Shuttlecock XVII - The Best Title That Ever Happened a Thread

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The last thing I wanted to hear was a fucking BD rewrite. I was hoping one of these singles would sound "cool" and make it less embarrassing to publicly like the band. Unfortunately, they opted not to release The Blackout (which I love) and went with two milquetoast tracks instead.

I'm still confident I'll really like a handful of the SOE songs, but any notion that this was going to be a big improvement over SOI just went out the window. And Danger Mouse isn't here to salvage any of it this time...
 
Kieran McConville said:
Maybe Bono could start by finding actual stuff to write about again. Because vague platitudes about love (a fuzzy, amorphous and weirdly contentless love, certainly not a love that will rock any boats that need rocking) are getting fairly old.
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I think he already did that on SOI. One of the reasons I found SOI so refreshing, and why I was so pleased with it, was exactly because it was devoid of all those love/soul/kneel/heal/etc platitudes that were all over ATYCLB and HTDAAB and a good chunk of NLOTH.

He was writing about coming up in Ireland(RBW, Cedarwood), his mother(Iris, The Crystal Ballroom), his own state of mind when the band was just starting up(Volcano), his own personal struggles/contradictions(The Troubles), scandal in the Catholic church(SLABT), etc.

Even when he does go to 'love' in California, it alludes to something deeper than the platitudes we're used to from him, with lines like 'there's no end to grief, that's how I know, how I need to know, there is no end to love'.

SOI was, on the whole, Bono's best lyrical effort since Pop.
 
I love how the title of the single is an unintentionally apt summary of what the band should do.
 
I'll eat crow for saying Blackout was going to be significantly different in the studio take. The mixing understandably sounds different, but it's basically the same. And, in fact, it sounds somewhat fresh and creative with the crowd noise stripped away.

It depresses the hell out of me that Blackout seems like a classic compared to the flaming dogshit that was the last two singles though. It's still far from great. Like the way Bono sings "And what we had is not coming back, Zac" with all the earnestness in the world is just awful.
 
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Get Out Of Your Own Way is pretty boring.

The Blackout is more interesting but not great.

This won't mean anything to those of you who think SOI is bland all the way through, but for those who like it...think how different the back half of SOI is compared to the front half.

The hope has to be that non-single stuff on the album is going to be much better.

Though even California/EBW were a lot better than what we've gotten so far from this album.
 
The Blackout is good. I'll listen to that again.

GOO Your Own Way is... a thing. Generic as fuck. And what the hell is the ending? Thank fuck it's not Bono saying that "blessed are the superstars" line, though you know they're going to get flak for it because it's a pretty ham-fisted attempt at sarcastic self-awareness. And then it just... cuts off? What the fuck?

And bloody hell another fucking North American tour. Seriously, what. Because yeah Tulsa and Uniondale and Nashville are fucking essential to visit rather than, oh I don't know, touring entire countries the band haven't played in eight years, or over a decade, or ever.
 
Pop music doesn't have to be this fucking lifeless and bad. It doesn't have to sound like royalty-free background music.







Yes, even if rock bands are behind it it:





The new songs have terrible textures, flaccid production, mind-numbing lyrics, man...I don't even know what to suggest at this point, but I don't think they're good at what they're trying to do at this point in their career.
 
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Axver said:
The Blackout is good. I'll listen to that again.

GOO Your Own Way is... a thing. Generic as fuck. And what the hell is the ending? Thank fuck it's not Bono saying that "blessed are the superstars" line, though you know they're going to get flak for it because it's a pretty ham-fisted attempt at sarcastic self-awareness. And then it just... cuts off? What the fuck?

And bloody hell another fucking North American tour. Seriously, what. Because yeah Tulsa and Uniondale and Nashville are fucking essential to visit rather than, oh I don't know, touring entire countries the band haven't played in eight years, or over a decade, or ever.
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Uniondale is just another way to play the NYC market instead of 30 shows at MSG.

Tulsa, tho.
 
Axver said:
The Blackout is good. I'll listen to that again.

GOO Your Own Way is... a thing. Generic as fuck. And what the hell is the ending? Thank fuck it's not Bono saying that "blessed are the superstars" line, though you know they're going to get flak for it because it's a pretty ham-fisted attempt at sarcastic self-awareness. And then it just... cuts off? What the fuck?

And bloody hell another fucking North American tour. Seriously, what. Because yeah Tulsa and Uniondale and Nashville are fucking essential to visit rather than, oh I don't know, touring entire countries the band haven't played in eight years, or over a decade, or ever.
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Mehhhhht, the cutoff is clearly a segue for another track. It's probably continuous on the album.

But wtf, The Blackout is sooooo genetic. It's just not typical U2. But that doesn't excuse it for me.

I prefer the generic U2 to the generic half assed attempt at being different.
 
Axver said:
The Blackout is good. I'll listen to that again.

GOO Your Own Way is... a thing. Generic as fuck.
Click to expand...
This is pretty much how I feel about the new songs. Get out of Your Own Way isn't terrible but I can't say I like the song. It sounds like a Coldplay single from 5 years ago.

I have to get used to the slower tempo of Blackout but it does sound pretty good to me, especially the verses and the breakdown.
 
Apparently, with some Glastonbury mixed in for good measure.

I really want to hear the song for the refu-Jesus lyric. This could be an all-timer.
 
I'm going to have to take a break from the board if the next thread title isn't SAVE US, REFU-JESUS.
 
So whose bright idea was it to mash up Bono's feature on DAMN with Glastonbury?

And yes, refu-Jesus actually does happen.
 
Huh, interesting. Never would have guessed that's what the song would sound like after the sample on the Kendrick album.

I'm guessing most will be annoyed that they're "recycling" Volcano and SFS on this album, but I don't mind the idea as a connection between SOI and SOE. :shrug:
 
I like it. I think the chorus works better here than in Volcano with the "... looking for American soul" line.
 
I have no idea what that video is, but based on the freeze-frame, I'm NOT clicking on it.



American Soul: I was kind of excited about it at the beginning, but then when the Volcano chorus came along, the rest of it fell into 'meh' territory.

Get Out of Your Own Way is pretty great, though.
 
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