U2girl said:
Hindsight is there now, but 8 years ago...you win some you lose some. It happens with every album.
If you're not doing well enough in your (let's face it) biggest market, then what do you do? Keep in the same direction or try something else? Or try to re-win the market?
You try to re-win the market.
U2girl said:
I agree this is a pop incarnation/phase for U2, but still, only a phase - they already said - Adam - the next album will be different. (note Mercy is likely being kept for that album, as it hasn't been a B-side) Bono and Edge both said it will come soon.
Also, remember the interviews in 2000 when they said they felt it's okay to sound like U2 again? That's also a part of it.
Well, I think we all know to take what the band says with a grain of salt. Bono and The Edge say it's coming soon? That *might* mean this decade
Adam says it will sound different? That doesn't mean it won't be along the pop lines. The style of the songs are all quite different, HTDAAB is probably their most diverse album in that sense, but it all falls under the pop genre. They could change the style, but if it's still swimming in such shallow water and is still as formulated as these last two albums - it's another pop album. Unfortunately, that's what I expect the album will be and to hear U2 swim out to the depths again, I think it will take a side project of some sort. They're on a financially winning formula and I think that's all they care for now.
I haven't actually heard Mercy, or the famed Xanax & Wine or Native Son. We don't have the full iTunes here so the Complete U2 isn't available, and they are impossible to get on the P2P networks. Know of a site that's hosting them? I really am interested now, but hadn't given them a thought previously, expecting them to be more of the same....
U2girl said:
And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind seeing more good, known rock bands on MTV and (what is more likely at their age and what they're getting at more) radio - charts are a lost cause for them IMO. Bono's absolutely right when he says hip hop is the new pop in the US and that it stole the spotlight from other genres. [/B]
Hip-hop isn't the new pop. Pop is pop and it's simply the most commercial, bubblegum end of all musical styles. There's pop-rock, pop dance, and there's pop hip-hop (Nelly etc). I think that hip-hop really is the new rock. It's the only style of music that the Over 30's don't really understand (waits for an over 30 to tell me off...) It's the rebellion thing that rock used to have, but no longer has because your parents love it as much as you do. That's why the last mass-popular incarnations of rock were the extreme shocking end of debauchery and noise (think the hair bands and all their cocaine and women songs, or heavy metal bands pushing further and further into indigestible noise) and then grunge who brought a new meaning to the rebellion of rock "I am rebelling and I am unhappy because.... just because.... try and deal with that... I'm just going to deny everything". But here comes hip-hop and all it's offensiveness, coming from a culture that your parents don't quite understand and may feel somewhat threatened by, but one that we all grew up with. It's bright and bold and arrogant - the attitude reflected by it's generation of fans as their rebellion. Something Bono has also caught onto - as far back as Zoo TV - was that hip-hop was the music taking the most advantage of the technology of the time, not just in it's production, but what it's produced to play on. Beat heavy, bass heavy. Show cases that massive bottom end you can now get in your sub woofers in the same way the bands that showcased the range of stereo were popular when it first hit, and the bands that first showcased the range of the CD were popular when it first hit. I think it's another reason why U2 employed the technology of electronica to seriously beef up their bottom end and give it a thump with Pop.
U2 doing pop isn't the way to fight that as much as U2 doing hip-hop most certainly isn't the way to fight that (although it would be good for a laugh, B-Ono on the mic.). U2 are a rock band. My whole point is, I think if U2 were smart (and they always have been before) they could still be presenting an up to date, innovative, creative, evolutionary style of rock that while definitely is risky, would in my belief be able to throw some serious heavyweight punches on the scene. Bono still craps on about being a rock band and reclaiming some of hip-hops turf for rock. But U2 aren't doing that. The last two albums have made them a pop band. A pop band based around seriously loud guitars, but a pop band regardless. They're not reclaiming any turf because they have become the turf that rock wants to reclaim.
Meanwhile rock is fighting back. After 5 or 6 years in the wilderness, there are bands that are igniting peoples imaginations. None of them have been on the mark yet, but they all have the right idea. It's not navel gazing, gloomy music. It's snappy, it's upbeat, it's bright and loud and it's proud to be ambitious and in the spot light. It's also slightly innovative, although not massively, borrowing heavily from the past. Franz Ferdinand in their snappy suits and their bravado playing stuff that sounds remarkably like old U2 in a lot of parts, eg "Like A Song" updated wouldn't sound out of place on their album at all. The Killers, who as I've said, with all their brightness and ambition wouldn't look out of place on the Popmart stage, openly worship at the alter of U2, and do so with a style of music that while with a different pace and goal certainly is using a formula that is well and truly on U2's turf (hello Pop). And the wildly popular theatrics of non-rock bands like The Scissor Sisters. People want their rock to be bright, theatrical, showy and bold, and that's a direct reaction to the doom and gloom of 90's rock. It's also something U2 knew and U2 were well and truly onto. It's something that U2 ditched in favour of jumping ship over to the pop side, and now people listen to U2 in reference to other pop music. It's squeezed on the radio between Rob Thomas and Gwen Stefani and it's way better, but it doesn't do that crossover any more. You used to be able to take a U2 song and play it on the commercial FM station, simply because it was U2 and they were big enough, and it sounded like an exciting breath of fresh air. Now it just sounds like higher quality, but the same air. The songs used to also cross over to the more alternative radio stations as well, but now on those stations you don't listen to a Bloc Party song, then a U2 song, then a Killers song. U2 have been dumped off those stations like they are carrying a disease, and they are, it's pop. They were that rare, great band that could take something that can be respected in a serious musical way and consumed by a mass audience at the same time. Now they are just consumed by a mass audience, and no-one would seriously compare them to the great new music of the past 5 years. It didn't have to be that way.
