ATYCLB – I Like It!

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Dalton

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Little hand says it's time to rock and roll.
Ok, ok, I know I am not supposed to. I know that it is boring, a step backwards, not all its hyped up to be, etc., but I just can’t help myself! Beautiful Day, Elevation, Walk On, Kite, New York, In A Little While, When I look at the World more than make up for terrible tracks like Peace on Earth and Grace. And come on Wild Honey (while cheesy) just makes you want to say something nice to your significant other. Hell, I even find myself tapping my foot along to Stuck in a Moment even though I cannot fathom why in the world U2 would write such a song.

The lyrics are pretty plain, they are pretty straightforward and while I know (I know, I know, I know) I am supposed to lament the fact that Bono no longer paints pictures with the very mist of heaven, I can’t but feel drawn to the simple power of a charismatic man bearing his soul. I am drawn to the humanity of it all and wonder just how many people would write these songs and not become passé.

So while ATYCLB will probably never be my favorite U2 album, I am growing to more than just appreciate it; I am growing to love it.
 
i agree. It is great, AB ,JT, are better, maybe HTDAAB, but you got the song of the year ,BD, and the first 5 tracks are radio friendly pop tunes that i cheerish. When i look at the world is incredibly underrated.
 
I think I blasted ATYCLB in my car more than hut dab. That's weird because I think the latter is a better album.

But yes, ATYCLB is a great collection of songs. Lyrically, Bono was more straight forward and hence, less poetry. However, the overall feel of the album had the same intensity. It's a great album for its time.
 
In a Little While has grown on me quite a bit. I think it and Walk On are the two highlights on the album. The rest ... mostly I can take it or leave it. I'm surprised to hear myself saying that about Kite, but there you go. Only Stuck is really objectionable to me.
 
I actually really like New York, quite different from everything yet with some excellent chiming:wink:
 
I posted a quite lengthy thread a while ago about this album. I just tried looking for it but couldn't find it. Anyways, I was going to put the link here when I found it. It sums up ofr feeling for this album as clearly as I could possibly put them.
 
TheBrush said:
the first 5 tracks are radio friendly pop tunes that i cheerish.

yeah that's extremely important to me too when deciding whether or not i like an album.
 
When you look real close, Elevation is great concert opener!!! and Beautiful Day and Walk On are great concert enders. That is something you don't find on other albums
 
the first time i heard it I said "the first 4 are the best", and I wasn't wrong

I LOVE When I Look At The World... and the best track forever was and will be WALK ON!!!!
 
when i look at the world is my fave u2 song ever, with crumbs being a close 2nd. it's these kind of heart and soul tracks that i love from the band
 
ZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No don't get me wrong i like the album because i like it. its very hard to put into words. I guess my point is It has as many songs on the radio as AB and JT. maybe i didn't word it right earlier. And you just picked out what you wanted to here. i said when i look at the world is underrated implying i love it. CHILL
 
I will unashamedly say that I love about 7 tracks on that album. I've never understood the negativity around it. I far prefer it the HTDAAB.
 
i know that in the rock world, its actung babyy and joshua tree that are pristine classics, but in the world of us fans, war joshua and acthing baby are among the best. but i feel ATYCLB is a u2 classic. I feel its gotta be the "classic" of this new trio of u2 albums of the '00s. beatiful day means as much to me as with or without did back in the 80's. its a abosloute classic. it might be a straight fowward album, but its a great one. it also has alot of outside elements that make it more meaningful. at least to me. some of them, are things that happened later. like joey ramones death, and "in a little while" , or bonos father passing, "kite" or just overall healing after 9/11 and how american fans got to hear to how it is too listen to to u2 in the face of danger like people in other countrys have. ( i wish that part didn't happen, of course, but it did). then thiers th e fact is has just great songs, tjat helps too. it answered the qustion about what u2 would sound like after thier 90's journey ended.

but mabey what i felt when i first heard it, before all that, is that, this is u2 a crossoads. the cover says it all. thier at a airport. the airport of of life,lol sorta. where will they go? where have they been? Has it all come up to this point? the sound is a return to 80's, but actuly at the same time, moving forward and fresh. thier a wiser and older version of thier 80's selves. I truly see this album as a u2 classic. if your a u2 fan you have to own this album. it seems HTDAAB might sell outsell ATYCLB, but i love both but ATYCLB was a classic to me the minute i got throguh the album, and those other things made it even more meanigful. it was u2 healing power in the midst of negtive things. this might be the one time in u2 set of past trios (every 3 albums are connected IMO) that the best album wasn;t the also the highest selling album. i love dismantle alot, i love it in a diffrent way. but i would still have to give ATYCLB the cut above. But i guess its not gona be the best selling album of the '00s for u2. (witch is ok, casue dismantle is awesome). acthung was the best of the 90's and sold the most. joshua was the best and sold more then UF and RAH out of those latrer half albums. and war was the best selling of the early 80's and and was the best album. (boy was close though)
 
Stuck in a Moment is a great song. In a Little While is a great song. Elevation is great live. I love Wild Honey. Sometimes I love Beautiful Day, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I love Walk on, sometimes I don't.

