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Axver said:


JT, really? Because the Conspiracy Of Hope certainly threw a spanner in the works there, and by late 1986, Edge was working on the Captive soundtrack. JT definitely was not a marathon compared to HTDAAB.



Only for some songs. One Tree Hill was recorded in a single take.

I agree with the sentiment that U2's quickest albums are best. I think U2's most radical reinvention and creativity came on The Unforgettable Fire, and that was done in a few short months. Boy, War, Zooropa, and Passengers all were pretty quick too. In comparison, my least favourites (AB, ATYCLB, HTDAAB) all took a bit of time.

I totally agree dude. This is the greatest band in the world we're talking about, they could easily knock out a GREAT album in a couple of month, and as Axver says, they have done it many times before. As usual, I don't share your opinion on Achtung Baby though:wink:
 
There's a difference, between Zooropa and this recording sessions I think. Zooropa came at a time of experimentation for the band. And it was a project driven mostly by edge I think.

Now, bringing in Rubin, means really mainstream / sticking-with- producing -what- works -slightly -different kinda stuff. So if that's the case it will be done until a formula is/feels right, which is what U2 does as off late.

Achtung baby took a long time, because they didn't know what they were doing. These days, I think they know what they're doing, they're just really taking their time.

Maybe a date has been set to decide on a go,no-go for an album like zooropa. They still have two months before touring. Even less if they are going to do a promotional book tour before the tour. Maybe a single would be nice before Leg 5, but that would mean that's the result of these sessions, meaning an album early in 2008 probably. The week 1 post in U2.com reminded me of the Webcam during POP and ATYCLB. If these weekly posts continue maybe it's a good sign, but I wouldnt keep my hopes up.

So I can imagine an album in September 2007 if all goes well, no later than that. Take a break from touring and all. And no new grand reinvention... just a third great pop rock record with a long title to round a trilogy of albums.
 
Axver said:


JT, really? Because the Conspiracy Of Hope certainly threw a spanner in the works there, and by late 1986, Edge was working on the Captive soundtrack. JT definitely was not a marathon compared to HTDAAB.



Only for some songs. One Tree Hill was recorded in a single take.

I agree with the sentiment that U2's quickest albums are best. I think U2's most radical reinvention and creativity came on The Unforgettable Fire, and that was done in a few short months. Boy, War, Zooropa, and Passengers all were pretty quick too. In comparison, my least favourites (AB, ATYCLB, HTDAAB) all took a bit of time.

Man, I'm not getting into an argument over how long each album took again down to the minute or hour. Its amazing how people feel the need to pick apart my posts and/or ignore large parts of what I say.

Joshua Tree, Edge started preliminary demos in winter 85. The band started recording at Adam's house around late January 86. They took 1 1/2 month off to do the Conspiracy of Hope Tour (this includes rehearsal). They recorded and worked on the album all the way up to February 87. That is around a year.

Also, the vocal track was done in one take for One Tree Hill. But they still layered in the sequencer and keyboard after the fact. Its not like its a one take completely live track.

My point, which somehow gets overlooked because people want to challenge me on every little aspect of what I post, is that Joshua Tree was not done in a short time frame. They spent alot of time on it. Which is what we are talking about here. Some of you like it when they rush it out apparantly, thats fine, its your opinion. Their best two albums to me Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby were not done in a short time frame and were not rushed. I think those are their best two albums. Thats why I would prefer they take their time and spend some time on it and not slap something together and throw it out there in such a short time frame. :shrug:
 
Since we're on this topic...what is, to you all, officially considered as the start of making an album?

Making the first demos (so for Bomb that would be right after Elevation tour/early 2002) or when they get a producer in (Chris Thomas's name came out in...what, Spring 2003?) ?
 
coach said:

Maybe a date has been set to decide on a go,no-go for an album like zooropa. They still have two months before touring.

Judging by Bono's and Edge's comments on Zooropa in "U2 By U2", I doubt they will attempt an album like that again.

Bono-
"I thought of Zooropa at the time as a work of genius. I really thought our pop discipline was matching our experimentation and this was our Sgt Pepper. I was a little wrong about that. The truth is our pop disciplines were letting us down. We didn’t create hits. We didn’t quite deliver the songs. And what would Sgt Pepper be without the pop songs?"

