New Album Discussion 10 - Songs of Sir, this is a Wendy's, durr

[Headache in a Suitcase]

The reason it opened Act 2, was because it was cool as fuck for them to be invisible inside the screen! So if they had a song called Ghosted they would be flying high above the crowd like it's spiderman the musical... opps bad choice.

i always felt kinda sorry for the folks sitting in the end zones who were probably wondering what the fuck was going on and where the band was.

 

[dan_smee]

Bono’s aging really happened over such a short period. He looks fine there. One aortic blister later and he ages 20 years in 12 months.

 

[clerks]

Bono’s aging really happened over such a short period. He looks fine there. One aortic blister later and he ages 20 years in 12 months.

Almost dying ages you...

 

[womanfish]

Bono’s aging really happened over such a short period. He looks fine there. One aortic blister later and he ages 20 years in 12 months.

Yeah it's crazy. 2014-15 he had one of his best looks ever, the aviators, well fitted leather jacket, and dark hair slicked back. Three years later he looked 12 years older. Crazy.

 

[Irvine511]

New clip

https://youtu.be/HH-wVrQbOBU

Kind of love this.

This is the U2 song most likely to still be played in 200 years.

 

[dan_smee]

New clip

https://youtu.be/HH-wVrQbOBU

It’s fine. It’s the warhorse I’m most over. Fits the vibe of the project, executed well. Probably will only listen once or as a play-through on vinyl

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Yeah it's crazy. 2014-15 he had one of his best looks ever, the aviators, well fitted leather jacket, and dark hair slicked back. Three years later he looked 12 years older. Crazy.

the changes really are stunning...



Bono in 2015

Bono Today

 

[dan_smee]

the changes really are stunning...







Bono in 2015

Bono Today

That last photo may not actually be Bono. The glasses are slightly too big

 

[Irvine511]

Bono Today

Looks like they’ll be banned from playing anywhere in Tennessee on the next tour, and perhaps several other red states.

 

[clerks]

He's got to look better than current Robin Williams. Except those glasses... so maybe a push?

 

[womanfish]

actually after I posted my comment, I saw a pic of him with the cellist they worked with and it's the best I've seen him look in quite a while.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CplNF2oozi-/?hl=en

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

He looks fine now as long as he doesn't do the Pat Riley, which makes him look 102.

 

[Irvine511]

It’s the hair almost as much as the glasses that she’s him. I know the albums suffer, but he looks better with short hair.

 

[DeVaul]

It’s the hair almost as much as the glasses that she’s him. I know the albums suffer, but he looks better with short hair.

Embrace the white, cut the hair, bring back the aviators. Maybe Adam would let him hang with the cool kids.

 

[dan_smee]

The hair doesn’t just look a bad shape, it also looks dirty and unwashed.

 

[iota]

Embrace the white, cut the hair, bring back the aviators. Maybe Adam would let him hang with the cool kids.

View attachment 13609

So, the Biden look.

 

[DeVaul]

The hair doesn’t just look a bad shape, it also looks dirty and unwashed.

Even washed…

 

[iota]

It’s the hair almost as much as the glasses that she’s him. I know the albums suffer, but he looks better with short hair.

AB Berlin Bono is the prime Bono, ans that hair, wow. Bono has the Sampson curse.

 

[DeVaul]

So, the Biden look.

It’s… an idea

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Embrace the white, cut the hair, bring back the aviators. Maybe Adam would let him hang with the cool kids.

View attachment 13609

It does look like he started Pat Rileying his hair in the back and ran out of Pat Riley juice.

 

[Irvine511]

so, the biden look.

