U2: The Next Era

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Hold me, Thrill me, Kiss me, Kill me.

That's how it should sound. I want raw guitar stuff. If this isnt possible i would like to go with option B of U2girls post.

Either raw or light.
 
Okay... how about this question: if they WERE to reinvent themselves, what would you like it to be like and//or what would you predict?

"Imagination is more important than knowledge"

-Albert Einstein

;-)
 
Anyway, I think you guys should just forget about anyone else and pretend youre the first band ever to make music. With access to all gadgets and guitar pedals. forget the conventional song. FORGET IT, it doesnt exist. Forget the all lyrics youve ever heard or written. Start from scratch. Theres too much to write about these days, there should be no reason to have weak lyrics. accomplish this and you will have the respect of all the musicheads that dont like U2. And theres a shit ton, believe me. Make a pure U2 record. hows that for reinvention. Like Bono said to the boygeorge wanna-be in a tv interview recently posted here, be yourself. Thats what everyone is waiting for.
 
I think any huge reinvention will be more of the window dressing type at this stage. They know they'll never be the big new thing at anything anymore. They're not going to lead from the front at anything anymore (musically). I think the next overhaul, if there is one, will be subtle musically and will come more in the form of image/tour etc. The album may lean one way or another, show a leaning toward a certain influence over others, but it won't be U2 like you've never heard them, unless it is actually the stripped back 'sound of 4 guys in a room' - which they are yet to actually do.

I think when it comes, it will come when they're good to take a step back and allow themselves to just 'be'. Not be the biggest. Just be. There'll be a point where - hopefully - they'll reach the fork in the road where they realise they can become the Rolling Stones, or they can continue to make new, great, challenging music, and tour wise, realise they can either continue forever with mass stadium shows selling millions of tickets based on their back catalogue and brand (again, see Stones, Rolling) or do what suits the music they are creating.

A leaning towards that more delicate, deeper water, 'quiet' sound of Ground Beneath & Stateless, if it comes about, is to me a sign of that realisation. If Bono is still trying to jump around to more Vertigos in a couple of albums time, padded out with more "please let this be a stadium anthem" Miracle Drugs, they've chosen, or not realised they've chosen, the Rolling Stone path.

I hope there's an album or two of U2 consolidation. Not fairly generic rock/pop with Awesome Classic U2 Moments as they are on now, but truly a realisation of 25+ years of sounds and influences, perhaps with a spin on it that celebrates the band, as I said, the 4 guys in the room thing. After that, a band confident enough in themselves, their past career and catalogue, their position in music history etc to be able to just not really care and just make some great music. Even if they don't sell gazillions. Even if they aren't loaded with potential singles. Even if they aren't chock full of 11 songs you can take on the road. Finally just make some albums free of the pressures of U2 Pty Ltd hanging over their heads.
 
werd, just make a record without all the damned gimmicks. dont set out to make 11 or 12 masterpieces, thats for us to decide. if its forced it fucks it all up. and lastly, and most importantly, I would ask Bono to shut the fuck up and let the music take over in the songs. That would be my biggest complaint of 2000+ U2. Bono never lets us enjoy the music, he's always chiming in when there is beautiful music being played in the background. THATS why the joshua tree is so good. Bono gives us a chance to breathe. its almost like they deliberately left a minute at the end of every song on it and devoted it to the instrumental side. Bono needs something to do? break out the harmonica again. too cliche? hook it up to a distortion, i dunno. . im sure they can find something to let him fuck aropund with.

Bono! listen to me! LESS IS MORE!!!!!!!!!

holla
 
U2girl's Option (b) is really the best route they can choose, imo. Songs like Ground Beneath and Stateless are simply understated, underrated classics! They need to be up there in front of Vertigo or COBL.

I hope they make something atmospheric like Pink Floyd's The Division Bell. What I'd give to have an instrumental like Marooned on a U2 album. :drool: Or even something like Sting's Fragile. :heart: Or Pearl Jam's Yield. I'm not saying they should ape these albums and songs, just talking about the sound and what the songs could be about. If they make an ethereal, dreamy and atmospheric album that is great to listen to while driving thru vast landscapes and beautiful scenery, I'll be one happy man!

Actually come to think of it, UF is kinda like what I described...
 
That's true- they've done atmospheric work on UF and they widely consider UF to be "unfinished" in many places, according to their book "U2 by U2".

I enjoy their atmospheric stuff; I'd love to see them doing more of it on side projects, like a
Passengers Vol. 2; but I'd really like to see them experiment more again with their central work in bold and major ways.

Maybe I should jut leave it at that, and no I'm not one of the band members fishing for ideas. ;-)

They still have many more years to come back to tying up all their past eras into a neat little box; and part of me hopes they do end on that sort of a note, but they've still got decades to go, and I really hope they go out on a limb again at least once more.

If we're to believe Bono when he says "we're just getting started" that has to mean they're going to leap into outer space again. They've said too many times things along the lines of: "We'd hang it up before we'd just put out record after record of slowly stagnating work."

And they don't give any indication of wanting to hang it up. ;-)
 
actually, i was thinking today that the most pure u2 album is war and everything else kind of stems from that. aside from boy and oct where they were just sort of finding themselves anyway. war is the core. If they could update war so to speak, i would be more than satisfied. With their skill these days im sure it would kick ass. I just really wish the subject would change. htdaab was kind of meh subjectwise and i think that why it isnt doing so well as years go on, and the fact that it doesnt seem to go any deeper than the surface, as someone stated. family is cool and all but it isnt really rock and roll.
 
t8thgr8 said:
actually, i was thinking today that the most pure u2 album is war and everything else kind of stems from that. aside from boy and oct where they were just sort of finding themselves anyway. war is the core. If they could update war so to speak, i would be more than satisfied. With their skill these days im sure it would kick ass. I just really wish the subject would change. htdaab was kind of meh subjectwise and i think that why it isnt doing so well as years go on, and the fact that it doesnt seem to go any deeper than the surface, as someone stated. family is cool and all but it isnt really rock and roll.

