Everything I like about How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

[Zoots]

PART I

Vertigo
- The very prominent bass line that's present throughout the song. It makes the song appear to rock harder than it actually does. What I mean by this is that the lyrics are very pop but the music rocks. The intro to the Jacknife Lee remix (I think) is even more bass-y and I almost wish that intro was on the album version too.
- The guitar bridge. It's nothing exceptional, no solos but I just love the ringing guitar in that portion of the song.
- The line "girl with crimson nails has Jesus 'round her neck". It has the same catchy appeal of "you're honey child to a swarm of bees gonna blow right thru ya like a breeze".
- How the song comes to a close... everything upto and not including the yeah yeahs

Lights go down and all I know
Is that you give me something
I can feel your love teaching me how
Your love is teaching me how
How to kneel
Kneel

The music is especially euphoric in said part of the song and it's a great climax to the song.

Miracle Drug
- The musical intro to the song. The chords are pretty much the same as With Or Without You I think but it has such a warm feeling to it. It is not cold and disconnected.
- Just the way Bono sings the line "Love makes nonsense of space and tiiiiiime.. will disappear". It flows so well. Reminds me of "the newspaper says.... says, say it's true, it's true" which is from another song with nice vocals.
- That whole slide guitar piece after the second chorus, with the Oh Oh's in the background. It's nothing new but is beautiful, just like Edge's many slide performances to date.
- That bridge... some of the best lyrics on the whole album

Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear your voice
It's whispering
In science and in medicine
I was a stranger
You took me in


Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
- The guitar during the "Listen to me now..." verse. Was somewhat reminiscent of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For when I heard it for the first time. Again, nothing new but it has the classic U2 feel to it that we cannot get enough of.
- The guitar during the "I know that we don't talk" part. Really, beautiful work by The Edge throughout this song! The lyrics can be a little too direct for my taste but I think I enjoy this one mostly for the music.

Love And Peace Or Else
- An intro that sounds pretty cool overall and stands out amongst all the conservative and classic sounding intros. And I like how Larry's louder-than-usual drumming kicks off the song, something that seems to be rare in their music this decade.
- The music starting from "I don't know if I can take it, I'm not easy on my knees" all the way upto the release release part with another loud Larry drum fill crashing down into the chorus. That's probably my favorite part of this song.
- Not a huge fan of the lyrics but I like how that whole "baby don't fight we can talk this thing thru" part flows.
- Interesting Edge mini solo at the end with Larry coming down with those (almost) War style drums again.

City Of Blinding Lights
- The slide guitar during the intro, that is much much more prominent in the live versions. Again, a slide so gorgeous only the Edge can pull off.
- Adam's bass work throughout the song is outstanding! Best on the album by far!
- The line "I'm getting ready to leave the ground" and Bono's beautiful vocal delivery combined with the ascending background music mimics the actual taking off of an aircraft and a feeling of floating on air. Last I got this feeling was when I heard Beautiful Day for the first time. Truly euphoric and joyous!
- The Oooh Ooohs combined with the wall of lead guitar and that persistant bass is another energy boost in this part of the song. Really uplifting, makes you feel happy!

All Because Of You
- If you can ignore the ear piercing guitar note at the very beginning, the intro actually sounds pretty cool and again the song is kick started by the drums, only not as prominent as in Love And Peace Or Else.
- The main guitar line that you can hear when Bono sings "I am.. I am.. I am" in the first chorus and repeated several times later.
- The guitar part right after "some people get squashed crossing the tracks" and also right after "i'm not broke but you can see the cracks".
- The quick guitar solo, although nothing substantial is still quite delicious as an intro to what's arguably some of the best lyrics on the album.
- The whole bridge... nice lyrics!

I'm alive
I'm being born
I just arrived
I'm at the door
Of the place I started out from
And I want back inside



To be continued...

 

[vaz02]

Adored you LPOE review, my fav song of the album , such promise.