Peace on Earth, Grace, and When I look at the world are good songs, but not great songs.

New York has great music and terrible lyrics.

Overall, the biggest problem that the album has is not the merely good songs, it's the absence of the great songs that should have been there in their place.

A good album with some great songs, but not a great album.
 
I really like In A Little While, I think Bono's vocal is very strong there, he conveys a lot of emotion (although my little sister says it sounds like he's taking a shit). :eek: I love Edge's guitar there, I've just about managed to learn to play it (badly admittedly).

I wasn't particularly fond of Kite at first, but it has really grown on me - I love the "I'm a man... I'm not a child" line.

Walk On I've always really liked.

Only Bono could write a song called Peace On Earth and get away with it! I find that the lyrics are difficult to listen to... such a poignant song.

The one that really blows me away is The Ground Beneath Her Feet - I think it's gorgeous. I love the way it's sung. So haunting.

I find Elevation somewhat overrated. Great energy and spirit, but Bono's "woohoo"ing hurts my ears.:(
 
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I like this one, too. The first 6 songs in particular are excellent ("In A Little While"...:heart:. Love that one), and "Peace On Earth" and "Grace" are a couple of other particular favorites. As for "Wild Honey"...I remember listening to that song recently, and it'd been a while since I'd last heard that song, so when I was listening to it then, I'd remembered how much I liked it. It's a fun, poppy, goofy little song.

As for the lyrics...you know, I love the deeper, profound lyrics in U2 songs, no doubt about that. But sometimes the simple ones are nice, too. Not every song has to be all profound lyrically in order to be good. Bottom line is, he writes lyrics better than I could ever hope to write them, so I'm not about to criticize.

Yeah. This one's not too bad :up: :).

Angela
 
No less than Bono himself has declared that ATYCLB was their "best collection of songs" and that ATYCLB has "better songs" than AB and JT but when these great songs were put together, it just didn't create this certain overall feel that they achieved with AB and JT. This on a recent magazine interview (HTDAAB era) which can be found here:

http://forum.interference.com/t107942.html

And it was also Bono who said that POP was "unfinished." So while many would disagree with Bono's musical tastes (which can get quite eccentric at times) - even in his own assesment of their own work - I do agree with Bono.

Cheers,

J
 
I always liked it.
BD, Stuck, Kite, In a little while are great songs and I enjoy Wild honey and New York.
Elevation and Walk on are a bit overrated but still likeable, I like the lyrics on POE and I mostly skip WILATW and Grace.
 
jick said:
No less than Bono himself has declared that ATYCLB was their "best collection of songs" and that ATYCLB has "better songs" than AB and JT but when these great songs were put together, it just didn't create this certain overall feel that they achieved with AB and JT. This on a recent magazine interview (HTDAAB era) which can be found here:

http://forum.interference.com/t107942.html

And it was also Bono who said that POP was "unfinished." So while many would disagree with Bono's musical tastes (which can get quite eccentric at times) - even in his own assesment of their own work - I do agree with Bono.


Okay, but if you're going to quote Bono to defend ATYCLB, you have to include all of what he said. J loves to take things out of context to prove his points, while ignoring any contrary information. Mentioning "overall feel" fails to get at the heart of his actual comments. It is that dishonesty, lazy or intended, that continues to bother me.

Bono says: "On All That You Can't Leave Behind, I think we had the best collection of songs. I DON'T THINK THAT THE WHOLE WAS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS IN THE WAY THAT THE JOSHUA TREEE HAD SOME SONGS THAT WEREN'T QUITE AS GOOD BUT THE OVERALL FEELING OF THE ALBUM WAS THAT IT TAKES YOU OVER. IT'S THE SAME WITH ACHTUNG BABY. I DON'T THINK WE QUITE GOT THERE ON ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND."

I'm using all caps just to show the whole part that J left out. Compare the amount of space Bono is complimenting ATYCLB to the amount of him explaining its shortcomings. In the next paragraph Bono says he likes to thing HTDAAB is "a real classic U2 album that has a spine to it," insinuating that ATYCLB doesn't have much of a spine.

And that's fine. It IS a great collection of songs. I like everything on there a lot, with the exception of Wild Honey, which is a great b-side. But I have said many times that the whole is NOT better than the sum of the parts. Bono agrees with me, in those EXACT words. And any truly classic album should be either the opposite, or a combination of the two, something Bono seems to suggest. Sgt. Pepper's is not a great collection of songs. But yet, it is cited as one of, if not the best albums ever. It is the journey of the album, the ebb and the flow, the little moments, the strange detours. That's what makes a classic, not a jukebox.