Edge-
"I never thought of Zooropa as anything more than an interlude . . . but a great one, as interludes go. "
 
Flying FuManchu said:
After hearing the current beach demos, The Electrical Storm demo and Chris Thomas tracks, maybe slow is better for U2... ;)

:applaud:

Anyway, to answer U2Girl's question, personally I'd consider the beginning of a new album the time where a band or artists starts demoing new songs with the distinct intention of recording an album, not necessarily the moment a producer is brought in and/or actual recording begins.
 
ntalwar said:

Bono-
"I thought of Zooropa at the time as a work of genius. I really thought our pop discipline was matching our experimentation and this was our Sgt Pepper. I was a little wrong about that. The truth is our pop disciplines were letting us down. We didn’t create hits. We didn’t quite deliver the songs. And what would Sgt Pepper be without the pop songs?"
I don't know why it's become so important for U2 to create "hits" these days. If the magic is there, the songs come alive. That's all that should matter. If there's no magic, it doesn't matter if the song has a good pop sensibility. And I think striving for the pop sensibility first takes away the magic. The great songs tend to arrive from a moment - ie, "when God walks in the room."

Zooropa is a great pop record in anycase. 'Lemon', 'Numb', 'Zooropa', 'Stay', 'Some Days', 'The First Time', 'The Wanderer' - all great pop songs with plentiful hooks and choruses. But they came from somewhere else - filled with the magic of curiousity.

Bono was right the first time. There is a lot of genius in that album. The public didn't dig the packaging, not the songs.
 
Michael Griffiths said:
Bono was right the first time. There is a lot of genius in that album.

Yup! Remember, that was 90s Bono talking. Now we have Imposter Bono in his place, who has kidnapped the cooler Bono and holding the other 3 band members captive for the last 6 years. Sometimes you can see the pain from it all on Larry's face.
 
haha! I actually met this conspiracy theorist on the plane not too long ago who was convinced (seriously convinced) that the most powerful people in the world were all replicas (silicone clones, if I remember) who replaced the real people because they were too dangerous to the powers that be (apparently the "group of 7" or some such thing who apparently run everything)....and he told me Bono was probably a replica, too! :ohmy:
 
Michael Griffiths said:

I don't know why it's become so important for U2 to create "hits" these days. If the magic is there, the songs come alive. That's all that should matter. If there's no magic, it doesn't matter if the song has a good pop sensibility. And I think striving for the pop sensibility first takes away the magic. The great songs tend to arrive from a moment - ie, "when God walks in the room."

Zooropa is a great pop record in anycase. 'Lemon', 'Numb', 'Zooropa', 'Stay', 'Some Days', 'The First Time', 'The Wanderer' - all great pop songs with plentiful hooks and choruses. But they came from somewhere else - filled with the magic of curiousity.

Bono was right the first time. There is a lot of genius in that album. The public didn't dig the packaging, not the songs.

Why "these days"?

A very young Bono was talking about going to war with the music on the charts. A slightly older Bono proudly proclaimed their biggest song to date their first pop song. A slightly older Bono even talked about how hard the band worked to be no. 1 in America on a nightly basis on their tour. A slightly older Bono had no problem appearing on MTV awards and really got on MTV via videos.

It is possible to hold on to conventional songwriting while still getting the magic out of the music. The two don't exclude each other necessarily. Most of the time U2 songs are the cliched verse-chorus-verse-solo/middle 8-chorus-end formula.
 
U2girl said:


Why "these days"?

A very young Bono was talking about going to war with the music on the charts. A slightly older Bono proudly proclaimed their biggest song to date their first pop song. A slightly older Bono even talked about how hard the band worked to be no. 1 in America on a nightly basis on their tour. A slightly older Bono had no problem appearing on MTV awards and really got on MTV via videos.

It is possible to hold on to conventional songwriting while still getting the magic out of the music. The two don't exclude each other necessarily. Most of the time U2 songs are the cliched verse-chorus-verse-solo/middle 8-chorus-end formula.

So you're saying U2 is a cliche and that they became corporate sellouts and America's whores a loooooooong time ago, not just in 2000. :wink:
 
ntalwar said:

Bono-
"I thought of Zooropa at the time as a work of genius. I really thought our pop discipline was matching our experimentation and this was our Sgt Pepper. I was a little wrong about that. The truth is our pop disciplines were letting us down. We didn’t create hits. We didn’t quite deliver the songs. And what would Sgt Pepper be without the pop songs?"