 

[Zoots]

PART II

A Man And A Woman
- The warm acoustic sounding guitar intertwined with that repeated bass line is sweet relief after the "noise" of the first half. This is the In A Little While of this album and it is at pretty much the exact same position too!
- The way the background music comes together during the "true love never can be rent" verse before going into the chorus is really pretty.
- I love the summer-y feel throughout the song and I think this is especially accentuated by Larry's light but steady drumming.
- The harmonies during "brown eyed girl across the street..." are rather nice.
- Although the lyrics are a little too heavy on "soul", I really love how the background music comes together during the "the soul needs beauty for a soul mate.." verse. Very much like the earlier "true love never can be rent" part, only it seems fuller here.

Crumbs From Your Table
- The distant fog horn like sound at the very beginning just before the chiming guitar intro.
- You speak of signs and wonders... very nice lyrics overall. Love the "where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die" line
- The whole section of guitar music after "dignity passes by"
- Overall not much variation on guitar but pretty nonetheless.

One Step Closer
- The Eno-esque intro and outro
- I like how the line "I'm on an island in a busy intersection" flows vocally
- The simplistic guitar notes during the chorus and the part right after the second time Bono sings "one step closer to knowing" in the second chorus.
- The slightly louder drumming during the last chorus. It almost makes up for the overly repeated chorus.

Original Of The Species
- The musical build-up (that is beatlesque in parts) right from "I'll give you everything you want..." upto the chorus is so beautiful. The orchestra feel really gives a fullness to this song. Really, Edge's chime only shows up in the chorus, the "Everywhere you go.." part and until then it all sounds nothing like the classic U2 we know.
- The way Bono sings "you can keep in your love under control" and sustains it till the chorus starts up again.

Yahweh
- Nice intro that sounds to me like the musical equivalent of a sunrise. The opening shot of the Beautiful Day video will make a fine backdrop to this intro I think.
- I also like the steady drumming especially during the intro and the way it leads upto the first verse reminds me a bit of how One Tree Hill starts.
- The echoey guitar right from "still I'm waiting for the dawn" at the end of the second chorus thru "love is like a drop in the ocean" upto the Oh Oh Oh and the next chorus.
- The whole "sun is coming up on the ocean, this love is like a drop in the ocean" line seems to give a feeling of hope.

Fast Cars
- Nice middle eastern like yell from Bono to kick the song off. Something different.
- acoustic sounding pretty guitar lead intertwined with a repeated but prominent bass line, very much like A Man And A Woman.
- Love it when the bass really kicks in right as the chorus, "all I want is a picture of you" starts!
- The vocal flow of "they're in the desert to dismantle an atomic bomb". Nice job, Bono!
- The guitar bit right after "all I want is a picture of you" in the chorus, which is repeated after "all I want is to get right next to you" and pretty much every line in the chorus. So gorgeous!
- The whole song creates an imagery of wild sexy dancing in white pillared halls with purple colored see through curtains and a belly dancer at the center of the hall... at least to me it does!
- The guitar after "you know I miss mine sometimes".
- The way the bass again kicks in as Bono repeats "somebody in the bodyyyyyy" and ends with another middle eastern style yell turning into moaning that slowly fades away.

That's pretty much it. Thanks for reading.

 

[europop2005]

"the only hurt is to feel nothing at all"

that line meant so much to me after my relationships

 

[mandrake]

I think looking back on Atomic Bomb, its easy to bash it since it is not an Achtung Baby or Joshua Tree and that Vertigo and the singles were soooo overplayed. However I heard Original of the Species come on in the car today and made me re think the album. It's better than I thought.

 

[MrBrau1]

I quite liked that.

Do more albums.

 

[Goocher100]

Bravo, Zootlesque. You should do the other albums when you have time like Brau suggested.

 

[gman]

I like the album a lot, but I adore the others more. In g-world.....Bomb is listened to more than any other artists album.
Having listened to the alternate versions agian tho, the songs on bomb are defiantely over produced and songs like ABOY amd Vertigo could have been so much more energetic and raw.

 

[Everlastinglove]

I LOOOOOVEEEE Man and a women... I love the way Bono writes song about relationships. Even if it's his own one. But you can always relate to his lyrics....

