No line explores a tiny only on a few songs but it's a terrible album give me atyclb any day of week
No line explores only on a few songs but it's a terrible album, give me atyclb any day of the week
No line explores a tiny only on a few songs but it's a terrible album give me atyclb any day of week
If you're going to put these two albums in the same category, it's hard to take the rest of your post seriously.
At least No Line shows them stretching and exploring. Maybe not to the extent as with Achtung Baby, but it's still more about creativity than craft. ATYCLB was specifically meant to be about craft (more focus on writing than recording) and that's just not the band at their best.
I was just thinking about how lately I haven't had to buy many albums because it seems to be the thing these days to get a free copy when you buy a ticket to a band's tour. I have of late gotten the new albums of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire and The Killers that way. Perhaps U2 held off on their own announcement of the album release because it will be combined with a tour announcement (with onsales happening sooner than the originally rumored December, right after the last JT2017 date) and that everyone who buys a ticket gets the CD? Just a thought...
Post 2000 record rankings:
1. Songs of Innocence
2. All that You Can't Leave Behind
3. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (they say you can't....)
4. No Line on the Horizon
How to Dismantle is actually really good but marred by bad production. It's just sounds terribly compressed. I have the re-issue on vinyl, and, while it sounds better than the CD, it's still not dynamic enough. The mid-range seems too recessed. It sounds like all bass and treble at times.
And if you're gonna jump to conclusions then it's hard to take you're post seriously, too.
Of course AB and ATYCLB are not in the same category. They're very different albums. But the thing I said they had in common is that they're both brilliant.
NLOTH left me underwhelmed. The opening track and Magnificent bore me to tears tbh, that's just me. Unknown Caller and SUC are ruined by pretentious lyrics IMO, and so is Breathe. The best song on the album is MOS. IGCIIDGCT I also like, but I know I'm in the minority there. Although it does have its issues. Being Born is a good track. The Fez part is ok, but the transition between the two is poor IMO. Cedars is an ok closer, but not particularly up there. White As Snow just bothers me because U2 didn't write the vocal melody to it, they took it from an old traditional tune/hymn/something or other. Winter should have been on there in its place IMO. The album on a whole leaves me underwhelmed (or in the case of UC, GOYB, and SUC, just cringeworthy).
Since my last post I listened to loads more U2 albums, and I still think NLOTH is one of their worst. I don't hate it - just don't enjoy it very much either.
No wonder they come up with weird song titles, according to Noel, Bono is basically pissed all the time!
I'd put NLOTH above ATYCLB. Cedars is in my top 10....I enjoy Adams bass solo very much in that song. ATYCLB is not as interesting as NLOTH...except for maybe Kite which I enjoy very much. For all the crap it takes, actually really like Unknown Caller.
Millennial U2 for me is SOI, NLOTH, Bomb, ATYCLB.
He added: “So he goes off, I get to the hotel, it takes me 20 minutes to find the remote control for the telly, another 10 minutes to order a club sandwich, with some guy who’s clearly neither French nor English on the other end of the phone.
“And as I was kind of sitting down I put on the telly and I’m flicking through, and there’s Bono doing a live press conference with the Prime Minister of France about Africa. And I know what we’ve been up to the previous three days and I’m going ‘He’s not real man’.”
Gallagher added: “And the next night we do the gig in Paris. I’m sweating pure lager, and he gets up and sings like a 24-year-old. And I’m like ‘I’ve had enough’.
I was just thinking about how lately I haven't had to buy many albums because it seems to be the thing these days to get a free copy when you buy a ticket to a band's tour. I have of late gotten the new albums of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire and The Killers that way. Perhaps U2 held off on their own announcement of the album release because it will be combined with a tour announcement (with onsales happening sooner than the originally rumored December, right after the last JT2017 date) and that everyone who buys a ticket gets the CD? Just a thought...
Post 2000 record rankings:
1. Songs of Innocence
2. All that You Can't Leave Behind
3. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (they say you can't....)
4. No Line on the Horizon
How to Dismantle is actually really good but marred by bad production. It's just sounds terribly compressed. I have the re-issue on vinyl, and, while it sounds better than the CD, it's still not dynamic enough. The mid-range seems too recessed. It sounds like all bass and treble at times.
Frankly they'd be silly not to do this. If they did 40 shows in the US, and conservatively estimate 15,000 per show , that's 600,000 copies they'd potentially sell that way. Most of the arenas they'll be playing hold more than 15,000, but that was just for the sake of easy math.
Now, I'm not sure that's entirely the way it works. For example, if I buy 4 tickets on my credit card, I'd probably get 1 copy of the album. Whereas, if I only buy 1 ticket, I'll also get 1 copy of the album. Still, that should really boost sales. U2 are guaranteed the #1 spot regardless. The Killers are going to have the #1 album this week, despite top end estimates being at 118,000 (for the US). U2's fan base will guarantee them a #1. The key is to not slip to #40 in week 2.
