I'm in love with PASSENGERS!

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truecoloursfly

The Fly
Joined
Sep 25, 2001
Messages
299
Location
The Wet Coast
Yup, I finally got it a couple weeks ago. 'Cause I knew I "should," and a U2-friend kept urging me to hear it, certain I'd like it. My reservations? Well, the perception somehow that it was just a creative indulgence, a merely interesting experiment with a noted art-rock experimenter. Plus the fact that Larry openly disliked it. "Art for art's sake," as he called it, one of my own pet peeves as a painter. If you aren't illuminating life (if not my very SOUL), don't waste our time, you know?

Well, Larry, YOU'RE WRONG.
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Even on first listen, in which I found music I really liked -- a LOT -- even then, it seemed an intellectual attraction. I liked "the experiment," -- I heard "an Eno album," rich in texture and atmosphere (I'm more an admirer than a fan) married to U2's deep sense of melody. I took it for an album I'd pull out occasionally when I was in the mood...
But I tell ya, folks, not a day's gone by that I haven't listened to it at least once, and the mood grows stronger every listen. It's seductive! Deeply sensual. It doesn't feel like a "U2" record; it is, however, an album made by musicians I know well, and hear with new ears. It's as if THEY are exploring their own musicality, outside the dictates of U2-music, along with us who are listening. They don't know what's coming out next either. And that big power that's in them, which fuels all those Big Songs of theirs, is contained by Eno's energy, it kind of rumbles underneath all those silky keyboard textures with a sexy tension. And I am completely seduced.

This is the first time I heard Miss Sarajevo. I am an opera fan, and Pavarotti's contribution is sublime -- and NOT gimmicky! What a hook, Is there a time...? Bono's subdued vocals throughout this album are more arresting than half of his wailing pleas elsewhere; I always was crazy about If You Wear That Velvet Dress, and wished to hear more of Bono in that place. Well, shite: Your Blue Room is about as perfect a piece of memory and desire as ever turned into music, and it makes me gasp sometimes.
Always Forever Now is a beautiful, simple, evocative musical phrase, and singing it aloud as I often seem to be doing at work feels like a whole song in three words. The way the vocals are layered, thicker and thicker, and then Bono's "commentary" on top -- again, it's in the repeated listening that I hear all that he's capable of saying without a lot of words.
Having said that, the words to Slug captivate me. Again, hypnotic musically, lulling us with repetition, with subtly building tension ... and a curiously personal-sounding narrative. ...Don't want you to get hurt/Can't help it, I'm a flirt...I don't want to be untrue/I want to be with you made me think of Sweetest Thing, and Acrobat. In this one, he manages to sing with both sorrow AND hunger (and once more I'm weak in the knees...). Don't want what I deserve is a fabulous line! And he ends the song with a sort of punchline/plea that illuminates the song's whole struggle, just by his delivery: Don't wanna stay the same. Simultaneously a declaration and a confession. Oh, there's so much more -- Let's Go Native could go on twice as long and not bore me, Corpse is growing on me -- I've put the whole thing on repeat for hours, hardly knowing where it starts or ends.
It sucks me in like a lover, and at times, I don't even want to leave my house. I want to stay and be wrapped in this...wow.

So am I the only one?
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swept off my feet,
Deb D

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the greatest frontman in the world - by truecoloursfly: http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=1575
 
very nice post!

I have never been a big fan, but I'll give it another listen. Miss Sarajevo is one of U2's best songs and only the hardcore are aware of it. I do agree that, for the most part, the album is understated, yet quite ambitious. How different of an album it is than ATYCLB! I like when U2 doesn't care about making pop music as they are much more daring. Let's hope that more of the experimental Passengers vibe returns on the next album.

Karl
 
PASSENGERS Rule!!!! Slug-what an awesome song.

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Work like you don't need to
Love like you've never been hurt
Dance like no one is watching
 
I like it,too, but don't listen to it very often. However, after reading your excellent post I am inspired to pull it out this evening. I've been listening to more ambient music lately (like early Aphex Twin) and while Passengers is different, it does still create a certain atmosphere that I think I will have a new appreciation for at this particular period of my life.
 
I really agree.. Passengers is a very good album. (By the way, I found a 1995 Entertainment Weekly issue and in the music section, they had a little blurb and a picture about Passengers and it was called Experimental Soundtracks or something like that? Did they change at the last minute or was it EW's fault?)
I really love Elvis Ate America, Let's Go Native, Miss Sarajevo, Always Forever Now, oh heck -- I love all of it!
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I wish they would do part 2, but unfortunately I think they won't do it at all, or at least for several years.

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"Very strange looking object you have at the end of your stick.." - Bono

"Bono looks too intense for me." - Rollercoaster Tycoon park guest

"Don't call me Shirley." - Larry

"I was drunk, high on him, a shrinking, shadowboxing dwarf following in his foosteps...badly...STARSTRUCK.." - Bono, on meeting Frank Sinatra for the first time

"Bono? Bono is going to tie ropes around my neck? Wait a minute.." - Edge, when shooting the 'Numb' video
 
I love it too. It's sort of like Zooropa to the nth degree. It has a great flow to it as well. Your Blue Room is one of my favorite U2 songs. I think that's why they put it on the B-Side of Staring at the Sun, to give it more exposure. Some of instrumentals are great as well like Beach Sequence (w/Bono on piano), and United Colours. Elvis Ate America is a cool as well. Probably the closest they will ever come to rap. If loved Zooropa & Pop, you will love Passengers.
 
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