 

[danm]

Anyone who may have called this a "cynical cash grab" shouldn't really be taken seriously anyway. At this stage in their careers, there is nothing wrong with U2 or any band re-imagining their older songs and putting them out.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/review/2023/03/10/u2-songs-of-surrender-a-cynical-cash-grab-put-your-preconceptions-aside/

U2: Songs of Surrender – A cynical cash grab? Put your preconceptions aside
These ‘reinterpreted’ tracks are a reminder that, whether you like them or not, U2 have exceptional songs in their back catalogue

Lauren Murphy
Fri Mar 10 2023 - 00:01

Songs of Surrender
4 stars
Artist: U2
Genre: Rock
Label: Island Records

On paper this album of rerecordings seems like nothing but a cynical cash grab – something to release to fill a gap, bolster sales of Bono’s memoir and act as a nice lead-in for U2′s big-bucks Las Vegas residency this autumn. If the unasked-for arrival of Songs of Innocence on your iPhone made you blaze with the fury of a thousand suns, Songs of Surrender may not be for you. This album is best enjoyed when you put your preconceptions aside and simply enjoy its 40 songs, recorded between lockdowns, for what they are.

The new approach doesn’t work on every track. Some of these songs lack the vision and firepower of the originals. Pride (In the Name of Love) sounds exactly as you might expect an acoustic version to sound; the softened edges of Beautiful Day make it a pleasant if forgettable number; the spacey, slo-mo tilt of The Fly lacks oomph.

More often than not, however, these tracks will surprise you. Bono’s haggard rumble on the twangy strum of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For suggests that Johnny Cash might have made a fair fist of the song; the magnificent new version of Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of is unquestionably better than the original, stripping the bells and whistles away to expose an aching vulnerability.

Stay is superb too, its piano and murmured vocals staying true to the spirit of the song without being precious about it.

That’s when Songs of Surrender is at its best: acknowledging the songs that have made U2 the band that they are but not cowering in thrall to them.

Is it vital listening for anyone but diehard fans? Perhaps not, but this was never meant to be a concise affair pitched at topping the charts, even if it probably will. If nothing else, this album is a reminder that, whether you like them or not, U2 are a band with some exceptional songs in their back catalogue.

 

[danm]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-41089072.html

Tom Dunne: Stripped-down songs on new U2 album make for great listening
U2 bring David Letterman around Dublin in a new streaming show, and they also release Songs Of Surrender, an album of 40 reinterpreted tracks from their back catalogue

FRI, 10 MAR, 2023 - 02:00
Tom Dunne

In the new U2 film that is coming to Disney+ — U2: A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman — Edge asks of their music, “What is left when everything is stripped away?” The answer is this album: Songs of Surrender. It is U2, laid bare.

There’s a lot to take in. Forty career-spanning songs, over four albums, one side for each band member. It’s produced by Bob Ezrin, a producer best known for his work in the 1970s with Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd. His presence is apt here, as this is a ‘School’s Out’ U2.

Production is minimal. There are some strings, choirs, and brass, but they barely raise their heads above the parapet. Unlike in the Disney film, all four of U2 are present and correct, but don’t expect screaming guitar, or thunderous bass, or much evidence of the drummer who could “kickstart the 46A”. Here, sparse is everything.

What’s gone is almost as striking as what remains. On earlier songs it is the fire and certainly of youth, not to mention the wonderful production of Steve Lillywhite, that is absent. On later tracks it is the delicately applied sonic landscapes of Eno and Daniel Lanois, brush strokes that masterfully teased out the subtlest of emotions.

That is a lot to take away. Bono has talked of it being “U2 without the artifice”. These days artifice has come to mean something that deceives you. But once it just meant a skilled piece of workmanship and that for me is always where U2’s music resided.

So, what are you left with when those supports are gone? ‘Walk On’ has been reimagined for Ukraine and it is one of several songs where lyrics have been changed. ‘Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses’ and ‘City of Blinding Lights’ retain their ethereal power, and ‘Stay (Faraway so Close)’ - with very subtle strings from John Metcalfe - is as beautiful as ever.

Older fans will appreciate certain song choices. It is a joy to hear ‘11 O’clock Tick Toc’k in any apparel and ‘Two Hearts (Beat as One)’ is wonderful. I thought it was a hit then. I think it is a hit now.

