Songs of Experience 36 - Now with 20% fewer acronyms

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Headache in a Suitcase said:
Is there a high res scan of the liner notes anywhere?
Click to expand...
So I found it, and noticed that Brent Kutzle, who's another member of One Republic and sometime record producer, gets some production credits and is listed as an additional guitar on Summer of Love... which certainly could explain why he was playing it in that YouTube video.

I highly doubt they stole a one republic riff and didn't credit them, considering the overwhelming number of credits on the album that they've given out. I think I got a credit in there somewhere.
 
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Right, so I finally got around to listening to this a few days ago. Between then and now I made the mistake of listening to the Stern interview. It was a mistake because hearing all those song clips while the boys were talking about the music gave me chills, and reminded me of how good this band has been...and how what they're doing now really can't compare. On the other hand, the interview reminded me of how much passion U2 puts into their music, and how much they care about this record, and what nice, intelligent, down to earth men these two are. Which just makes it harder to say anything negative about their record.

But I will try.

My first thought was, wow, this production on this record is amazing. It may be the best sounding U2 record ever. At least one of the best. There's so much room to breathe on most of these tracks, and I dig the spaciousness of the sonic landscapes. Really a very, very easy listen. This is no Atomic Bomb.

Second thought is, there's some really nice music on this album. I can't say musically it's among their best, but I found it at least interesting. And a nice range of sounds. The songs flow quite nicely together. I was skeptical about the call backs and synchronicity with SOI we heard about, but for the most part I think it works. I can definitely see what they were going with here, even if they always don't succeed.

But..ugh. Bono. Bono, Bono, Bono. Those lyrics. I don't even know what to say anymore. He's using seven words to say something when one will do. The lyrics are just...awkward. And clunky. And obvious. And often trite. One cliche after another. Bono used to be MUCH better at being cliched.

And when I complain about the lyrics, I’m not talking about stuff like "Happen a boy" or "ATM machine". That's mostly nitpicking and I don't care about it. But...his lyrics just aren't melodious. He's obviously writing in prose now and is so literal with everything, and there's little room for interpretation in what he's trying to get across. To each his own, but I preferred Bono's poetry. IMO the lyrics bring down a record that is otherwise musically pretty meritorious.

As for specific songs...the start of the record...musically, it's lovely. A somewhat ambient piece that were it not for one glaring deficiency wouldn't seem that out of place on TUF. Love is All We Have Left is a great way to kick this thing off...even if it's way too short. This is a song that doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. I wanted more of this. Sigh.

After that, I don't think the transition to Lights of Home works very well. Then Best Thing, which I have nothing new to say about. Get Out of Your Own Way is 00’s U2 being 00’s U2.

Highlights IMO (and I mean, this is what I most like musically) are Little Things, Landlady (which I think may be the best song the record) and Love Is Bigger. Something surprised me though...when I heard Blackout originally, I really liked it. But for some reason I don't think it works quite as well in the context of the record. It's still a good song, but feels out of place in this set to me.

Summer of Love and Red Flag Day are just OK. I really don’t get the War/80’s era U2 thing people are talking about with the latter (other than the title).

Showman I think is awful. And the less said about American Soul the better.

I don't really know what to say about 13/There is a Light. I get what they were trying to do, but I think the could have done it a better.

I do think this is a personal record. I was skeptical about that at first, but I can hear it in Bono's voice and in the lyrics. It's mostly not a happy record, and not as optimistic as U2 usually is, but that adds to its beauty as far as I'm concerned.

So yeah, musically a lovely record brought down by Bono's lyrics, sadly. Because I know his heart was in it. And while I know he says his method of writing now is intentional, I can't say its my thing. And I feel bad for saying it because I know how much he cares about all of it. It’s not their worst record, but it would be in the bottom third for me. But I don’t actively dislike it. It’s OK.

I’ve listened twice. Do I feel drawn to listen again? Surprisingly yes, for now.
 