For all their bluster about the Edge on this record, the last two albums are the most reigned in he's ever been, by a mile. He's one of the most sonically creative guitarists of our generation, yet there's not a sonic chance or risk taken on either album. The guitar, and by association, The Edge, are more prominent on HTDAAB than on ATYCLB, but both are by far the least creative he's been. Pop for all it's 'electronic' bagging showcases what makes The Edge so good far better than HTDAAB. That's got nothing to do with him being okay with making 'U2' sounds on the guitar again, it's about how it's used and as someone said earlier in one of these threads, it seems like the guy has been chained to a post... don't stray too far there... just make that tingly/atmospheric sound here and there, but keep it safe.... now give us a little bit of a 'rockin out' solo, but keep it real safe and simplified... If it's the 80's Edge atmospheric sound you like, just listen to him on The Unforgettable Fire or the Joshua Tree again, listen to how free flowing it was, then go back to HTDAAB and you'll see what I mean. Reigned in a long, long way.
Bono's lyrics? Yeah, I understand him wanting to be more direct, but great writing can still be direct. Bono, to me, is the best lyricist of the past 20 years. From Unforgettable Fire on there have been few if any better. Do you think there's any ambiguity to the lyrics of One or With Or Without You or two dozen other U2 songs? There's way, way more there if you want to explore, but on the surface, on a first listen, there's a direct story and a meaning that an 11 year old can pick up on. The lyrics on HTDAAB in particular are.... just very average. Direct, yes. An example of good writing, no. Completely gone are the beautiful Bono lyrics of the past 20 years in favour of 'spell it out slowly for those who will never, ever pay any closer attention'. Pop lyrics. A deeper topic than your average pop song alone does not give the song depth. Most of the time you just feel like you are listening to Bono's last Time Magazine interview set to music, even to the point where there are exact lines from songs that you have actually heard him use in interviews before. There is zero depth to them for those who loved his lyrics for their amazing poetic beauty, the meaning after meaning that unfolded over and over again, the clever turns of phrase, imagery etc, and in his quest for directness he's managed to seemingly shed all of his ability as a writer. It didn't need to be that way. Vocally he's also just belting it out. He had learned how to work within his new voice, now he just seems to scream for the sake of it, sometimes it passes, sometimes it's awful. I can't listen to Miracle Drug at all. The part where he's singing "The songs..." sounds like a dog yelping. His voice throughout Original is really bad. He's thinned out and stretching. Even ATYCLB is way, way better vocally. That's got nothing to do with pop music, but it is an example of them trying to be something they're not. Bono used to work within his voice, and sculpt the vocal to suit the song. Not on this one.
The production on HTDAAB in particular has fallen for the 'louder is better' trap of pop today. This album actually sounds worse the more you turn it up. Sure, U2 can certainly push the knobs up further than on the 'quietly' recorded albums of the past, but they've pushed them all up to the top. Someone on here when HTDAAB came out put pictures up that showed what was going on in the music, and every level was at it's highest. Theres no separation there and the music suffers. Crumbs in particular is a mess of noise.
U2 should have no problem dealing with hip-hops bravado, they've always had it. U2 should have no problem dealing with the new breed of rocks ambitions and brightness, they've always had it. U2 should have no problem dealing with pop's ability to create a song that you can't get out of your head, they've always done that. U2 should have no problem taking great, creative, intelligent rock music and fighting it up the charts, they've always done that.
I don't know who this band is that are doing weak commercial poppy songs with a U2 influenced sound, but seriously, I'm hanging for the new U2 album, it's been 8 freakin' years since the last one!!!
U2girl said:
I guess we'll never know what that "extra month" would get as only U2 themselves know what they wanted to do. Having 3 single versions from that album does suggest they weren't 100% happy with the mix/production - because the way I understand it, what they say is missing is in that part, not the song themselves.
I think the difference sales wise would have been minimal. We all know they're not happy with the production, and the mistakes are easy to hear. I don't think the production had any effect on that albums sales in the US, or it's image and reputation in the short term. U2 continually bagging it's production in the media ever since certainly doesn't help it, and in fact just solidifies the garbage rumour at the time that it is/was a crap record. They could be saying "Go back and listen to it again now, in 2005, give it another chance now!" but essentially they're telling those who never gave it a chance "Yeah, it's fucked, don't bother." Which is incredibly unfair on themselves and the album. Of the sins that were committed at the time that sunk Pop in the US, production was the least of them.
I think I'll move to Berlin.
I was just listening to that today, hadn't broken out Zooropa in awhile 
But yeah I agree that part in Discotheque is great, in fact the whole song is inufckincredible. Discotheque is the song that singlehandedly grabbed me by the throat and threw me into the world of U2, and that world was Pop. I have so many memories associated with that album - I was 9 for chrissakes! - and without it I would surely be a much, much different person. As much as I love every U2 album now, Pop is the one I still always come back to. Whenever I'm feeling shitty, I put on Pop. Pop is the first album I truly loved, the first one I knew all the words too, ect. Pop was easy for me to love... I didn't know anything about U2, I had no expectations for it, in fact when my mom put it on I was protesting (I had gotten the notion in my head that U2 was a heavy metal band, don't know why), but as soon as I listened to Discotheque, I was hooked. Pop to me is U2 at their greatest height, it's really a shame it's regarded as one of U2's "failures." Pop is NOT a failure. They aren't great songs "hiding" in Pop, they're right there! It makes me sad that the band seems to regret Pop so much, I really wish they'd embrace it, and it also irks me that they're going to play Pop songs in Europe but not here...for the love of Bono, bring some Pop back on the third leg! 
