namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
MrBrau1 said:
It wasn't the whole record though. There were two or three songs(Mofo, Miami, DYFL), the rest isn't all that techno-driven.
Amazon reviews of HTDAAB....
- Thread starter Zooropa man
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
It wasn't the whole record though. There were two or three songs(Mofo, Miami, DYFL), the rest isn't all that techno-driven.
Snowlock
Refugee
namkcuR said:
I'd have to add a couple... Discotheque & Wake Up Dead Man definately used loops.
Snowlock
Refugee
bsp77 said:
Nah. ATYCLB was their most safe I think. Bomb definately travels along some similar ground to the previous album, and features a full on return to the "U2 sound"; but Yahweh, Vertigo, LPOE, OSC & AMAAW are not "safe" songs for them.
I think the above line really highlights our personal taste in U2, my friend. To me, I like to be surprised by U2 as well, and I like them different; but I like them to be different from everybody else; rather than different from themselves. Zooropa with its R&B beats, Pop with its techno, and ATYCLB with its, well.. pop, while different for them; blends in with everyone else.
I don't think HTDAAB can draw that kind of direct comparison with ATYCLB; especially if we're talking guitars. ATYCLB isn't nearly as guitar driven as the Bomb is; is a lot less angry, much less of a rock album. What I will say about HTDAAB is that you can draw correlations with many of their previous albums and it is the first album they've released with so many direct connotations.
Just for the hell of it:
Vertigo - Boy/October.
Miracle Drug - ATYCLB
Sometimes - ATYCLB
LPOE - AB (and maybe a little War lyrically)
CBOL - JT/TUF/AB
ABOY - AB
AMAAW - AB
Crumbs - JT
OSC - TUF
OOTS - JT
Yahweh - TUF
Interestingly, I couldn't draw any correlations with Pop or Zooropa. Maybe that's why it seems like the Pop die hards such as yourself will rate this album lower?
Hallucination
Refugee
Achtung Baby was the bravest of all their albums. That album changed the face and sound of U2. Zooropa and Pop were natural progressions after Achtung Baby. U2 were the biggest band in the world after JT and R&H and they changed their sound completely with AB. That showed huge guts. Soundwise, style wise, image wise, everything about Achtung Baby could've been career suicide for U2.The OOTS said:
U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
What's with bringing back these old ass threads?
I agree with this. Zooropa was just an extension of where they were going, it didn't surprise me at all. POP was really sonically redundant in the sense of what U2 were doing, not so much brave. It was brave that they dressed like the village people in the video for Disco though.
Achtung knocked down the walls of what U2 had been.
It could have easily been a massive fucking commerical flop.
Good thing for writing brilliant songs, huh?
Hallucination said:
I agree with this. Zooropa was just an extension of where they were going, it didn't surprise me at all. POP was really sonically redundant in the sense of what U2 were doing, not so much brave. It was brave that they dressed like the village people in the video for Disco though.
Achtung knocked down the walls of what U2 had been.
It could have easily been a massive fucking commerical flop.
Good thing for writing brilliant songs, huh?
U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
KUEFC09U2 said:
Especially for that time? Not at all
Maybe compartively a few years later, yes.
Definitely 14 years later it sounds more commercial, you have to look at it, it's own context. Fall 1991.
You have to appreciate what rock and roll was at the time.
Mainstream rock was completely commerical and almost completely crap. It was horrible.
Sure there were groups on the fringes playing with the sounds on Achtung Baby, but not a globally enormous rock band with a built in reputation and a ready made fanbase that could have easily resisted the image and sound overhaul.
Not to mention how completely crap the top 40 was, probably worse than it is now. MC Hammer sold 10 million records around that time for fucks sake.
Achtung came out when the tides started to turn.
The flavor of the mainstream rock arena was completely altered during that time. In fact, U2 really were the anti-thesis of what became the "progressive" mainstream alt-rock, and they were obviously the anti-thesis of the butt rock crowd.
They were pretty much out there on their own.
I don't mean they were re-inventing the wheel sonically, they just took their own version or rock and roll to the masses and it was at least unique at that time. It could have easily been their doom.
It was the oddest thing they've ever done and have done since.
It's easy to say, well the music isn't that progressive, but it was for U2, at that time, all things considered a ballsy move.
The most commercial move for U2 in 1991 was The Joshua Tree part 2. As it turns out they lucked out and made their best album after nobody thought they could top The Joshua Tree
I've got more to say, but it's late and we can discuss it further. if anoyone cares to.
roy
Refugee
KUEFC09U2 said:
I agree.
AB easily had more 'radio friendly' songs than any other U2 album up to then. WGRYWH, MW, UV & TTTYAATW...are all catchy pop songs. I guess U2 felt they needed to throw their record company a bone...
shaun vox
New Yorker
roy said:
I agree.
I guess U2 felt they needed to throw their record company a bone...
MW is not a pop song
U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
roy said:
I agree.
"easily"
Yes, the pop genius of Fish Needs a Bicycle, it's a wonder why they didn't release it as a single. It sounds like it was recorded in a laundry mat, I like the song well enough, but if this is your evidence of a catchy pop song, then I think it speaks for itself.
In fact, if all it takes is a repetitive chorus and a hook to make a catchy pop song, then almost ALL of them are, especially the Joshua Tree. Even Red Light or Wire could be considered.
Which album really has the credentials of a bona fide radio friendly monster? The Joshua Tree.
So if U2 goes almost completely away from that sound, to you it's "easily" a more radio friendly formula. It doesn't make any sense.