Very interested and insightful remark.

When ATYCLB came out I remember trying to "classify" it in my mind amongst the U2 canon, and thinking it was most similar to War, with bits of Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby mixed in.
 
Than again, I'm a very visual person, (artist//designer) and I've noticed that the way I hear a U2 album is heavily influenced by the accompanying artwork.

The artwork for all of those albums is very much black & white.
 
dr. zooeuss said:
Okay... how about this question: if they WERE to reinvent themselves, what would you like it to be like and//or what would you predict?


I'd guess they'd try to actually go singer/sonwriter route without all the trappings of a typical pop album even if it has several out and out pop songs. Scale back the gloss and maybe leave space for more organic sounding ideas. Raw but not harsh. Elegant like Springsteen with an acoustic but full band and some rich harmonies. Grown up lyrics not floating up in the optimsitic sky but attached to something tangible. Perhaps singing more about the way it is rather than the way it should be.

That's far away from what I would predict.
I predict that whatever they try, that months in the studio writing will wear on the collective of the band and some members will have to be convinced all over again, causing delays, then the idea of writing before recording starts to dissolve and they bring in Flood/Lillywhite/Lanois/Eno or Edge produces most of it with an engineer.

The sound is something like contemporary pop/rock, trying to one up ATYCLB and HTDAAB, chasing down the path again. Some spots are better, some aren't. Hit and miss. 3 out of 4 stars, considered a critical flop for U2. 4 very good to great songs. 4 solid, good songs and 3 that receive a universally mixed reaction from crirtics and fans. I'm convinced they could make a far better album than the previous two and still get raked over the coals for staying stagnant creatively. ATYCLB III would do just that, it may be an awesome record, I just see a reluctance to digest the same tone all over again. The last ttwo albums were so BIG, a third might saturate them for good.

2010+ will be the last great reinvention of U2, maybe even the last album and tour. I think they have at least one, maybe two members in the band, plus a manager who just want this brand of U2, and it's a democracy, 3 of 5 wins. The swing vote is Adam.
Let's hope he's listening to something interesting and motivated to join the more ambitiously creative side of the group.
 
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very interesting, thanks for keeping the discussion alive! you tempt me to post some of my (probably unpopular) theories here. ;-)
 
There seems to be a negative cloud hanging over the spiderman thing but Id like to point out something most fans are maybe overlooking or not realizing. Bono is being musical. In other words, theres more 'getting lost in the music' and less 'getting lost in africa' these days it seems. This has to be a positive for the new album.
 
dr. zooeuss said:


In any case, I've wondered lately if the next U2 tour might take back the weapon of irony and apply it to cyberspace as it did to TV in the early 90s. The time seems right, but I'm not sure there's the same need that there was in the early 90s for someone to put TV on trial. And that speaks only to the tour, not to the music itself.


I had this exact same thought! What a great idea. If you thought the zoo tv tour was interactive, think of what they could do with the internet. The possibilities are absolutely endless. I hope they have the courage to rise above this lazy rut they've stuck themselves in and really blow some minds. I'm surprised Bono's passion for africa and everything hasn't really shined through in his lyrics. He could really hit on some deep subject matter. True, they aren't young like they were in Zoo TV, and they are starting to fall into that dreaded category of "Classic Rock". U218 proves that more than anything. While "Window in the sky" is an OKAY one-off song from U2, I pray they don't follow this direction. That would be a very boring and mediocre album. They also aren't the Rolling Stones who have been playing the same tour and setlists for the past 20 years. They have potential to change what it means to be middle aged men in the music business.
 
The_acrobat said:


I had this exact same thought! What a great idea. If you thought the zoo tv tour was interactive, think of what they could do with the internet. The possibilities are absolutely endless. I hope they have the courage to rise above this lazy rut they've stuck themselves in and really blow some minds. I'm surprised Bono's passion for africa and everything hasn't really shined through in his lyrics. He could really hit on some deep subject matter. True, they aren't young like they were in Zoo TV, and they are starting to fall into that dreaded category of "Classic Rock". U218 proves that more than anything. While "Window in the sky" is an OKAY one-off song from U2, I pray they don't follow this direction. That would be a very boring and mediocre album. They also aren't the Rolling Stones who have been playing the same tour and setlists for the past 20 years. They have potential to change what it means to be middle aged men in the music business.

Thank you Acrobat! I was beginning to think no one bothered reading that comment.

U2've already changed "fortysomething rock star" in my opinion, but I'm starting to realize they're going to have to keep fighting it and keep changing it with every album and every tour. They've proven they can gain back their "mainstream fanbase" that they let go in the 90s, can they also prove they can break open brand new territory in their 40s?

I for one am glad Bono got lost in Africa- look at the ONE Campaign and all the people he was able to help pull together. And there is still a huge need for that work to be done.

But the thing is, Bono can't do it all. He realized that, and in the early 90s poked fun at himself.

It seems like he would know better than anyone that he's going to need to start doing that again. And if you've seen the Red Nose Day clip with Ricky Gervais and Bob Geldof, it seems he's already getting started. ;-)

...I do think Bono's work on Jubilee and Drop the Debt and ONE and Live8 (ok maybe that's too recent) have informed the lyrics of their more recent songs- I see it in Walk On, Crumbs at Your Table, When I Look at the World, Window in the Skies, possibly Grace and Yahweh.

Maybe there's more he's written but hasn't shared yet, but to me there are some deep sentiments in those songs.
 
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