OMG! I just pulled a Phaser!

[Roland of Gilead]

Last night I sat in my lazyboy all night with the actual cd blasting for the very first time thru my trusted sennheiser earphones. It was an incredible experience. This was the first time I actually got to hear the album this way (the mp3s stayed on my computer at home and at work and I only heard the songs thru my cheap computer speakers with no earphones). It was like being born again all over, in the sense of listening to the album for the first time. I sat there for 3 hours and played it continuously 3 times over and then played my favorites multiple times over. Boy, has my opinion changed with some of these songs.

The first big change of thought - One Step Closer is easily one of the greatest songs on this album. Yes sir! It is!
The earphones did the job in brilliant detail showing the richness of soundscapes painted by this song. The beautiful acoustic guitar rings with ease during the first verse, Daniel's pedal steel has never sounded so emotionally haunting, and most noticably, Bono's voice is completely naked and vulnerable. This song had a whole Promenade meets the Million Dollar Hotel feeling for me. A song I rated in the bottom 2 at first is now in the top 3 for me.

The second change of thought - I really fell in love for the first time with All Because of You last night. I have always liked this song from the first listen weeks ago. Well, now that each delicate note from the Edge's guitar has rang loudly into my ears, I am blown away by it. Its not simply a rock song anymore. Its an effin' great rock song.

The third change of thought - The more I listened to the album last night, the more I realised that the last 3 songs on the album are the greatest last 3 songs I have ever heard on a U2 album. I do not say that easily. I am a fan since '84 and I still can't believe that I am saying this. Yahweh, Original of the Species, and One Step Closer are U2 songs that are as strong as most first half songs that U2 have given us. Yahweh is on par with "40", Mothers of the Disappeared, Love is Blindness, and yes, even their greatest closer All I Want is You. It is a U2 song that sounds like a Best Of U2 album rolled up into 4:22. Original of the Species is the best track on the album period. This one the Beatles wished they had. It will be U2's highest charting single from this album. And now that I have seen the light with One Step closer, I am awe struck by its emotional grip with such simplicity of sound that only a band called U2 could pull off.

Now that I have heard this album in this whole new manner, I must now pull a Phaser and rank these songs all over again.

Original of the Species 10
Yahweh 9
One Step Closer 9
City of Blinding Lights 9
Love and Peace or Else 9
All Because of You 9
Vertigo 8
Miracle Drug 8
Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own 8
Crumbs From Your Table 7
A Man and a Woman 6

This album IS the second greatest U2 album ever made.

 

[Dalton]

Welcome to the darkside. Light or dark ale for ye?

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Definetly dark right now!

 

[Dalton]

Rating of the songs is a good idea:

Vertigo: 8
Miracle Drug: 10
SYCMIOYO: 8
LAPOE: 9
COBL:8
ABOY:7
AMAAW: 6
CFYT: 7
OSC: 10
OOTS: 10
Yahweh: 7

 

[boosterjuice]

Did phaser rank the songs again?? I missed it. What were his second rankings?

 

[U2Soar]

Good to hear about your "first" and jubilant listening experience of the new album. I'm with you in that my first listen only counts when its heard through headphones, on CD, and alone. Great to hear your appreciation for the final 3 songs - particulary One Step Closer and Yahweh (which are not currently getting much positive recognition here). If you were to take out One Step Closer and put it with some other U2 songs what would they be? I'm thinking of something like Stateless, One Step Closer, and Your Blue Room. I can see your point about it having a fit on MDH. How about on Passengers?

 

[martha]

Apparently I need to go get some headphones.

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Good to hear about your "first" and jubilant listening experience of the new album. I'm with you in that my first listen only counts when its heard through headphones, on CD, and alone. Great to hear your appreciation for the final 3 songs - particulary One Step Closer and Yahweh (which are not currently getting much positive recognition here). If you were to take out One Step Closer and put it with some other U2 songs what would they be? I'm thinking of something like Stateless, One Step Closer, and Your Blue Room. I can see your point about it having a fit on MDH. How about on Passengers?