But what really starts to strike you, as you listen on, is how much of each song is in the vocal. It is phrasing, melody, a little inflection here, a little emotion there. The voice carries the song, the message, the story. And stripped back, it has nowhere to hide.

It doesn’t need to. Without the sumptuous music of U2, what strikes you, again and again, is the strength of Bono’s lyrics and vocal. Often, the band’s job is to not get in the way, to lift but not obscure; highlight, but not complicate. And Adam, Larry and Edge are as good at leaning back as they are at leaning forward. That is no mean feat.

To hear Bono revisit lyrics, some of which he wrote to celebrate his 18th birthday, some of which he wrote as 27-year-old singer in the “biggest kick-ass band in the world” is fascinating. His voice is stronger than ever but tempered now with ever more humanity.

I can’t help but think that this album owes a lot to covid. The pandemic stripped almost everything away from all of us, and you can’t help but suspect that enforced isolation and not touring for the first time since 1979, engendered a reappraisal: What is left in our music when everything else is gone?

There is one thing that is not in U2’s gift to strip away, and that is what we bring to their music. We bring our own feelings to these songs, our own little inner production and expectation. For some, these stripped back versions may not meet those expectations.

The song ‘40’ closes the album. It was the song they used to close their sets with before they wrote ‘Bad’. Its asks now, as it did then, “How long, How long, to sing this song?” It’s very striking to hear it still being sung, and after all we’ve lived through since hearing it first.

It feels as timeless and uplifting as it was then. There’s a strength in it, an optimism, a togetherness. I’ve sung it in fields with people I don’t know, put my arms around them and raised the heavens.

So maybe that is the answer to the question: What is left when you strip everything away? A voice raised in hope, togetherness, a song. Perfect!

 

[dan_smee]

I will say again - the strength is in the totality of this project, and everyone will find something different. Going with what could be interpreted as watered down versions of hits was probably the only wrong way to approach the release. The reviews are universally positive, and I hope it reinforces to them that they have the chops and don’t need the tricks going forward.

 

[danm]

https://www.businesspost.ie/life-ar...d-the-edge-have-another-go-at-back-catalogue/

Surrender to it: Bono and the Edge have another go at back catalogue
Songs of Surrender reimagines 40 songs from U2 with a mostly acoustic, ambient and mellower approach

TONY CLAYTON-LEA
MARCH 9, 2023

U2: Songs of Surrender (Island)

In certain parts of the internet, U2 fans are upset. The broad consensus is: why bother reimagining 40 back catalogue songs when the originals were fine as they were? Other niggles bothering the U2niverse include the number of different collectors-only versions of this album (choices of coloured vinyl, cassette et al), and whether it can really be called a U2 record when so many of the revisited songs feature mere whispers of Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen jr.

The idea, lest we forget, originated as an accompaniment to Bono’s recently published memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. But let’s be fair here. Any artist can do what they want with their songs, and if Bono the singer and Edge the guitarist (with, presumably, the blessing of their long-standing bandmates) want to remake them, then let the pair at it.

With such reflection comes a mostly acoustic, ambient and mellower approach. There are deviations from this: Desire is a falsetto-led funk workout, Get Out of Your Own Way is a raw and tough acoustic jam, The Fly is trapped in a muddy soul/funk melting pot, I Will Follow features new lyrics. Is there something for everyone in the U2 audience? Even in a refined, different kind of second-gear mode, it appears there is. ***½

 

[womanfish]

Biggest takeaway from these. Stay is indeed reimagined, and it sounds like it may be a standout.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

now all we need is a leak

 

[JWR1992]

Shouldn’t it have leaked by now or do albums not do that anymore?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

they occasionally leak, but it's far less common.

harder to leak when there aren't a million CDs floating around waiting to be sold.

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

Leaks happen less than a week typically before now a days if at all. The best record store relatively close to my house closed last year and many times they’d put albums on the shelves a few days before the release so I’d get them early.