HTDAAB - Overhype / Under-Deliver?

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How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, in this phase, is my favorite U2 album after Achtung Baby, sharing that place with The Joshua Tree.
After a big 2000 disappointment in the shape of ATYCLB, The Bomb met my expectations, maybe even exceeded them with terrific songwriting, excellent performances, especially with the return of Bono's voice, Edge's rocking guitar and especially Adam's bass playing. I still think this is Adam's best album because of his amazing bass playing on this record. The rhythm section has never been so strong on a U2 song as it is on City of Blinding Lights, the Yahweh intro bassline is beyond incredible, A Man and a Woman bassline is great, Crumbs From Your Table is another great bass song(it has a theme that is actually different from the rest of the song) etc.
Edge here succeeds on many levels, such as great rock playing (Love and Peace or Else), amazing rhythm guitar(City of Blinding Lights) or simply a characteristic Edge sound, with an incredible solo in the middle(Miracle Drug).
Bono's vocals are the best since Zooropa.
Larry's drumming, although are a bit toned down, are again very intense and powerful(just listen to the Love and Peace outro), unlike the very dull drumming on ATYCLB.
U2 are back, people, with this album. And just wait to hear these songs on the Vertigo Tour.
 
I was expecting more when I first listened to HTDAAB. Vertigo, LPOE, ABOY and Fast Cars were the songs that stood out the most, after literally hundreds of listenings songs like Miracle Drug and COBL have really grown on me and I see one or two songs that could crack the Top 20 of U2 songs. However, that being said, the band did overhype the album as being a rock album. Its not a rock n' roll album, its perhaps the most U2 sounding they have made. I love it and it is in my Top 5. Its a solid album, but for the first time its U2 standing still, they have not progressed or regressed. You can almost play "which past album does this song come from" with it. After two decades of moving forward they've finally stopped, but I hope its only temporary.
 
Disagree. I think Love and Peace or Else, A Man and a Woman and Fast Cars don't sound like anything U2 has done in the past.
 
bathiu said:


...it's good to know the world has only two Countries... ahem... HTDAAB already sold more that ATYCLB in the so-called-rest-of-the-world... but it sold only half of ATYCLB's sales in U.S. and that's the reason to name it a failure or "struggling" in the charts... well, no comment!

Where did I say it was commerical failure? :ohmy:

I was just responding to an earlier post which stated that it could sell more than the Joshua Tree, which is very unlikely..
 
Actually Achtung Baby has sold about 18 million copies so HTDAAB has a long way to go to reach that height but it can do it.
 
Yahweh said:
Actually Achtung Baby has sold about 18 million copies so HTDAAB has a long way to go to reach that height but it can do it.

Where in the hell did you get that figure from??? The Joshua Tree, i was led to believe, is the biggest selling U2 album at about 16 million. Achtung Baby sold around 11-12 million. I don't know where you got 18 million from?
 
HTDAAB is a great album i think. much better than ATYCLB. the only song on it i don't like is Yahweh but cos it's at the end i can just turn the stereo off after OOTS finishes :D
 
I'm a fan for years and I'm not like those that stuck themselves on an album (mostly AB or JT) and that cannot accept that a new album or new material can be good or even better that the times they were on the breakthrough.
I must confess that HTDAAB was a bit disapointing because, like you said, people were expecting 11 vertigo's. However, after the analysis of the album's structure, I have to admit that "The Bomb" became my favourite U2 album.
Not only because it shows that at the same time U2 are always re-inventing themselves but they got on a certain point of maturity in their career, and that's visible in their music.
On the other hand, it's my favourite album because every song has something that's reminds us of something they played in the past but that we can't identify exactily. There's not one song that you can say "it sound weird" or "this is not U2", every song is a typical U2 song.

Props, stay cool
 
rjhbonovox said:


Where in the hell did you get that figure from??? The Joshua Tree, i was led to believe, is the biggest selling U2 album at about 16 million. Achtung Baby sold around 11-12 million. I don't know where you got 18 million from?

JT is around 20mln (10+mlns from U.S.)
AB sold 8+mln copies in US alone... and if I'm not mistaken another 10 or 11 mlns "ROTW".

HTDAAB sold 9+mln copies (without U.S. numbers) and there's still 2 or 3 singles to be released and (probably) the biggest tour in history, wich will also incrase the sale of HTDAAB.
So IMO HTDAAB is on a good way to sell more than AB or JT... of course in the "ROWT", because so far in US it sold only 2,4mln copies... but that's not my problem, I live in "ROTW" so I don't care about US...
 
The correct figures for U2's albums at current date is this:

HTDAAB - 6 million to date
Best of 90-2000 - 5 million
ATYCLB - 12 million
Best of 80-90 - 13 million
POP - 6 million
Zooropa - 8 million
Achtung Baby - 18 million
Rattle and Hum - 12 million
Joshua Tree - 21 million
Unforgetable Fire - 6 million
UABRS - 6 million
War - 8 million
October - 2 million
Boy - 2 million

That puts U2s certified album total at about 125 million and I am not including EPs like Wide Awake In America into that total including wide awake in america and Passengers in the total would put it at about 130 million which is the number that has been reported as of late.
 
...but just a few weeks ago... I think about the time the tour was "officialy" anounced, maybe sooner... there was an article with a part: "...worldwide tour promoting their newest album HTDAAB wich already sold 9 mln copies... and more than 2mln copies in US..."
I can't find it right now... but I'll post it as soon as I'll find it...

------
BTW - is there a data on how many legal downloads the album had?


