Next Album Rumours Thread V - Your Song Ruined My Life

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Edit* I’ll always be curious about JJ’s projects, even though he isn’t terribly reliable these days. LOST is my U2 of TV shows.

U2’s story is boring, though. There’ll have to be a pretty remarkable hook to make The ‘2 seem cooler than their (mostly monogamous) sex, (getting caught once for) drugs, and (punk) rock’n’roll (from Venus).

Maybe it’ll be a show that takes place in the Miami from Pop.
 
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There’s plenty in there: two dead moms, Bono vs Bob, religion vs rock n roll, 80s fame+backlash, 90s comeback/drugs and divorce/backlash, 2000s comeback, 2010s backlash, Bono bike crash, Bono heart surgery, fuckin’ limericks…
 
The John Tree said:
Quite possibly the most embarrassing U2 moment of the last 20 years. And that’s saying something.
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A Bono poem = U2 ?

Your sing saved my life wins. Easily. A band that used to write *good* soundtrack music and the lead singer impersonates a lion in a cartoon.
 
The John Tree said:
Ugh. It just keeps getting worse and worse.
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To be fair, this isn't U2 writing a show, or going to Netflix pitching an idea for a show. It's a show that's being made about them. So I can't really give em shit for that.

Let's at least hope they're smart enough to time this with the next album release
 
I hope they take a tighter focus on the lost interesting part of their story — I’d say the weird Lypton Village stuff set amongst The Troubles and the dreariness of 70s Ireland — and not turn it into fanfic about triumphs.

At least there’s no real descent into drugs/excess like every other band.
 
I’m hoping the show is like The Last Dance, a bit. Have the band in the present working on the new album and flashing back to the biopic-style story of how they got there. Album follows the show. It could be the sniff of relevance that they’ve been after.
 
Can't wait to see how they re-enact the free album fiasco. Something like the scene below from Father Ted - a big red button saying 'do not release' and Bono being overcome by temptation.

OJhA80Z.gif
 
As much as I love them, how on earth do they think there's a market for U2 biopic at the moment?

Pallying with politicians, sending sixth grade poetry to them, amongst one PR disaster after another (not to mention half the nonsense songs they write these days) doesn't exactly provide a massive demand for them these days.

In years to come, I think their great work will stand the test of time of course - everything up to and including Boy to All That You Can't Leave Behind is just great. But you can't force these things in the way the band are trying to do.
 
MattD said:
As much as I love them, how on earth do they think there's a market for U2 biopic at the moment?

Pallying with politicians, sending sixth grade poetry to them, amongst one PR disaster after another (not to mention half the nonsense songs they write these days) doesn't exactly provide a massive demand for them these days.

In years to come, I think their great work will stand the test of time of course - everything up to and including Boy to All That You Can't Leave Behind is just great. But you can't force these things in the way the band are trying to do.
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Again, it's a series about the band. The band aren't the ones out shopping the story they want to tell to streaming companies.
 
MattD said:
In years to come, I think their great work will stand the test of time of course - everything up to and including Boy to All That You Can't Leave Behind is just great.
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They won Album of the Year with Atomic Bomb. You might not like the album but it has a couple of classics on it and will ultimately be lumped in with everything else before it in the future. The average listener doesn't perceive some drop in quality between those two albums. No Line is where they became irrelevant and have yet to rebound.
 
lazarus said:
They won Album of the Year with Atomic Bomb. You might not like the album but it has a couple of classics on it and will ultimately be lumped in with everything else before it in the future. The average listener doesn't perceive some drop in quality between those two albums. No Line is where they became irrelevant and have yet to rebound.
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But for the fact 360 was massive and pretty much exclusively loved. While NLOTH itself was a misstep, it wasn’t the start of a fall off a cliff when it comes to their reputation. People have hated U2 since the start, their voices just slowly got louder/legitimised with their mistakes of the last 15 years.
 
I think a lot of it is about the company yes men that U2 keep. Celebrities and politicians kissing their asses while fans eye roll with Bono and Edges bullshit.

As far as the U2 movie/show or whatever on Netflix. Who knows? Could introduce some young and relevant actors which could actually make it a hit that makes them relevant. Also could just induce more cringe. We’ll see.
 
If you take our emotion, cynicism (and recent weariness?) out of it, there's a hell of a story there about where they've come from, what they've achieved and their staying power across five decades. OK, so there's no tabloid scandal there, but you can't deny they've had one hell of an interesting life and made some music which is widely regarded as being some of the best of the 80s & 90s.

As with everything they do, some people will hate on it purely because of Bono, so it will be interesting to see how they handle him and his politicking in particular.
 
dan_smee said:
But for the fact 360 was massive and pretty much exclusively loved. While NLOTH itself was a misstep, it wasn’t the start of a fall off a cliff when it comes to their reputation. People have hated U2 since the start, their voices just slowly got louder/legitimised with their mistakes of the last 15 years.
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All true. However, I think, as someone else mentioned in another thread, 2 things happened with that:

1) First and foremost, there was so much momentum from ATYCLB and Bomb. I was in High School when Vertigo dropped and remember a few teachers who had been around a while remarking on how crazy it was that the most popular band in 2004 was the most popular in 1992 and 1987!