And one last thing: I know I'm biased in favor of POP, but while Bono (and others) may have called it unfinished, they never appeared to be disappointed about the overall makeup of the album or its thematic impact. Bono mentioned maybe playing with the track order at one point. I would seriously argue that based on what he said above, ATYCLB is less of an accomplishment than POP to him from an ALBUM standpoint (he only said ATYCLB was the best collection of songs). From a song standpoint, U2 has only expressed regret in the RECORDING, or polishing of some of POP's songs, not the compositions themselves or their failure to form a unified whole.


laz
 
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lazarus said:
Okay, but if you're going to quote Bono to defend ATYCLB, you have to include all of what he said. J loves to take things out of context to prove his points, while ignoring any contrary information. Mentioning "overall feel" fails to get at the heart of his actual comments. It is that dishonesty, lazy or intended, that continues to bother me.


laz [/B]

Picking straws aren't we huh? I just summarized the gist of what he said but I added a link to the full article nevertheless so that everyone can read the article in full.

I don't see the point in posting everything word for word when I put a link to the article. It seems you are a new member here in Interference with 66 posts and having joined only 2 months ago.
I have been here for over 2 years and have learned never to underestimate the intelligence of the Interference people. This is a forum of opinionated intelligent U2 fans, and when you post them a link they will all read it.

If my intention was dishonesty then I wouldn't have had posted the link. Failure to quote the article in full does not constitute laziness for me when I already posted a link.

Anyway, I can't blame you for the outrage. Your relative inexperience still has you on the learning stage to the ins and outs of this forum. Give yourself a few more months and you will feel very at home in this forum, just like I have over the past two years.

Cheers,

J
 
lazarus said:
jick said:
And it was also Bono who said that POP was "unfinished."

And one last thing: I know I'm biased in favor of POP, but while Bono (and others) may have called it unfinished, they never appeared to be disappointed about the overall makeup of the album or its thematic impact. Bono mentioned maybe playing with the track order at one point. I would seriously argue that based on what he said above, ATYCLB is less of an accomplishment than POP to him from an ALBUM standpoint (he only said ATYCLB was the best collection of songs). From a song standpoint, U2 has only expressed regret in the RECORDING, or polishing of some of POP's songs, not the compositions themselves or their failure to form a unified whole.

laz

Wasn't it Larry who just recently said "I'd like to have another try at POP, to finish the songs?"
I know he also said before that that the tragedy of POP was it could be great if they had two more months to finish it.
So Bono is not the only one who said that, and obviously the whole band agreed when they made different versions for singles off POP and the Best of.

I think POP tries to do too much stuff at once and so fails: there's dance influenced first three songs, the unusual-for-U2 sounding Miami, Playboy mansion and Velvet dress and the rest is straightforward rock songs.

Bono compared ATYCLB and HTDAAB, he didn't say anything about POP in that quote. Besides U2 always said they were going for 11 good songs on ATYCLB. Doesn't mean ATYCLB is a bad effort.

As for HTDAAB, time will tell where it fits among other U2 albums. Sum vs whole albums: I think albums need strong songs to make them classics.
Would AB be the same without One? Would JT be the same without WOWY or I still haven't found...?
 
lazarus said:
I would seriously argue that based on what he said above, ATYCLB is less of an accomplishment than POP to him from an ALBUM standpoint (he only said ATYCLB was the best collection of songs). From a song standpoint, U2 has only expressed regret in the RECORDING, or polishing of some of POP's songs, not the compositions themselves or their failure to form a unified whole.[/B]

You arguing against ATYCLB based on what Bono's said in the context of U2's ultimate albums, JT and AB only ("best collection of songs" but the whole not being greater than the sum of the parts) while you are arguing for POP based on what U2 never said (just because U2 never expressed regret on the POP compositions and failure to form a unified whole). Now that is what I call a real stretch....

Cheers,

J
 
Britney, here Britney... come on, don't be shy... I'm sure those few vocal ATYCanLB lovers will love you here... in this thread...

______

ATYCanLB has a few GOOD songs... but it's a shit of an album... well it didn't get the Grammy for album of the year, did it? Only the songs got them!
 
i love ATYCLB, and i couldn;lt wait for the follow up in this new trio of u2 albums. i nicknamed HTDAAB, the "attack of the clones" album of the '00's for u2,lol. i felt all ATYCLB was a classic, it was a real heartfelt change from thier 90's albums. it just worked on all levels. thiers this weird feeling i get about HTDAAB, like its selling all these albums based on just "vertigo", like its this pop album by some new boy band,lol. i mean, "vertigo" is great,lol but i've been amazed at the sales. i know that "vertigo" is on the 40 station around here. to a audeince of people i don't consider to be in u2 demographic,lol. like the teenage girls who love eneiem and backsteeet boys and beonice and people like that,lol u2 having a album like this based on one song is odd. i havnlt seen any sighs that thiers another hit yet. u2 has always had some presece on top 40, of course, but every album had at least 2 or more hits pumping the sales., even the ok selling pop, had discoteqe and staring at the sun. is it just me or is this whats going on? ATYCLB had 4 popular to realy popular hits. HTDAAB has only one so far it seems.
 
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