 

[Zoots]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys!

Gotta love it. You write a negative review about the album and post it here, you'll get a 100 different comments tearing your original post apart. You make a mostly positive one with a few negatives hidden, less than 10 people reply.

 

[gman]

HTDAAB is shit! Your post is crap! Yer talkin Pish and you kill kittens!

Are you feeling better??

 

[U2Man]

reply

 

[gman]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys!

Gotta love it. You write a negative review about the album and post it here, you'll get a 100 different comments tearing your original post apart. You make a mostly positive one with a few negatives hidden, less than 10 people reply.

In all seriousness tho Zoot....yer right, theres a lot of people on here all too ready to jump down yer throat if you dare break the 11th commadment (thy shalt not talketh ill of u2)!!

 

[Zoots]

In all seriousness tho Zoot....yer right, theres a lot of people on here all too ready to jump down yer throat if you dare break the 11th commadment (thy shalt not talketh ill of u2)!!

Exactly. Thou shalt only be positive about U2. Not that I didn't mean what I said in the original post but I can easily make another thread titled "Everything I don't like about How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" and you know how many people will respond to that one!

 

[gman]

Sure do.......... Sure do.

 

[RademR]

The thing that bothers me about HTDAAB is that it's filled with so many good songs, but there's something missing to me in each of them that would make them incredible, or classics.

Miracle Drug, ABOY, & OOTS are good examples of this. I love them and they are really good, but there's a "gap" in each tune which I don't feel good about.

I wasn't a big fan of how Lillywhite produced the record, so maybe that "gap" could have been filled by Lanois or Eno, or maybe even Rick Rubin. I don't know....

City of Blinding Lights is a classic u2 song for me, but it was produced so bad it brings it down to earth a little bit. Vertigo is a great u2 song imo also, but the bridge annoys the hell out of me ("give me what you want...and no one gets hurt..." cheesy)

I still loved the record, and will always go back to it. But after a couple years I have to say ATYCLB is a stronger record. When the bomb was first released, I thought it was stronger. And the songs on HTDAAB might just be stronger, but as a whole I like ATYCLB more and I feel more of a connection to it, as corny as that might sound.

 

[Zoots]

Vertigo is a great u2 song imo also, but the bridge annoys the hell out of me ("give me what you want...and no one gets hurt..." cheesy)

Yes I agree. I didn't mention that cos I was focussing on the positives.

I still loved the record, and will always go back to it. But after a couple years I have to say ATYCLB is a stronger record. When the bomb was first released, I thought it was stronger. And the songs on HTDAAB might just be stronger, but as a whole I like ATYCLB more and I feel more of a connection to it, as corny as that might sound.

Agree wholeheartedly with that. Bomb made a much better first impression than ATYCLB but I think ATYCLB has more staying power... despite the somewhat cheesy album version of Stuck, the silly Elevation and some of the throwaway lyrics on Wild Honey (love meeee.... gimme soul...??).

 

[AtomicBono]

Exactly. Thou shalt only be positive about U2. Not that I didn't mean what I said in the original post but I can easily make another thread titled "Everything I don't like about How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" and you know how many people will respond to that one!

because it's been done to death already!

good review though...I gotta say, I listened to HTDAAB in full a week ago and I really, really enjoyed it. Great album. Production is the main thing that brings it down. Some of the songs have good production, though. LAPOE definitely has the best. The intro is awesome, then the little spacey vocal section before the guitar kicks in, and (possibly my favourite moment on the album) the underwater guitar solo and then the sound of a guitar being plugged in. Whoever did the primary work on LAPOE (I'm guessing either Flood or Jacknife Lee?) should have produced the entire album, because that track is absolutely stellar. I don't know if all the HTDAAB haters didn't have that song on their copy of the album or what

 

[Zoots]

because it's been done to death already!

Yes. We have had enough threads about HTDAAB being negatively criticized. And yet people continue responding to those threads. You see what I'm saying? You'd think that if a certain type of thread has been done to death, people would stop paying attention to it. Doesn't happen with the negative threads no matter how many years in the future. You're all freaks!