TJT was a hit because it reached the masses thru it's hooks, and it's big choruses. U2 have never shied from big choruses, even on Mofo and Lemon. The difference is in the music, when U2 was trying to emulate Springsteen among others in 1987, they had a huge hit, when they were leaning more towards The Pixies or My Bloody Valentine's sound, they still had a huge hit, but there is a substantiial difference in sound. It's why top 40 teeny boppers use programmed beats, samples and loops. You don't hear Britney Spears trying to sell records with an orchestra or a full band, it was a more radio friednly sound, to the pop masses.
Maybe we have different defintions of what it means, but as I said before it all it takes is a repetitive chorus and a hook, well then there is almost no difference in any of their albums.
Even Slipknot usues hooks (riffs) and catchy choruses, are those catchy pop songs as well? Maybe they are, but are they radio friendly? And what is the difference? The sound.
Radio friendly, means to me, a friendly sound to the contemporary format. As I said, U2 weren't innovating anything really but they were incorporating a sound to an already proven radio friendly format, and by doing so it was substantially more brave than what they had done previously.
roy
Refugee
U2DMfan said:
"easily"
Yes, the pop genius of Fish Needs a Bicycle, it's a wonder why they didn't release it as a single. It sounds like it was recorded in a laundry mat, I like the song well enough, but if this is your evidence of a catchy pop song, then I think it speaks for itself.
I did mention three other songs..
Last edited:
roy
Refugee
AB is a mix of brilliance & cowardice. The Pops songs against the relative, 'raw' sound...
Interviews like this bring it sharpely into focus:
Producer Steve Lillywhite remembers the mixing of "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (notably absent from the forthcoming Best of) as being especially testing.
"They hated that song," he says. "I spent a month on it and I still don't think it was as realised as it could've been. The Americans had heard it and said, That's your radio song there, because they were having trouble with some of the more industrial elements. It's almost like a covers band doing a U2 moment. Maybe we tried too hard."
....
Interviews like this bring it sharpely into focus:
Producer Steve Lillywhite remembers the mixing of "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" (notably absent from the forthcoming Best of) as being especially testing.
"They hated that song," he says. "I spent a month on it and I still don't think it was as realised as it could've been. The Americans had heard it and said, That's your radio song there, because they were having trouble with some of the more industrial elements. It's almost like a covers band doing a U2 moment. Maybe we tried too hard."
....
roy
Refugee
Axver said:
You are right... EBTTRT is yet another radio friendly song off AB.
Sooo many to chose from....
U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
roy said:
and I made a lot more comment than just the one song.
read what you want to read though.
U2DMfan
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
Axver said:
I agree. I thought Ultraviolet was single worthy at the time.
Even Better.. is a great catchy pop rock tune, it's quite a bit different than Trying to Throw Your Arms.
and more to the point about Achtung being easily more radio friendly........
Again, if all you are going on is a catchy hook and repetitive chorus, then just about every U2 song ever applies, including their supposed experimental stuff.
If you can't figure out the difference between at least half the album and the more accesible stuff, then you aren't even looking at the same thing. Acrobat has a chorus, it has a distinctive melody/riff and has a repetitive chorus that could seemingly be construed as catchy. Is this a pop tune the same as In God's Country? You've got to be able to make the distinction if you make the distinction. I am saying it's musical, a lot of it.
The Joshua Tree, besides maybe 3 tracks is all geared at the basic formula. The other 3, Exit, Bullet and Mothers all have elements of pop music as well. Again, it all does. To say Achtung easily is the most radio friednly is absurd, they tore down their own sound, a sound that already been accepted.
Point is, if you are going to charge that something has more radio friendly pop ear candy, then you might as well say it ALL does. There is no discernable difference between most of it.
Now in terms of sound, that's different.
It's the difference in all of popular music, the sound. What makes it radio friendly? A familiar sound. Is that hard to understand?
14 years later of course it sounds very familiar. Put it into context.
Bono's shades
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
Layton said:
U2 has been emotionally naked many, many times before HTDAAB. I'm assuming you've heard the songs Tomorrow, With or Without You, One Tree Hill and One, haven't you? I don't see them hiding behind anything in those songs.
To me the overtly commercial sound and cliched lyrics of HTDAAB get in the way of the emotion the band is trying to project.
U2DMfan said:
becoming an 'agreeing LArry' here, but you put it perfectly....you HAVE to put it in context. Sure now, it seems like those were 'the times'.....but they really were brave with that whole thing, they could have been fcking ridiculed to high heaven for trying to do that. It was only that they had got it so right that they were aloud to pass through 'the gate' if you will....
....man, i'd love to see them do something like that again...I know the chances are slim, but god it makes me yearn for that kind of 'balls out' bravery they showed....
Bono's shades said:
I disagree. HTDAAB has a higher degree of nakedness to it, I believe. Those songs you mentioned are somewhat naked, but I think they rely on drama, poetry and metaphor to get their point across. There's nothing wrong with those attributes, as they have their place, but they also can be creative hiding mechanisms at times.
To musically declare 'I am' from the right place is a much fuller moment of exposure than if they turned 'I am' into some sort of poetic piece that takes you on a dramatic journey of some kind. It's about tearing yourself open and revealing what you've got. The bravest way to do that is to just do it. Don't add 'art', 'poetry' or 'metaphor' to it; just do it. HTDAAB just does it. That's why I think it's like their musical version of open heart surgery. Like that kind of surgery, it's messy and unappealing (Certain vocals and production gaffes), but in the end it saves the heart from certain demise.
Ironically, all of this gives the album some metaphorical content without really trying to have any. On the other hand, the material you cited tries really hard to have that kind of content. No problem here with that, but it's a reason why U2 constantly had the pretensious label stuck to them back in those days. They tried really hard to make sure everyone knew how artful they were as a band. These days they don't worry nearly as much about stuff like that and because of that their music has found new dimensions. One example would be the down-to-earth dimension. The last 2 albums have featured this dimension quite well, I believe.
Last edited:
Similar threads
