Beautiful Day Fan Reaction?

[Zoovation]

Was the Fan Reaction for "Beautiful Day" as good as for "Vertigo" or were there more people that didn't like the song?

 

[U2Kitten]

I wasn't on a website then, but from the people I knew, we loved it and were very excited about it. Mostly everyone I knew was disappointed by Pop and found it a welcome change from that sound.

 

[celia]

Beautiful Day was received really well wasn't it? Was a brilliant first single just like this one! Im so excited!!!

 

[AussieU2fanman]

but what exactly was the reaction compared to this one????

 

[u2ulysses]

From memory, "Beautiful Day" was received better than "Vertigo". Of course, there were some naysayers talking about U2 daring to sound like U2 . And when "Beautiful Day" failed to fly up the U.S. charts - at first - there was some DJ's taking delight in that fact. But overall, I think fanatic to mild fan were very happy with the song. Additionally, it attracted a lot of new fans. I don't think that will happen with "Vertigo" due to its harder nature - but it might attract some teens tired of the pop artists or R&B overload.

 

[U2Kitten]

I wouldn't say it failed to fly, but those days (most unfortunately) were ruled by boy bands, teen pop and raprock. It was hard for any decent song to get airplay on the top 40 stations. The album ATYCLB did VERY well, making it to #2 in the US (some rapper had #1) and it sold a large number of copies so I would say it was a huge success. Also the DJs I heard introducing it were very very complimentary and even gushing. I didn't get into the online community until the summer of the tour so I don't know what was being said there.

 

[Dima]

i'm actually a living memory of those days in this forum ..well as far as i remember while for Vertigo disappointed comments are an exception for Beautiful Day the comments were mixed...and very few really loved it from the first listening.
Actually i remember i was one of the few that loved the song from the beginning and i still think that is the best song on ATYCLB by far (and one of the best U2's song ever)..much better than walk on (that was a first listening's favourite for most members of this forum, not for me though...i started loving it after listening to the "alleluja" version: much, much better!) or Kite (another forum's favourite but to me just an overrated song)

 

[bcrt2000]

I remember one of the Radio DJ's on 102.1 The Edge (Toronto) saying he was hanging out with the lead singer of Our Lady Peace and they had a preview copy of ATYCLB and they thought it was going to be a total bomb after they listened to it, but they admited that they ended up being totally wrong.

I have a fear that maybe not releasing preview copies of HTDAAB to radio stations/critics might be damaging as the radio stations might just ignore the whole album altogether.

 

[sharky]

I think Atomic Bomb, and this song in particular, had more buzz going for them with all this talk about the new guitar sound and all. It's been interesting to see how non-fans react. I was over at velvetrope.com, which is a message board frequented by people working in the music industry, and most of them love this song, love the sound, and say this is the best U2 has been in years. Better than ATYCLB. So who knows what will happen when people outside of Interference start to listen to it.

 

[u2ulysses]

I wouldn't say it failed to fly, but those days (most unfortunately) were ruled by boy bands, teen pop and raprock. It was hard for any decent song to get airplay on the top 40 stations. The album ATYCLB did VERY well, making it to #2 in the US (some rapper had #1) and it sold a large number of copies so I would say it was a huge success. Also the DJs I heard introducing it were very very complimentary and even gushing. I didn't get into the online community until the summer of the tour so I don't know what was being said there.

Actually, the very early days of "Beautiful Day" showed some stagnation early on. It was floating in the 70's on the Hot 100 and it didn't appear that it would be a bigger hit.

But then it transitioned to the Adult Rock stations and that's when it took off.

However, for the most part "Beautiful Day" was very VERY well received. Like I wrote above, there were a few token negative comments, but that's to be expected. I do recall, though, that fan reaction seemed stronger than it is for "Vertigo". Despite the mostly positive comments here, I don't recall seeing any "U2 are past their prime" or "Are U2 Relevant" threads that I see now.

 

[starsgoblue]

Beautiful Day heads down a completley different direction than Vertigo does. The songs are so diffferent but yet at the same time they both have that unique U2 sound--that alone is a huge accomplishment. I think the reaction to Vertigo has been wonderful...plus it hasn't really had chance to reach 'the uncoverted' yet, just you wait until it gets more airtime and the video is released. It's going to get nuts.

 

[bcrt2000]

One of the things that I think hurt Electrical Storm was the black and white music video.. I think it was hard for people to identify with it, especially since it barely showed Bono & Edge in it, the two members of the group that people identify with it. When I first saw Electrical Storm I wasn't a *huge* U2 fan, but I liked Achtung Baby & Joshua Tree; I thought the video was odd as it showed a story of two people I didn't even recognize (actually I recognized the actress from Minority Report, but not the guy). I found out later that it was Larry who starred in the video.

Beautiful Day's music video just had that magical touch with Bono playing the character who doesn't have any worries in the world, throwing away his money, and then being playful in the hangar and on the runway when singing.

Elevation's music video just looked awesome because of all the special effects, the band floating in the air, the Edge superimposed over the movie shots, the matrix type shots where everyone is frozen, yet the camera is spinning around Bono while his lips were moving, the car floating in the air, Adam in the taxi, and who can forget the sonic waves with the wind blowing at the end? It just looked like they really treated the music video as its own little blockbuster action movie and they got the results.

Let's hope Vertigo can repeat the successes on MTV with its music video, I think thats what will make or break this song in the charts.

 

[starsgoblue]

Well from the pics I have seen of the video shoot it looks like it's going to be a beautiful day when I see the finished product....

 

[Roland of Gilead]

My recollection of fan reaction from this site alone has Vertigo outshining Beautiful Day by a country mile. I seem to remember very critical thoughts about BD. The negative reaction that Vertigo has been getting here is next to none. I think the big deal back then was that some people felt that BD was too adult contemporary. Especially after Pop and Zooropa. That seemed to be the most common negative reaction.

Well, I could be wrong about all of this. The wife says I am wrong a lot.

 

[starsgoblue]

I have to agree there is practically zero negative reaction to Vertigo.

 

[ylimeU2]

I wasn't on the website when Beautiful Day came out, so I don't know how it was received here. But for me, I didn't really like it the first few times I heard. It took me a week to think it was okay, and then I really got into it after that. Which basically sums up my reaction to ATYCLB in general. And really, I'm like that with a lot of U2 songs. "Vertigo" has been the exception to that.