Anyway, to get back to the music, some SOI talk:
Listened to SOI for the first time in quite a while over the last couple days. I still dig it on the whole, although I'm not quite as raving about it as I was back when it came out. If you take the whole 14-song batch(the album+the three non-album tracks), I think about half of them make up arguably the best handful of material they've recorded since MDH or even Pop.
That half is Raised By Wolves onward on the album, plus Invisible and Crystal Ballroom.
I put together a playlist last night consisting of just those seven tracks and I'm still as into those tracks as I was back in the fall. Really, really strong material. Not only that, but those tracks are cohesive together, as well, imo. It really sounds like they came from the same creative place, a dark, brooding, aching, introspective place.
The playlist is as follows:
1. This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now
2. The Crystal Ballroom
3. Raised By Wolves
4. Cedarwood Road
5. Sleep Like A Baby Tonight
6. Invisible
7. The Troubles
SLABT is legit beautiful in its melody and atmosphere, and that guitar solo at the end is perhaps the most Achtung-y the band has sounded since Achtung.
The Troubles is gorgeous and perhaps the most emotionally raw lyric Bono has written(that he's released anyway) since Pop. Let me take this moment to disagree with Laz regarding his opposition to the band playing it live with a recording of Lykke. I think the song is too good to not be played live.
Cedarwood and Wolves are the kind of brooding rockers that U2 used to make all the time, but they haven't really made since Gone, Mofo, Miami, and Please(save for Love and Peace or Else but that's not exactly a beloved song around here). They're both a breath of fresh air and should absolutely kick ass on the tour. I do take the point Laz has consistently made that the guitar solo in Cedarwood isn't all that interesting, and I do hope Edge spices it up live.
You would've never expected U2 to put out a song like Reach - they are doing some genuinely original(for them) stuff on this track. It's like War-era U2 and In Rainbows-era Radiohead got together and collaborated. The extended intro is gorgeous, warm and lush, at once beckoning you in but also telling you to watch your step. And then the big chorus, and the verses with Edge's choppy guitar and Bono's smooth vocal delivery. Great track, I'm using it as the opener on my playlist.
Crystal Ballroom and Invisible should've been on the album. Probably in place of SFS and Volcano. They're both so good. Especially Crystal Ballroom. I honestly think it could've killed as a lead single, as much as a U2 single can kill in 2014/15 anyway. That chorus is just huge, and the song is already very good up through the second chorus, but then it goes to another level. That break down, with that little guitar break and then the wordless ascending oh..oh..oh..OH..oh etc, just slays me every time, and then that long guitar solo that closes that song(has to be one of the best things Edge has done in a long while). And those keyboard notes at the every end. Seriously, the second half of the song works for me on a nearly UF/JT level. I really, really hope they play this at some point on the tour.
The rest of it my feelings are becoming more mixed on.
The Miracle and California, I really do like, especially California with that huge chorus and general warm tone, but I just feel like they don't fit the rest of the album tonally, as they're bright and upbeat, whereas those seven tracks I mentioned earlier are darker and less poppy. As such, I find it difficult to put them in a playlist with those other tracks. They just never fit as much as I'd like them to, since I do like them.
Iris, I think fits tonally with the seven tracks, but it's a bit of a momentum killer with its pace. I do like it though, particularly the verses with that low register that Bono seldom uses anymore. I don't really understand why people have described as 'embarrassing'. I will say that, while the first part of the chorus('hold me close' etc) is sort of catchy, I'm not sure it's necessary. They could've gone straight from 'a thousand years to get here' to 'ooh ooh iris' and made it a shorter, more purely meditative piece. But it's still one of my favorite tracks here outside the top 7.
Volcano probably fits tonally with the seven tracks, particularly Wolves and Cedarwood, and I dig the RHCP-style guitar in the chorus, and that huge bass fill after the first chorus, but there's just not that much substance here. It'll probably rock live, but it's not one of the seven tracks I can't live without.
SFS is SFS. It's pretty enough, it's well-executed, it's just that there are any number of bands that could pull off a song like this. There aren't any number of bands that could pull off, say, The Troubles or This Is Where.
Every Breaking Wave was maybe my favorite track on the album when it first came out, and of all the tracks that didn't make my top 7, it is, along with Iris, probably the most likely to sneak onto the playlist with the top 7. But it would be the acoustic version. I like the acoustic arrangement so much that I can't really listen to the album version in the same way anymore. Especially after that MTV Euro performance, which I thought Bono hit out of the park with his vocal. I was mildly disappointed to hear that the band was rehearsing it full-band in Vancouver. If they could play it every night they way they did on that MTV performance, it could be a showstopper. Not sure if Bono could sustain that level of intensity in the vocal for a whole tour though.
Lucifer's Hands is fun to listen to, that riff is big and dirty and the chorus is pretty rambunctious but it's not as memorable as some of the other tracks here, and like Miracle and California, I feel like it doesn't fit tonally with the best of the material. I might take it over Volcano though.
I might put EBW and Iris in the playlist and end up with something like
1. This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now
2. The Crystal Ballroom
3. Invisible
4. Iris
5. Every Breaking Wave(Acoustic)
6. Raised By Wolves
7. Cedarwood Road
8. Sleep Like A Baby Tonight
9. The Troubles
and still have something that I think is pretty cohesive and tonally of one spirit, but it's not quite as streamlined as going with the top 7.
Anyway, those are my seven-months-later thoughts. Probably the thing I was most wrong about in my initial reaction the album was that I said the running order didn't need any fixing.
SOI with my running orders is probably still middle-of-the-pack for me, anywhere and that 6-9 range(that's more a testament to the strength of U2's older work than a hit on SOI, I mean, nothing's ever going to crack that top 5). SOI with its actual running order is probably a little lower, maybe the 8-10 range. Maybe something like this(pretty similar to where I put it back in September):
1. Achtung
2. UF
3. Zooropa
4. JT
5. Pop
6. R&H
7. Boy
8. SOI
9. War
10. October
11. NLOTH
12. ATYCLB
13. HTDAAB