I can't believe we're at the point where ranking album is back, but I'll just say it's hard for me with these, as they're all problematic one way or another.
As I said earlier, the whole concept of ATYCLB bothers me, with the safe "back to basics"/return to a classic sound, and Eno's terrible idea to write more and record less. Yes, the songs are fairly well-crafted, but they're too inert on the album, with little of the interesting instrumentation and space that the band at their best are able to create. We can't judge the album on how the songs may have improved in the live format, but what's been captured for posterity on tape. Someone said earlier it's just not very interesting, and that goes for the lyrics (the beginning of an unfortunate trend for Bono with this "heal the world" Hallmark card drivel). as well as the music. Having said all that, none of the songs outright offend me.
The Bomb is probably the one I have the least complaints about, primarily because it has more energy than its predecessor, and none of the glaring offenses of the two albums that followed. It rocks hard in places, but also has a couple gear shifts into some interesting rhythmic territory on A Man And A Woman, harkens back to the TUF era with City Of Blinding Lights and the JT sound on Yahweh. But it's still a safe album that isn't very ambitious musically and suffers from producer second-guessing. Its two most adventurous tracks, Fast Cars and Mercy, were left off the album; substitute those for whatever your two least-favorite tracks are and it's vastly improved.
No Line is the one that could have been far and away the best of post-2000 U2, had they only followed through in the direction they were taking and not gone against Eno's advice, or brought Lillywhite in to make it more commercial and add a totally incongruous song like Crazy Tonight to the mix. I don't dislike Boots as much as some people here, but the middle three really is a fatal flaw that prevents me from calling it a great album. I don't know how people can complain about what surrounds them, though. To say this album is soulless makes no sense to me when you consider the powerful vocals on MOS, White As Snow, and even the title track. I really think writing with Lanois and Eno more closely gave this a spirit you don't have one most of the other albums. Fez is an atmospheric, abstract non-single (and another nod to TUF) that the band doesn't do enough of these days. Bono's writing in character is something he hadn't done in a while and comes off really refreshing after two albums of so much tripe.
SOI is another mixed bag, and once again the band abandons work with a brilliant producer to try and pursue something more commercial, this time stooping to the level of bringing in Tedder and Epworth. Unfortunately the album is frontloaded with this material, so you have a very overproduced "side one" with ersatz-sounding stuff like The Miracle, a souped-up version of EBW that neutered the electric guitar from the earlier take, the anemic Song For Someone (which is pretty enough but recycles the abysmal guitar solo from Crazy Tonight), the Coldplay-tainted Iris (which otherwise has some nice TUF-style instrumentation on the verses), and my personal guilty pleasure, California, which at least fits the pop window-dressing around it. I love everything from Volcano's retro vibe all the way to the end of The Troubles, but it's hard to say something is the best when it's clearly been so compromised and Frankensteined. Just as No Line would have been better with Eno and Lanois manning the ship to the finish line, this one would clearly have improved with Danger Mouse having more control over the whole album (and not leaving Invisible off the track list).
So I could sit here and say that I think The Bomb is the best because it's the one that pisses me off the least, but I don't know if that makes sense. Or that No Line is the best because it featured the all-star lineup doing what they do best and exploring. Or that SOI is the best because the second half has them sounding so vital, so autobiographical, with a lot of sonic variety. None of those sit right with me so ranking is futile.
SOI is another mixed bag, and once again the band abandons work with a brilliant producer to try and pursue something more commercial, this time stooping to the level of bringing in Tedder and Epworth.
I feel like they'd be able to hit #1 either way without serious competition. You don't need to sell as many as you used to.
Would like to see it, just so it could be said they had a #1 album in four consecutive decades.
Would like to see it, just so it could be said they had a #1 album in four consecutive decades.
Does anyone know if any other band has done this? Talking about 4 newly released albums for 4 different decades hitting number 1? Not like a greatest hits album, or a re entry of an old album??
I am having a hard time thinking of a challenger. I checked Bon Jovi, Metallica, Michael Jackson, and Guns N Roses... But they don't make the cut.
Stones did it for UK album charts..
4 #1s in the 60s
3 in the 70s
1 in the 80s
1 in the 90s
good find RD.
Sadly, if it weren't for the stupid Apple thing, the band could not only already have the distinction of having number 1 albums in 4 decades in both the UK and the US, but multiple number 1 albums in 4 decades if SOE hits number 1.
in the Uk they had:
4 in the 80's
2 in the 90's
3 in the 2000's
in the US
2 in the 80's
3 in the 90's
2 in the 2000's