Boots is definitely a bit out of step sonically, but the vocal melody on the "You don't know..." section sounds slightly exotic in a Beatles experimentation sense. So that connects it to the Morocco sessions enough for me to include it on the album.
I can't imagine removing this song from the album but retaining SUC and Crazy Tonight, the first of which is even more tonally inappropriate (and just pretty awful in general), and the latter just desperately vanilla and clearly a last-minute bid for radio airplay. They're both axed from my playlist.
My unconventional move is including both versions of the title track; if memory serves the alt version leaked before the actual album did? And I remember being disappointed upon hearing the album version because the alt was so bouncy, energetic, and new wavy, could have actually been a single. So while I've come to appreciate the official No Line in a deeper way, I can't listen to the album without wanting to hear both, so I've featured it as a reprise in the way that FEZ reprises Boots.
1. No Line
2. Magnificent*
3. Moment of Surrender
4. Unknown Caller
5. Winter
(side break if you're old-fashioned, 30 min. into a 60 min. playlist)
6. Soon
7. No Line (alt. version)
8. Get On Your Boots
9. FEZ-Being Born
10. White as Snow
11. Breathe
12. Cedars
So I've retained the original beginning and ending like most of you and just messed with the middle, but in a different way. I thought about putting the alt. No Line right before the end as a more naturally-placed reprise, but I think Breathe does fit the bill as U2's typical penultimate track showstopper (Acrobat, Exit, Dirty Day, Please), and the orchestral elements keep the album on that grander stage as it heads to the finish. Soon serves as a bit of an intermission between halves here, and while most seem to like it before Winter I think it connects similarly place after it.
*not gonna lie, I started to type "Magnificock" at first because old habits die hard, shout-out to the OG Shuttlecock crew
They could have put together a corresponding EP to NLOTH and it would have been ok, even though I don't really care for any except NLOTH 2. Boots is borderline.
1. Get On Your Boots (version with the intro)
2. Crazy Tonight
3. Stand Up Comedy
4. NLOTH 2
5. Crazy Tonight (Remix)
Or something like that.
(Are there many albums that feature callbacks to previous tracks? All I can think of is Quadrophenia.)
I gave the Sing2 song a better listen over the weekend and it grew on me quite a bit. The ending is still a mess as it feels like they just quit on it.
The ending is indeed a bit of a mess... At ~3:26 it sounds somebody coughs... anyone else hearing this?
It’s probably Larry fake coughing the word “shite”
U2 really are shit now aren't they. Not satisfied at trashing everything with their last 2 albums then that euro 2020 crap they've now plummeted to new depths of crapness with this rubbish. Just stop now please cos you are just destroying your legacy even further. To think this band made great music in the past. Listening to this crap you would not think so
Lol are they more shit than they were when you were calling them shit 15 years ago? Or same level of shit?
Definetly more shit. OK there's a downward trend from 2000 onwards and HTDAB was a mediocre effort by their earlier standards but even that's a good listen compared to the crap they're coming out with now. This is a new low along with that crap they released for euro 2020. Its hard to believe a group that made Achtung Baby would want to make music like this.
Definetly more shit. OK there's a downward trend from 2000 onwards and HTDAB was a mediocre effort by their earlier standards but even that's a good listen compared to the crap they're coming out with now. This is a new low along with that crap they released for euro 2020. Its hard to believe a group that made Achtung Baby would want to make music like this.
Just wait until the inevitable charitable tie in to this one as well
Music video of "YSSML".
and there it is
And if the video was what you described, this place would be bitching about that, too.Even the videos are getting worse. The trend of 'Love is bigger...' song ànd video is being continued.
The song is for Sing 2, so I expected an animated band as movie characters (Bono as Clay)and now another video of different people with a kind of message . Another low imo.
“Any hints of the beautiful ambient experimentalism that epitomised a deep and thoughtful band are drummed out of them in favour of mindless noise, generic instrumentation, cut and paste choruses and Hallmark style platitude lyrics.”
This doesn’t apply to most of No Line, though.
And imagine writing that long of a post and then forgetting to include Bomb in your rankings.
So all those children were going to kill themsleves up until they learned how to play this new U2 song and now Bono’s song has saved their lives?
I agree with the positive sentiment towards ATYCLB. Songs 1-5 are absolute classics. Hate on Elevation all you want, but it's still played in football stadiums. The impact of this album is undeniable. Add in "When I Look At The World" and you have a late album gem as well.
I think the album gets more flack because it marked the true end of their experimental phase, which was such an amazing period. But the album itself is actually pretty damn great.