Well, I have always loved Yahweh from the start and the same for Original of the Species. One Step Closer is very Million Dollar Hotel. I don't find it fitting with Passengers so much only because the ambience created in OSC is so focused on the guitars and less so on the keyboards. It just feels so "naked." The vocals really drive the song, much like the way Bono sings on Promenade. Its not so much what he is singing then it is how it sounds when he is singing. I am hearing a man with a big hole in his heart. If this were a track from Passengers, I don't know if Eno would of just let the words come out so naked without more keyboard influences. Its a little funny, but I can't help but think of the first few verses on All I Want is You where Bono's vocals are so front and everything else follows it. The same feeling is present here when Bono begins to sing One Step Closer. I really want to hear this live.

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Did phaser rank the songs again?? I missed it. What were his second rankings?

I really can't recall the specifics, but yes phaser went and did a 180 on his thoughts about 4-5 days after his infamous review.

 

[U2Soar]

Very good observation about the naked upfront vocals. I think there are some acoustic versions of All I Want Is You. If I remember correctly Bono & Edge did it and Ground Beneath at the San Remo concert in Italy in February of 2000. I wonder how it would go. I'll have to listen to Promenade again (one of my favourites anyway). So you see it as a better companion to Stateless than Your Blue Room.

Try this out for your absolute listening pleasure:

1. Not Dark Yet – Bob Dylan (Lanois produces and performs - a similiar theme too)

http://s10.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=F887E1C2CDDFB61818DE3176D39B4D73

2. One Step Closer

3. I Love You – Daniel Lanois

http://s8.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=F79DB64DBE5E5E9B170E1340249380D9

Seeing your love for One Step Closer I believe you will love this one too. Listen to the first 54 seconds of One Step Closer and then to the first 53 seconds of I Love You. Similar in richness, earthiness, warmth, burning embers, like your favourite blanket-right-out-of-the-dryer mood / atmosphere.

A man carried metal, carried gold
More than he could handle, more than he could hold
It weighed him down to a sand shallow grave
Where his bones were eaten by a heat wave
While here it rains all night and it blows a sweet breeze
I think I'll call you up
And say please, baby, please

I love you, I love you, yeah, I love you, yeah, I love you

Ah the dream machine
Makes it hard to see
If I could stand outside myself and watch it come to me
I'd make the dream
Filter down to my fingers and rip at the fools head
and follow your scent that lingers

'cause I love you, yeah I love you, I love you, yeah I love you

'til the crash and the booming of the white bomb come sure,
come soon, come leave just one song
one song, one beat, one dust, one end, one for all
one stone for the marking for the dream when it falls

when I love you, and I love you, yeah I love you,
oh yeah I love you I love you

P.S. Bonus Track: Goodbye - Emmylou Harris (Lanois produces and performs. Larry Mullen plays drums). Maybe it should be the first track of this little single for One Step Closer.

http://s13.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=BA5270E946813C2770B9A26CE06A68D1

All 4 like Axver says "fine wine to be savored." All 4 with that warmth, texture, atmosphere of Mr. Lanois.

 

[what a bomb!]

what the feck is a lazyboy? car? some kind of chair a la joey and chandler? I wanna know what the feck is a lazyboy! (bet its a yank thing! lol)

 

[nicholsfornixon]

A lazyboy is a kind of recliner.

 

[Roland of Gilead]

what the feck is a lazyboy? car? some kind of chair a la joey and chandler? I wanna know what the feck is a lazyboy! (bet its a yank thing! lol)

A brand name recliner. Big and cushy. I can sleep it when I'm in the doghouse with the wife.

 

[what a bomb!]

lol!

 

[doctorwho]

I really can't recall the specifics, but yes phaser went and did a 180 on his thoughts about 4-5 days after his infamous review.

I can relate to poor Phaser a bit more now.

When I first heard the .mp3's from HTDAAB, I too wasn't that impressed. Mind you, I didn't give the album 3/10 like he did, but wasn't as inspired about it as I was with ATYCLB.

However, after listening to it for a while now, I too have dramatically changed my mind. The "Love and Peace...", "City of Blinding Lights" and "All Because of You" trio is, IMO, easily the best on the album. Rocking, inspiring songs that sound f'ing fantastic in the car!

So while I haven't done a 180, I might have done a 30-degree shift in the more positive direction. I'm now liking this album more than ATYCLB.

 

[martha]

 

[U2Soar]

Hey Roland what did you think of I Love You, Not Dark Yet, and Goodbye?

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Hey Roland what did you think of I Love You, Not Dark Yet, and Goodbye?

What is this?