namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
For the last month or two, I've been taking my normal 'between albums' break from U2. I'm burnt out on the band and if I spend 2-4 months(or even more, sometimes) just not listening to them on a regular basis, I will enjoy the music more in the long run.
During this break, however, I've been listening to a lot of other music, and listening to other music has made clearer for me why I am still - and likely will always be - dissatisfied with U2's most recent music, most notabely 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb'. Hearing other bands' gives me a different perspective on U2, and this different perspective uses other bands' musical strengths to illuminate U2's musical weaknesses. Now, before I go any further, I want to say that I do NOT want this turn into the same old damn arguement. That is NOT what this is for. Outside of this sentence, I'm not going to use the word experiment or any of its derivatives. I'm not going to say that U2 sold out. I am not going to say that Pop rules and Bomb sucks. I am not going to say that the 90s rule or that the 00s suck. None of that will do anyone any good. I want to delve deeper than that. I want to disect and examine close-up why it is that U2's recent music doesn't do it for me that way U2's not-so-recent music does. And I want to do it by using other bands' music as a scalpel and a microscope.
Take the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album, 'Stadium Arcadium'. 'Stadium Arcadium' is everything that 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb' is not. It's sprawling and ambitious and eclectic and rough on the edges while Bomb is concise, afraid of disappointing the listener, very much of one musical mindset all the way through, and as polished as records get. You can feel the spontaneity and free-flowingness and lack in perfectionism in SA where Bomb is the most calculated thing U2 has ever put out. SA is the sound of a band having fun. Bomb is the sound of a band laboring. SA is a band saying 'We put everything we have into a shitload of songs, and here they are'. Bomb is a band saying 'We put a lot of what we have into a good number of songs, edited, modified, neutered, watered down, produced, and reproduced them, and here they are.
But more than all of that(because that's the same shit you've been hearing for the last year and a half), the process of making SA didn't start with a predetermined mindset of 'every song must be BIG and have an epic nature, and every song must send a BIG message'. Bomb did. How do I know this? Because the process of making every U2 album has started with this mindset. And that is easily U2's single biggest purely musical weakness: They have to be big and epic. They either don't know how to be subtle or they do, but they really don't like being subtle. The only really subtle music U2 has made came within a five year period(93-98) - that's five years out of thirty. There are bands like Radiohead or Sigur Ros that thrive on subtlety(Read: Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief, Untitled, Ágætis Byrjun), and there are bands like U2 and - yes I'm mentioning them in the same sentence but not the same breath - Coldplay, who need there music to be shouted from the rooftops and not whispered in someone's ear - if that makes any sense. U2 makes music to make people scream together. Radiohead makes music for someone to put on a pair of headphones(earphones) and sit in the corner of a room somewhere distancing his/herself from the world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing the music to be 'big' or epic-natured, in and of itself - U2 has made some incredible rock music in the form of 'big' songs - but I believe that in order for 'big' or epic songs to work, they have to be of a certain complexity. The 'bigger' or more epic the song, the more complex the music needs to be. My definition of complexity is simply having an abundance of instrumental and vocal layers, harmonies, a wide range in the way the instruments involved deliver the music, and not having a linear, predictable arrangement. Some of you may think that's nonsense, but that's what I firmly believe.
Songs like 'New Year's Day', 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', 'The Unforgettable Fire', 'Where The Streets Have No Name', 'Bullet The Blue Sky', 'All I Want Is You', 'Until The End Of The World', 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses', 'The Fly', 'Myseterious Ways', 'Staring At The Sun' 'Gone', and 'Please', among others, are all 'big' songs, and they are all great songs, because they all have certain level of complexity to them. They were all rock songs at their core. But in recent years, U2 have tried to make pop music instead, and simple pop music at that. Pop music inherently lacks the kind of layering and soundscapes and atmospherics that the rock music has enabled U2 to employ for years and years and years. Songs like 'City Of Blinding Lights', 'Miracle Drug', 'Yahweh', and 'Crumbs From Your Table', among others, are all 'big' songs that lack that complexity and as such, there is an awful hollowness to them, in my opinion. Think of a 'big' song as a big tin box. If you fill it to the brim with all the things I previously described in my definition of complexity, and then you tap the outside of the box, it would sound full. If you only fill the box a quarter of the way, it's going to sound hollow when you tap the outside of the box. 'New Year's Day' and 'Where The Streets Have No Name' and 'Until The End Of The World' and 'Gone' are boxes that were filled to the brim. 'City Of Blinding Lights' and 'Miracle Drug' are boxes that are filled a quarter of the way up. This is, of course, all in my opinion.
That is my take on what U2's biggest musical weakness is - lack of subtlety and, recently, not filling the 'big' songs up enough. I really want to avoid the typical arguements here - keep it to responding to what I've said. And if all you have to say is a sarcastic comment followed by a rolleye emoticon, don't bother.