They really were the biggest band in the world until at least 2006. So they were going to sell tickets, just as they do today.

2) The promotional strategy was entirely centered around the 360 production and had very little to do with the album. We've all heard how "Kiss the future" and some other album associated names were floated for the tour. I can't help but think the cool reception to NLOTH led them to pick 360.

Hollow Island said:
Waters isn't a fan of anyone except himself.
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That guy can fuck himself! Seriously.

Has a show all about "the worker" and smashing capitalism while he charges damn near more for a T-shirt than U2 do for tickets. Never mind way more for tickets. And I'm not exaggerating .

I'm all for making money, but I don't want to crush capitalism. As much as I see its flaws and believe they should be mitigated by governments.

And Bono is the hypocrite?

At least he says what he is and what he believes.

Would he do any of what he does (regardless of what we or anyone think of it) if he didn't care about people?

Never mind the fact that people on the front lines of these global poverty/health issues, and people who hand out the cash, have attested to Bono's knowledge and successes.

I wonder how much Roger has done for people in the world?

I think at the end of the day, the cringe, the criticism, the attacks for working with "oligarchs" are all things that Bono has made crystal clear he doesn't give a shit about compared to the good that is accomplished.

I think it's a testament to how much he believes in what he does that he cares so little about what assholes like Roger or misinformed people on the left or right think.
 
dan_smee said:
But for the fact 360 was massive and pretty much exclusively loved.
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Well right, but the post I was replying to talked about their "work standing the test of time", as in albums. A tour isn't "work" in the sense of original material recorded for posterity. The tour was a monster, but unless there's some huge rediscovery of the Rose Bowl show video, No Line is the drop off point for the albums that are likely to be given more attention in the future.

But who's to say; in 20 years, young people getting into the band might not view the Songs of... albums as being such marked departures as contemporary fans do now.
 
I do think in hindsight we often forget about the bigger picture in the music industry/radio, etc... going on around that time.

First, downloading was the big issue of the time throwing the industry into a tizzy and sales numbers dropping from their late 90's to early 2000's heyday.
Also, the shift from rock to R&B/rap was happening slowly at the beginning of the 2000's but was pretty much complete by 2009.

Looking at the top albums and songs back in 2000-2004 you still had a lot of rock bands on the charts, they were horrible, but they were there - Dave Matthews, Nickelback, System of a Down, Creed, Linkin Park, Coldplay, Hoobastank, Train, goo goo dolls, Sum 41, and more... (and you wonder why rock has died?)

In 2009/10 There were only about 7 rock albums in the top 200 of the year and only a couple songs.

So there were bigger forces in play than just No Line, and some of its songs, and it's horrible first single choice, although that really didn't help.
And still it was the 22nd highest selling album in 2009 in the US with Nickelback and Kings of Leon being the only other rock bands ahead of them. And they were 7th highest worldwide with no other rock acts above them.

So again, that along with the 360 tour, they were still without question the biggest rock band in the world til 2011 at least.
 
Invisible was downloaded 3.1 million times in 36 hours.

So, uh, they were still quite popular up until, well, you know.

They still ARE quite popular if you judge ticket sales - especially with we olds.

But Bono and Tim Apple doin the ET impersonation made it open season for insulting the band and making them seem lame to the youths. The cringe things that Bono continues to do since? He always did those things. And there was always criticism in certain circles of them (mostly of Bono). But it didn't necessarily hurt their legacy.

The Apple fuck up - coming at a time when their core fan base was turning into old farts, 10 years since their last hit? That hurt their legacy.


I wonder if we've had this conversation before :hmm:
 
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I’ll always chime in to remind that South Park already planted the seed of “these guys are not cool” to we (at the time) youngs.

In high school my brother once pleaded with me to have Coldplay be my favorite band (my brother is almost exclusively into hardcore and punk music).
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
Invisible was downloaded 3.1 million times in 36 hours.

So, uh, they were still quite popular up until, well, you know.

They still ARE quite popular if you judge ticket sales - especially with we olds.

But Bono and Tim Apple doin the ET impersonation made it open season for insulting the band and making them seem lame to the youths. The cringe things that Bono continues to do since? He always did those things. And there was always criticism in certain circles of them (mostly of Bono). But it didn't necessarily hurt their legacy.

The Apple fuck up - coming at a time when their core fan base was turning into old farts, 10 years since their last hit? That hurt their legacy.


I wonder if we've had this conversation before :hmm:
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yep. And take the decline of rock overall, and really U2 is still the biggest rock band in the world. They had the second biggest tour by a slim margin in 2014 (biggest rock tour) the biggest tour in 2018.
And Songs of Experience was the highest selling rock album in the world in 2017, and number 6 in the world amongst all genres of artists. Which really puts their current status in better perspective.
 
LuckyNumber7 said:
I’ll always chime in to remind that South Park already planted the seed of “these guys are not cool” to we (at the time) youngs.

In high school my brother once pleaded with me to have Coldplay be my favorite band (my brother is almost exclusively into hardcore and punk music).
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Go play him Music of the Spheres. That'll teach him a lesson.
 
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