And LIBTAIIW is going to be the closing song on the E&I Tour. Calling it now. Or maybe it leads into Streets. I don't know.
Holy fuck, this album is great. I just listened to it for the first time and while the singles are the weakest tracks they work well on the album. The sequencing and pacing are spectacular.
Other random thoughts:
- it's pretty high energy and doesn't sound forced
- Adam has a bunch of great parts
- Bono's best album since Zooropa. There are some clunky lyrics but way more good ones, and his voice sounds great. The melodies are the real star though. The verses are so strong they could be choruses. He goes deep, too.
- Lights Of Home is Zep as fuck, and the orchestral version is as epic as they've ever been. Speaking of epics...
- Little Things....holy shit. Peak U2. Sequencing it after the Showman was clever!
Best U2 album in 20 years. It's great. I'm fucking shocked and ecstatic. It's a glorious, complete work. I'll pretend that the godawful Kygo remix isn't sitting there like a turd on the edge of the plate.
Wow. First full listen completed.
My first thought is, 'oops'. I've been pretty down on U2 lately, watching them follow a much younger pack, watching them burn credibility like its confetti. I thought, after the singles, this album was going to be painful on a few levels.
What I'm thinking after this first listen is that I was wrong. This album isn't following the pack. It is in the sense that it is poppy, it has very fresh production etc. But it's a heavy mother fucker. THere are songs on here that no-one else would have the gravitas to pull off. Lyrics that no one else has the backstory and experience to write, let alone sing.
Landlady - which is my favourite so far - reminded of Keith Richards 'How Could I Stop'. Not musically, but in that only someone like Keith could write a song like that and have me buy into it. After his life, his experiences, and his wife sticking in there and being his rock. Landlady is like that. A young man could not have written that.
Little Things - which is my favourite so far - does U2 at their best as well as anything since Ground Beneath Her Feet in my opinion. I thought City of Blinding LIghts was going to get there but it never quite did for me. This does. In a way only U2 can. But what makes it mature, what makes it a leader not a follower, is that heavy mother fucker of a lyric. That's heavy shit. Not many people have lived that. So how could they write it?
The second Lights of Home - which is my favourite so far - is just epic. Epic, melodic, sophisticated, deep, awesome.
I like the poppy middle too, a lot. Though while I like them they don't move me like the three mentioned above.
Wonderful.
Oh, and just to make a complete fanny of myself - i was listening on my quietcomfort35s while outside working with a pair of safety goggles on. About 3/4 into Little Things I had to take the goggles off. They'd gotten foggy. Didn't think U2 would produce another moment like that.
I said in another thread I probably won't buy this album - just stream it. Fuck that. I'm buying the extended deluxe and putting on the wall as a totem of musical resilience through a 40 year career.
Well done lads.
About 3/4 into Little Things I had to take the goggles off. They'd gotten foggy. Didn't think U2 would produce another moment like that.
same. it's been how long since they had a moment like that?
I still think American Soul is pathetic. I don't feel sycophantic. It's just that, this is a really great album.
Ha ha haaaa, yes.Having to ensure three years of Song for Someone is so worth it for that payoff.
I started off feeling the same way about American Soul, but now that I can hear the atmospherics of the album, I am appreciating it much more. I especially like the "Brother John" background vocals. Very psychedelic Beatles, and with a 70s groove.The end of Love is Blindness? I mean - shit that's 26 years ago but I'm struggling to think of anything from Pop onwards that lifted and lifted and then exploded, while talking absolutely authentically about reality and heartache, like this song does.
I still think American Soul is pathetic. I don't feel sycophantic. It's just that, this is a really great album.
American Soul is easily my least favorite on the album, but I don't think it's *that* bad.
American Soul is easily my least favorite on the album, but I don't think it's *that* bad.
I started off feeling the same way about American Soul, but now that I can hear the atmospherics of the album, I am appreciating it much more. I especially like the "Brother John" background vocals. Very psychedelic Beatles, and with a 70s groove.
Yes, we must have similar tastes! I really believe Book of Your Heart deserves to be on the proper album. The ending is epic, (and the first half also very alluring with its electronic elements). Also maybe the best lyrics on the album.Slow, you and I think very alike! I was thinking exactly the same thing about lights and book of your heart!
I do miss the piano on Little Things. I find it really adds to the atmosphere in the Kimmel performance. The vocal is better there, too. (Maybe listening to that performance for months has coloured my expectations.)
Synths and some quiet guitar. Piano shows up later, but it's pretty buried and soft, and Edge plays fewer chords.What replaces the piano on the album version?
Synths and some quiet guitar. Piano shows up later, but it's pretty buried and soft, and Edge plays fewer chords.
The end of Love is Blindness? I mean - shit that's 26 years ago but I'm struggling to think of anything from Pop onwards that lifted and lifted and then exploded, while talking absolutely authentically about reality and heartache, like this song does.
I still think American Soul is pathetic. I don't feel sycophantic. It's just that, this is a really great album.