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/edit/ ... o yeah, the article was talking about "shipped" copies, not bought by customers... but it doesn't matter, U2 got money for 9mlns...
 
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Yahweh said:
The correct figures for U2's albums at current date is this:

HTDAAB - 6 million to date
Best of 90-2000 - 5 million
ATYCLB - 12 million
Best of 80-90 - 13 million
POP - 6 million
Zooropa - 8 million
Achtung Baby - 18 million
Rattle and Hum - 12 million
Joshua Tree - 21 million
Unforgetable Fire - 6 million
UABRS - 6 million
War - 8 million
October - 2 million
Boy - 2 million

That puts U2s certified album total at about 125 million and I am not including EPs like Wide Awake In America into that total including wide awake in america and Passengers in the total would put it at about 130 million which is the number that has been reported as of late.

Where did you get these figures from??? I read last week in the papers and online that HTDAAB had now sold 9 million worldwide. I am verrrrrrrrrrrry confused!
 
HTDAAB made me listen to many other albums. Just because it's boring. I'd say crap. It's not a grower, it's a borer.

Second time they make me look for other bands...

They are not delivering the goods anymore.
 
U2_Guy said:
HTDAAB made me listen to many other albums. Just because it's boring. I'd say crap. It's not a grower, it's a borer.

Second time they make me look for other bands...

They are not delivering the goods anymore.

Now, listen to this man! :wink:
 
You can believe what you want I have offical numbers released by the record company. War was U2s break out album in the US and world wide and Zooropa came on the heals of a massive album and tour.
 
zoopop said:
I wouldn't call HTDAAB a failure or overhyped just yet. The tour hasn't even started and the album has sold very well. U2 are in a totally different music market than they were so many years ago. There not going to have a JT type media blitz, but you'll hear alot of them when the tour kicks off and they come knocking in different cities. If the album sells 3-5 million copies in the US I'll call that a huge success for a band like U2. The crap US music fans are spoon fed is such a shame. If Eminem produced a rapping monkey it would sell 10 million copies.


AMEN....nothing against Eminem, but we'll see if Eminem is still getting exposure and selling millions of albums 25 years after the release of his first album....even ten years from now. Very unlikely
 
Since I started this mess, I'll chime in one last time, and you've all added productive insight, so thanks.

A few people hit on my main thought -- this is not the 'rock' or 'semi return to punk' album that I expected, and most of these pre-conceptions were based on comments from Bono well before, and up to, the release.

I was not expecting 11 Vertigos, and the iPod advertising probably contributed to my perception of overhype. I was definitely expecting more raw, edgy, loud sounds, and I did not anticipate songs like SYCM..., AMAW, Species with their relative pace and mellow attitude. LAPOE, well, I'm still not sure about that one.

The album has grown on me more and more. And, ticket Gods willing, I am interested in hearing the material live as I think many of us agree that the concert 'version' typically brings out the best in most U2 songs.

I do believe the album was over-marketed -- but then I ask myself, as a marketing person, how would I market material that takes time to grow on the end user, in an instant gratification society? If I could do it, I probably would not have the job that I do today.

Finally, many have mentioned things like 'album structure' -- I confess, you are completely out of my league -- I know the differnece between lyrics and music, beyond that, it gets pretty fuzzy for me, and I don't really care to take music 101 at 40 with three kids in diapers.

After reading a post about Adam's bass on this album, I paid more attention, and agree --- silky and cool.

Thanks for some interesting reading and responses. As Jim Rome puts it,

OUT





, but I , but LAPOE, Man and Women, Species
 
djerdap said:
Disagree. I think Love and Peace or Else, A Man and a Woman and Fast Cars don't sound like anything U2 has done in the past.



Love and Peace or Else sounds like it was left over from Achtung Baby. The Edge said as much once. He said that they had the intro for quite a while, and that they've been wanting to do a song with Eno's Bass Keyboards since before Pop. Fast Cars is definitely a song that sounds like U2 moving forward, I'll give you that, but its not on the "official" track list, it's an extra like Ground Beneath Her Feet. A Man and a Woman, may sound new to U2 but the first time I heard I immediately thought of bad 80s R&B. I was a lucky a few days ago and on my Itunes Party Girl was played right after A Man and a Woman. I was immediately struck by the similarities. I'm not saying HTDAAB is a bad album, far from it, its a solid album, its just odd to hear U2 standing still.
 
One thing is for sure. It blew me away. The album wasn't underrated - my expectations were. It's how I felt, anyway. There is only great songs on this album. I don't udnerstand the ones who say that HTDAAB don't have a really great song on it, but only good songs. In my opinion this album has more great songs than JT and AB.

And people complain about that it isn't rock. I could not care less. If the album was rock, it wouldn't just imply that it was better. There are a lot of bad rock albums out there. Complaining that it isn't rock is very uninteresting, because that's all about taste. Up tempo does not imply rock either.
 
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It's the perfect album. you will never find an album that explores so many styles of rock and roll yet maintain the sound U2 have been renowned for.

U2 have over-delievers and the hype, in australia at least, seemed considerably low key.
 
The daft thing is that as good as Joshua Tree and Achtung baby are, and they are still the top 2 albums U2 have done. They are also the most over rated and over hyped.

They are not the many light years above anything else U2 have done that's for sure. They both have 2 or 3 tracks which I would class as Miracle songs. They both have some very good tracks. and some good back up songs (for want of a better word), AB more so than JT.

But HTDAAB is not far form that formula either. I can easily put Sometimes among the likes have ISHFWILF, Streets and One and that in itself probably pushes the album up a lot for me.
 
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