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Nick66 said:
But...his lyrics just aren't melodious. He's obviously writing in prose now and is so literal with everything, and there's little room for interpretation in what he's trying to get across. To each his own, but I preferred Bono's poetry. IMO the lyrics bring down a record that is otherwise musically pretty meritorious.
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This is a great way of putting it.

And I agree with almost all of the rest of your post too.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
So I found it, and noticed that Brent Kutzle, who's another member of One Republic and sometime record producer, gets some production credits and is listed as an additional guitar on Summer of Love... which certainly could explain why he was playing it in that YouTube video.

I highly doubt they stole a one republic riff and didn't credit them, considering the overwhelming number of credits on the album that they've given out. I think I got a credit in there somewhere.
Click to expand...

Maybe he’s still teaching Edge how to play it!!?
 
U2 achieves its eighth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the rock band’s new Songs of Experience debuts atop the tally. The set bows with 186,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 7, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 180,000 were in traditional album sales.

Only 6000 took up the free album offer.
 
rennowba said:
U2 achieves its eighth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the rock band’s new Songs of Experience debuts atop the tally. The set bows with 186,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 7, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 180,000 were in traditional album sales.

Only 6000 took up the free album offer.
Click to expand...



Not to shabby at all then
 
rennowba said:
U2 achieves its eighth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the rock band’s new Songs of Experience debuts atop the tally. The set bows with 186,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 7, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 180,000 were in traditional album sales.

Only 6000 took up the free album offer.
Click to expand...



Where does it say the last bit?

The comment about traditional album sales is inferring the 6k is from streaming. The ticket bundle would be included in the 180k
 
For some reason I was under the impression that every ticket sold would count as an album, which would have resulted in a considerably higher total, but would be totally dubious in terms of gauging the actual album's success.

If you add up all the tickets sold for the U.S. dates, it's definitely over 180,000, no?

So this is very impressive considering the age of the band and the taste of the general public.
 
rennowba said:
U2 achieves its eighth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the rock band’s new Songs of Experience debuts atop the tally. The set bows with 186,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 7, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 180,000 were in traditional album sales.

Only 6000 took up the free album offer.
Click to expand...

Huh? That 6k is streaming, which means SOE will probably sink like a stone next week - it needs much stronger streaming numbers to continue to compete as album sales decline.
 
rennowba said:
U2 achieves its eighth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as the rock band’s new Songs of Experience debuts atop the tally. The set bows with 186,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Dec. 7, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 180,000 were in traditional album sales.

Only 6000 took up the free album offer.
Click to expand...



Not correct. The numbers quoted by Billboard mean that 180k albums units were distributed by purchase or through concert bundling, and another 6000 equivalent albums were credited for online streaming. Sales plus streams total 186K.

There is no breakdown for sales of the album vs. concert bundle album redemptions. Technically, since they claim that they bake the cost of the album into the concert ticket prices, those are 'paid for albums' just like any other.

For streaming, 1500 streams are credited as 1 album equivalent unit sale. So it was streamed 9M times.
 
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lazarus said:
For some reason I was under the impression that every ticket sold would count as an album, which would have resulted in a considerably higher total, but would be totally dubious in terms of gauging the actual album's success.

If you add up all the tickets sold for the U.S. dates, it's definitely over 180,000, no?

So this is very impressive considering the age of the band and the taste of the general public.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong because I haven't bought any tickets yet for next year, but I think each customer gets 1 copy of the album per sale. So wether I buy 1, 2, 4 or 8 tickets, I get 1 copy of the album either way.
 
lazarus said:
For some reason I was under the impression that every ticket sold would count as an album, which would have resulted in a considerably higher total, but would be totally dubious in terms of gauging the actual album's success.

If you add up all the tickets sold for the U.S. dates, it's definitely over 180,000, no?

So this is very impressive considering the age of the band and the taste of the general public.
Click to expand...
I think you actually have to redeem it for it to count.
 
Hmm. Well, there are 22 shows in the US (removing the two in Canada). If we assume each gig holds 15,000 - which I would think is a fairly reasonable estimate - that should be 330,000 albums. Even if the average attendance is 12,000, that's still 264,000 albums.

