Boots is defo a misfit. Stand Up and Crazy also break up very strong/moody opening and closing segments of the album. All the same though, still a very good album with plenty of 'new' elements to keep me excited.
Whether it really becomes a Masterpiece depends on how these songs will be in a live arena. I'm not convinced they will be easily translated.
Now I don't want to start a fight, b/c I've seen that the "Radiohead" word around here pisses some folks off. But I am extremely curious, and more than a little nervous to see what happens on this tour. And they might have to pull off what Radiohead does for the Kid A / Amnesiac songs in a live setting.
1. U2 has to learn how to reinterpret their songs in a live setting. They have done good with Pop - specifically Mofo. But they've avoided playing anything from that album that would involve reinterpretation for a long time. I don't know that they have the knack. And on a song like unknown caller, it's ok to have one or two backing tracks, but if you've got a wind band, a church organ, another guitar, and three extra voices coming out of the speakers, you need to change something about the composition. Not because it's bad, but to keep some immediacy.
2. the biggest thing i'm worried about is that I think the band thinks they have a different album than they do. There are rock moments. But on the whole this is an album that competes maybe with the last David Byrne record, but that's it. The Killers and KOL are after something very different (and I'm glad U2 isn't chasing them, b/c they're headed for boredom), Bono talks a big game about how this music is more alive and soulful than anything in indie, but he's probably only sort of right about the soulful bit.
This record very much has it's heart on its sleeve, and no song really has any swagger to it. MAgnificent is just huge and earnest, Boots is somewhat interesting, but they are forcing the swagger there. And Stand Up Comedy should have been killed a long time ago, unbelievably forced. So when I see U2 doing this hyper-attenuated Zoo TV/dramatic eyeliner thing, I wonder what they think about their own album. The lyrics on NLOTH, when they're good, are intensely creative, beautiful, and fresh. Not a trace of irony. Not the kind of thing to throw up on a video screen like a slogan.
I desperately wanted a Pop/Achtung stadium sized experimentation record and tour. but NLOTH is not a stadium record. If they had more songs like the "let me in the sound" bit from boots, something with a bit more thought in terms of beats (not criticizing Larry Mullen Jr., just wish the band had really listened to new music in all fields, rather than MTV2), maybe a stadium over-the-top show would have worked. But it's not that album.