This really bothers me. It seems that U2 used to make the music that they wanted to and they just happened to be hits. Now they are trying too hard to make hits, and it makes me wonder if they are making the music that truly inspires them.
 
bsp77 said:


This really bothers me. It seems that U2 used to make the music that they wanted to and they just happened to be hits. Now they are trying too hard to make hits, and it makes me wonder if they are making the music that truly inspires them.

I often feel the same way now.....

beginning w/ ATYCLB
 
U2girl said:


Why "these days"?

A very young Bono was talking about going to war with the music on the charts. A slightly older Bono proudly proclaimed their biggest song to date their first pop song. A slightly older Bono even talked about how hard the band worked to be no. 1 in America on a nightly basis on their tour. A slightly older Bono had no problem appearing on MTV awards and really got on MTV via videos.

It is possible to hold on to conventional songwriting while still getting the magic out of the music. The two don't exclude each other necessarily. Most of the time U2 songs are the cliched verse-chorus-verse-solo/middle 8-chorus-end formula.
The difference is that back when U2 first started out - and well into the 80s and early 90s - the hits came about because the songs arrived due to trusting the outcome, and most importantly, by letting go. The songs were almost gifts. Llike U2 was simply the vehicle in which to harness the song. Now, it's almost like they want to build the song themselves. Like they have an agenda when it comes to the writing process.

That doesn't mean I don't like the last two albums. It's just a totally different approach, I feel. It's more structured, more focused, and more disciplined, I'm sure. But the real magic always came when they let go and surrendered to something other.
 
bsp77 said:


This really bothers me. It seems that U2 used to make the music that they wanted to and they just happened to be hits. Now they are trying too hard to make hits, and it makes me wonder if they are making the music that truly inspires them.
Exactly my point...and very well said. And it wasn't that they didn't want to be the biggest band in the world; it's just that they had enough trust in the music to let go any agenda and let the chemistry and spirit that exists between them to take them there.
 
Zootlesque said:


So you're saying U2 is a cliche and that they became corporate sellouts and America's whores a loooooooong time ago, not just in 2000. :wink:

I'll say yeah, for sure.

When U2 released "The Fly" single in the UK, it was advertised as being available for only a few short weeks-A clever ploy to have a number 1 single.

I'll admit that U2 so far in this decade is writing tighter songs but that doesn't equal selling out. And really, how many "Hit" songs have they had off the past few albums?

They didn't even release any singles in the US(available for sale) on HTDAAB, so I'm not sure why anyone thinks that having a number 1 in the US was their goal.

U2 have alot of great tunes, spanning different eras, and different people like eras, which is fair enough. The U2 marketing machine though is no different now than it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. People can pretend that U2 "Only cared about the music" way back when, but it's just not true.
 
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CPTLCTYGOOFBALL said:


I'll say yeah, for sure.

When U2 released "The Fly" single in the UK, it was advertised as being available for only a few short weeks-A clever ploy to have a number 1 single.

I'll admit that U2 so far in this decade is writing tighter songs, but how many "Hit" songs have they had?

They didn't even release any singles in the US on the last album, so i'm not sure they were going for "Hits" as in high-charting songs.

U2 have alot of great tunes, spanning different eras, and different people like eras, which is fair enough. The U2 marketing machine though is no different now than it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. People can pretend that U2 "Only cared about the music" way back when, but it's just not true.
Completely agree. U2 have always been good at the business side. As Paul McGuinness likes to say, it would be a shame to be great at the music but terrible at the business. I also agree that people like different eras of U2. For all those Achtung Baby fans who say they miss U2 experimenting, I contend that most of them simply miss that style of music and that U2 experimenting has little to do with the fact they like it.

As for not releasing singles in the US, I don't believe anyone releases singles in the US anymore. I don't think they're available.
 
Michael Griffiths said:

.

As for not releasing singles in the US, I don't believe anyone releases singles in the US anymore. I don't think they're available.

You might be right about that. It just seems to me that, despite what many people have said, U2 were NOT going for hit singles. It was the sheer volume of downloads of Vertigo that forced Billboard to begin counting downloads towards the chart numbers. The songs released after vertigo were pretty much just given a video and put out there. There wasn't much of a push beyond that. Even with U2s relationship with Apple, the singles were very rarely featured on the I-tunes store main page, and U2 didn't really give the FAN any reason to DL a song they already had.