Though did the 8 extra shows added count towards first week album sales? If we take just the original 14 announced for the US, then that's 210,000 albums assuming an average attendance of 15,000 or 168,000 with an average attendance of 12,000.
 
Having lived with the record for a couple of weeks now, I'm definitely warming up to it. The SOI callbacks don't grate on me as much as they did, and Little Things still works as a song even if I'd have preferred the live arrangement.

An enjoyable addition, unnecessarily hindered from being a great one (but then, that's apparently a requirement for all U2 product at all times).
 
Axver said:
Hmm. Well, there are 22 shows in the US (removing the two in Canada). If we assume each gig holds 15,000 - which I would think is a fairly reasonable estimate - that should be 330,000 albums. Even if the average attendance is 12,000, that's still 264,000 albums.

Though did the 8 extra shows added count towards first week album sales? If we take just the original 14 announced for the US, then that's 210,000 albums assuming an average attendance of 15,000 or 168,000 with an average attendance of 12,000.
Click to expand...

But it's an album per purchase, and most normal people (i.e not us :) ) would have bought at least two tix in a purchase, so if everyone redeemed for every purchase then that would be 165,000 from the 22 dates (I would go with avg. attendance of 15,000 at the moment). And the redemption rate would definitely not be 100%. So they did move units through non-ticket redemption sales - I would guess it's actually doing better than first week sales of SOI.
 
I thought - and Garrison above seemed to confirm - that it was an album per ticket, not an album per purchase.
 
Axver said:
Huh? That 6k is streaming, which means SOE will probably sink like a stone next week - it needs much stronger streaming numbers to continue to compete as album sales decline.
Click to expand...



It won’t sink like a stone.

It’s going to sink like a 20 ton rock but that speaks to U2 being very front loaded by their fan base as well as an incredibly weak album market (more so the former). Hopefully they can get some footing with the AirPlay TBT is still getting and increased play GOOYOW is getting (only on One format though).

Ultimately, without continued promo and exposure and without a hit single....can’t see this album sticking around for long.
 
https://www.billboard.com/articles/...rt-boost-metallica-taylor-swift-kenny-chesney


For a bundled album to be eligible for the Billboard 200, the ticket purchaser has to download or redeem it.*Kevin Leflarwith Official Community, which helps artists bundle, says he recommends artists bundle one album with every pair of tickets, because trying to deliver an album for every single ticket sold can be cost prohibitive and a logistical nightmare. About 20 percent to 30 percent of fans tend to redeem their album offers, with most favoring CDs or vinyl over downloads, though nudges on email and social media can drive better results. When*Metallica*bundled its 2016*Hardwired… to Self-Destruct*album with tickets to its North American stadium tour earlier this year, the band worked with WMG to remind fans to download the album, pushing it back up to No. 2 on the Billboard 200.*Maroon 5*recently announced its Red Pill Blues Tour and issued a rare call to action on Twitter, noting: "Each bundle purchase comes with our album, so redeem our record as well."
Click to expand...

For the album to count, the fan needs to redeem it.

The average US arena size is closer to 18,000, and many with GA will top 20,000. So we're talking between 300 and 400 k tickets sold.

So conceivably U2 can stay towards the top of the charts for a number of weeks by doing a good job of reminding ticket purchasers to redeem their album, as redemptions count in the week they're redeemed, not the week the ticket is sold.

This might also be why they only announced one gig per venue on the first go around, when they knew full well they'd add more shows; to stretch the redemptions.

It's also a total and complete scam that does nothing other than make fans buy tickets earlier than they used to.
 
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Hey so... this is a pretty damn great performance of Best Thing acoustic. Edge’s vocals are mixed perfectly and they build to a great final chorus that doesn’t last too long. Good stuff.
 


Get Out of Your Own Way was fantastic too, damn. Crowd was even singing by the end. Great performances by Bono and Edge, kind of rekindles my enjoyment of those two songs.
 
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