of what's worthy/what's not.
Well... Maybe the problem is not in the producers. Maybe the problem is in the band who became extremely difficult to work with; who used to write and record a brilliant album (the kids are not an excuse, they already had a family in the late 80's/early 90's) and now take half a decade to write "three different albums" that we then find out that are just a bunch of finished songs and that a bad copy-paste of the same old formulas that don't change that much, whether you put DM, Thomas, Rubin, Eno/Lanois or Queen Elisabeth producing it. They got stuck, and I honestly can't see a way of refloating the stone out of the gear.

And when I hear that Ryan Tedder and Chris Martin have been in the studio, it doesn't make me cheerful, as I wasn't too with will.i.am in 2008.