 

[LemonMelon]

It's that stupid U2 album cycle again...

1. Album is released; gets praised.
2. Album is toured; it becomes cool to bash the album and compare it to the live versions.
3. Two years after album release, the fans get antsy and start nitpicking; negative threads circulate.
4. New album is released; previous album is considered a "failure" by fans, though the media and non-fans loved it.
5. New album is toured; previous album is compared positively to the new one.
6. Previous album is considered a lost classic.

Wash, rinse and repeat until the end of time.

 

[Zoots]

It's that stupid U2 album cycle again...

1. Album is released; gets praised.
2. Album is toured; it becomes cool to bash the album and compare it to the live versions.
3. Two years after album release, the fans get antsy and start nitpicking; negative threads circulate.
4. New album is released; previous album is considered a "failure" by fans, though the media and non-fans loved it.
5. New album is toured; previous album is compared positively to the new one.
6. Previous album is considered a lost classic.

Wash, rinse and repeat until the end of time.

I don't conform to your little procedure there... cos I praised the Bomb even before LIAWHL (Love Is All We Have Left) has been released.

 

[LemonMelon]

I've made a color-coded pie chart to illustrate my point:

Your praise is coming towards the end of the HTDAAB hate cycle, and you're praising ATYCLB during its upswing.

Believe me, it's all chemical reactions. We can't help it. Not even I am immune.

 

[Salome]

Gotta love it. You write a negative review about the album and post it here, you'll get a 100 different comments tearing your original post apart. You make a mostly positive one with a few negatives hidden, less than 10 people reply.

umm, I always thought that the only difference is that when you write a negative post about U2 you get 246 replies (from about 11 people) slapping you on the back for the genius of your thread

personally I don't care much for How to dismantle ... as an album while at the same I don't have anything truly bad to say about it
I even like it quite a lot when actually listening to it

the positives about the album fro me are Sometimes ..., Man and a woman, Crumbs, One step closer

 

[Aygo]

It's that stupid U2 album cycle again...

1. Album is released; gets praised.
2. Album is toured; it becomes cool to bash the album and compare it to the live versions.
3. Two years after album release, the fans get antsy and start nitpicking; negative threads circulate.
4. New album is released; previous album is considered a "failure" by fans, though the media and non-fans loved it.
5. New album is toured; previous album is compared positively to the new one.
6. Previous album is considered a lost classic.

Wash, rinse and repeat until the end of time.

nice theory

 

[Aygo]

Great thread! I think we needed something like this, Zoots, kind of uplifting.
And I loved the description of positive points in the songs, specially in Yahweh , OSC and ABOY!

Congratz!

 

[xaviMF22]

HTDAAB is the best U2 album ever

all because of you


vertigo bitches.....vertigo

 

[Galeongirl]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys!

Gotta love it. You write a negative review about the album and post it here, you'll get a 100 different comments tearing your original post apart. You make a mostly positive one with a few negatives hidden, less than 10 people reply.

but I still love you Zoot!

the Miracle Drug one was nice... and I agree about the bridge

 

[Earnie Shavers]

City of Blinding Lights - Just 5% better production and it'd be great.

Love & Peace - Just 5 minutes spent on the lyrics and it'd be great.


They're my highlights of the album.

 

[U2girl]

It's that stupid U2 album cycle again...

1. Album is released; gets praised.
2. Album is toured; it becomes cool to bash the album and compare it to the live versions.
3. Two years after album release, the fans get antsy and start nitpicking; negative threads circulate.
4. New album is released; previous album is considered a "failure" by fans, though the media and non-fans loved it.
5. New album is toured; previous album is compared positively to the new one.
6. Previous album is considered a lost classic.

Wash, rinse and repeat until the end of time.

How much do you wanna bet Bomb will get a similar surge in popularity like ATYCLB did after the next album comes out?

 

[jacobus]

the only good thing of HTDAAB is ONE STEP CLOSER