trevgreg
Rock n' Roll Doggie
I just don't see the obsession with judging the quality of material on how "weird" or "out there" it is.
All I care is that it's good.
I love U2's sound, all aspects of it, and don't think they need to become another band entirely to be good.
Most bands have one sound throughout their entire career. U2 has had at least 3 drastic and distinct changes in direction(1984, 1991 and 2001) and all have been EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL if you ask me, along with most fans and most critics.
So they already have the most diverse sound of almost any band in history as a baseline and so many of their hardcore fan base here still insists they need a complete overhaul in order for them to truly make another great album. Give me a break!
I also don't get the false leap being made from "U2 has reexamined the left field side of NLOTH and blames it for the tepid commercial response" to "fuck all of us, they're now going back to HTDAAB and singing about intellectual tortoises and tops of newborns heads."
War was on the radio and good.UF was on the radio and good. Same for AB. Same for JT. Same for R&H. Same for some songs on ATYCLB and HTDAAB.
The only real left field songs, in terms of challenging to play, hard to digest, etc on NLOTH would be Fez/BB(an average song at best, I think), Unknown Caller and Moment of Surrender. Of the 3, they've done 2 extensively live. Moment of Surrender they seem to absolutely love.
The title track and Magnificent seem to kind of walk the line between the U2 we are used to and left field, and both tracks seem to be very well liked by U2 and were received extremely well. I'd be surprised if they were looking at tracks 1-3 of NLOTH as any part of the problem whatsoever.
I would bet any amount of money they're thinking of UC(was just awkward in every way), Fez-BB(see UC) and maybe Cedars as the culprits. I would disagree with them on Cedars.
White As Snow (even Cedars too)isn't that far out there for people familiar with TUF and the B-side material on the Joshua Tree. Nor is it a particularly out there, left field arrangement. It's just a softer, country tinged ballad, more in the vein of the Eagles and Springsteen than U2, but still very mainstream sounding.
Magnificent and Breathe are, in my opinion, the best songs on the album after the title track and MOS.
Crazy Tonight is good if a bit cheesy for my taste, and I think with GOYB and SUC, it becomes very clear after a few listens that these songs fall well short of U2 standards.
Who knows, ultimately, what they are thinking, but the remix version of Crazy(with the distracting stage effects) and the suspicious lack of any acknowledgement of SUC(as BVS points out) indicates they're just as likely to be thinking of these songs as they are some of the more ambient stuff.
Good post, since I agree with the majority of it. I'm definitely in the group that says the second half of the album falls short on a lot of things, though I do love Breathe. And like someone else on here said, I think UC leaves a bit open in terms of lyrics, but musically it's a standout.