They are doing more TV shows now than they did in the mid-90s, so they definatley want to have presence, but I think that's just U2 doing what they've always done-Do whatever they have to do to be noticed.
 
Yes, that's true...for a while U2 stopped doing too many TV specials (TRL, Top of the Pops, Letterman, Leno, Conan, etc) until the release of ATYCLB, when they decided to "reapply for the job" (as the world's best rock n' roll band)...since 2000, they have done almost every promotional show they can lay their hands on. Before that, they stuck mostly to award show and charity performances....so I think they have recently increased their exposure by a huge margin. And with the I Pod add, they hardly needed a video at all. They also stated they wanted every song to sound like a single while recording ATYCLB, and Bono has made similar comments about Bomb as well. This aspect is definitely a shift in philosophy, I feel. I don't see the Bono of Unforgettable Fire saying these kinds of things, for example.
 
Michael Griffiths said:
Yes, that's true...for a while U2 stopped doing too many TV specials (TRL, Top of the Pops, Letterman, Leno, Conan, etc) until the release of ATYCLB, when they decided to "reapply for the job" (as the world's best rock n' roll band)...since 2000, they have done almost every promotional show they can lay their hands on. Before that, they stuck mostly to award show and charity performances....so I think they have recently increased their exposure by a huge margin. And with the I Pod add, they hardly needed a video at all. They also stated they wanted every song to sound like a single while recording ATYCLB, and Bono has made similar comments about Bomb as well. This aspect is definitely a shift in philosophy, I feel. I don't see the Bono of Unforgettable Fire saying these kinds of things, for example.

All good points. Bono has also said he wants to hear people singing bad karaoke versions of the stuff all that past few albums. I think they really are trying to improve on writing "songs "now . Whether or not they'll keep doing this style who knows.

If you look at the interviews from the time of the Joshua Tree tour and R and H, alot of the time Bono is going on about his desire to put out classic singles, like groups in the 60s did and have U2 write songs that become part of the language. I never thought, after reading this at the time, that they'd go the route they went over the next few years but am glad they did. I haven't loved everything they've done and have liked certain albums alot less than others but that's the thing with U2, they're willing to try it all and just when you think you know what U2 is, they re-define themselves. I'm just glad they're the ones who define what they are, and not their fans, whether it was the ones who gave up on them in the 90s or the ones who've been s-l-o-w-l-y giving up on them this decade.
 
CPTLCTYGOOFBALL said:

...but that's the thing with U2, they're willing to try it all and just when you think you know what U2 is, they re-define themselves. I'm just glad they're the ones who define what they are, and not their fans, whether it was the ones who gave up on them in the 90s or the ones who've been s-l-o-w-l-y giving up on them this decade.
:up:
 
CPTLCTYGOOFBALL said:


I'll say yeah, for sure.

When U2 released "The Fly" single in the UK, it was advertised as being available for only a few short weeks-A clever ploy to have a number 1 single.

I'll admit that U2 so far in this decade is writing tighter songs but that doesn't equal selling out. And really, how many "Hit" songs have they had off the past few albums?

They didn't even release any singles in the US(available for sale) on HTDAAB, so I'm not sure why anyone thinks that having a number 1 in the US was their goal.

U2 have alot of great tunes, spanning different eras, and different people like eras, which is fair enough. The U2 marketing machine though is no different now than it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. People can pretend that U2 "Only cared about the music" way back when, but it's just not true.

I pretty much agree with this. If U2 is so predictable today and if they're forcing thing to spawn hits, why "Discotheque" was the last U2 song to get in the first 10 positions of the Billboard Hot 100? And don't forget that at the time, the US already "hated" the disco and dance sounds... Since "Please", half of their singles not even chart on the Hot 100.
The exception is the other parts of the world, mainly in Europe where U2 are still huge and bigger than any other band in therms of sales, charts and whatever...

The only thing I disagree is that I think that the marketing machine has changed a lot in the last 20-25 years. It bring us to the mid 80's where the world was in a self-decade, centered in the ego and the materialism and Cold War and we were watching the rising of big bands and pop stars as we had never seen since long ago, like Michael Jackson, U2, Madonna, Prince, etc...
In the 90's where they were established, people already knew more or less what the new era of pop could bring.
This present decade has been showing us the old marketing techniques, but renewed and applied to other sectors and other artists.
 
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