I hope this speaks to somebody.
During this break, however, I've been listening to a lot of other music, and listening to other music has made clearer for me why I am still - and likely will always be - dissatisfied with U2's most recent music, most notabely 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb'. Hearing other bands' gives me a different perspective on U2, and this different perspective uses other bands' musical strengths to illuminate U2's musical weaknesses. Now, before I go any further, I want to say that I do NOT want this turn into the same old damn arguement. That is NOT what this is for. Outside of this sentence, I'm not going to use the word experiment or any of its derivatives. I'm not going to say that U2 sold out. I am not going to say that Pop rules and Bomb sucks. I am not going to say that the 90s rule or that the 00s suck. None of that will do anyone any good. I want to delve deeper than that. I want to disect and examine close-up why it is that U2's recent music doesn't do it for me that way U2's not-so-recent music does. And I want to do it by using other bands' music as a scalpel and a microscope.
Take the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album, 'Stadium Arcadium'. 'Stadium Arcadium' is everything that 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb' is not. It's sprawling and ambitious and eclectic and rough on the edges while Bomb is concise, afraid of disappointing the listener, very much of one musical mindset all the way through, and as polished as records get. You can feel the spontaneity and free-flowingness and lack in perfectionism in SA where Bomb is the most calculated thing U2 has ever put out. SA is the sound of a band having fun. Bomb is the sound of a band laboring. SA is a band saying 'We put everything we have into a shitload of songs, and here they are'. Bomb is a band saying 'We put a lot of what we have into a good number of songs, edited, modified, neutered, watered down, produced, and reproduced them, and here they are.
But more than all of that(because that's the same shit you've been hearing for the last year and a half), the process of making SA didn't start with a predetermined mindset of 'every song must be BIG and have an epic nature, and every song must send a BIG message'. Bomb did. How do I know this? Because the process of making every U2 album has started with this mindset. And that is easily U2's single biggest purely musical weakness: They have to be big and epic. They either don't know how to be subtle or they do, but they really don't like being subtle. The only really subtle music U2 has made came within a five year period(93-98) - that's five years out of thirty. There are bands like Radiohead or Sigur Ros that thrive on subtlety(Read: Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief, Untitled, Ágætis Byrjun), and there are bands like U2 and - yes I'm mentioning them in the same sentence but not the same breath - Coldplay, who need there music to be shouted from the rooftops and not whispered in someone's ear - if that makes any sense. U2 makes music to make people scream together. Radiohead makes music for someone to put on a pair of headphones(earphones) and sit in the corner of a room somewhere distancing his/herself from the world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with needing the music to be 'big' or epic-natured, in and of itself - U2 has made some incredible rock music in the form of 'big' songs - but I believe that in order for 'big' or epic songs to work, they have to be of a certain complexity. The 'bigger' or more epic the song, the more complex the music needs to be. My definition of complexity is simply having an abundance of instrumental and vocal layers, harmonies, a wide range in the way the instruments involved deliver the music, and not having a linear, predictable arrangement. Some of you may think that's nonsense, but that's what I firmly believe.
Songs like 'New Year's Day', 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', 'The Unforgettable Fire', 'Where The Streets Have No Name', 'Bullet The Blue Sky', 'All I Want Is You', 'Until The End Of The World', 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses', 'The Fly', 'Myseterious Ways', 'Staring At The Sun' 'Gone', and 'Please', among others, are all 'big' songs, and they are all great songs, because they all have certain level of complexity to them. They were all rock songs at their core. But in recent years, U2 have tried to make pop music instead, and simple pop music at that. Pop music inherently lacks the kind of layering and soundscapes and atmospherics that the rock music has enabled U2 to employ for years and years and years. Songs like 'City Of Blinding Lights', 'Miracle Drug', 'Yahweh', and 'Crumbs From Your Table', among others, are all 'big' songs that lack that complexity and as such, there is an awful hollowness to them, in my opinion. Think of a 'big' song as a big tin box. If you fill it to the brim with all the things I previously described in my definition of complexity, and then you tap the outside of the box, it would sound full. If you only fill the box a quarter of the way, it's going to sound hollow when you tap the outside of the box. 'New Year's Day' and 'Where The Streets Have No Name' and 'Until The End Of The World' and 'Gone' are boxes that were filled to the brim. 'City Of Blinding Lights' and 'Miracle Drug' are boxes that are filled a quarter of the way up. This is, of course, all in my opinion.
That is my take on what U2's biggest musical weakness is - lack of subtlety and, recently, not filling the 'big' songs up enough. I really want to avoid the typical arguements here - keep it to responding to what I've said. And if all you have to say is a sarcastic comment followed by a rolleye emoticon, don't bother.
I hope this speaks to somebody.
sorry but i can't describe it better.
spot on Sken!
