U2 Still has a great album in them

[super fly guy]

Larry not towing the party line,says it's some of the best stuff they have written.............3 years later he calls it no craic on the horizon.

 

[The Panther]

I also would love to hear the 2008 No Line. It certainly couldn't be worse than the released album.

What's the story with 'Every Breaking Wave' back then? Why did it not make the LP in 2009?


About U2's making another great album: Only a few days ago did I go back and properly listen to Songs of Experience for the first time. It's a shocking listen.

Now, there are 5 -- maybe 6 -- songs that are really, really strong compositions and settle as worthy U2 songs to add to the canon. ('The Little Things That Give You Away' towers over the whole record and is one of their greatest-ever tracks, in my view.) A couple of those good songs are nearly sabotaged by auto-tune and horrid production effects, but strong enough are the compositions that they survive.

But the other 7 or 8 songs are just brutal. I almost fell off my chair listening (painfully) to the first track with its vocoder and desperate-to-sound-contemporary effects.

Anyway, my Songs of Experience experience has made me think that probably the best thing U2 can do now is either (a) retire, or (b) commit to one last LP/project with no trendy, 1/3-their-age producers, wherein they just lay down 10 songs quickly and with a minimum of production, and put them out, warts'n'all.

But if they plan to keep hiring talent-less producers to push them around and make them sound like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber in the studio, I do hope they just retire now to salvage their career rep.

 

[tommycharles]

(b) commit to one last LP/project with no trendy, 1/3-their-age producers, wherein they just lay down 10 songs quickly and with a minimum of production, and put them out, warts'n'all.

They never did that even in their prime, though. U2 records have always been forged, or mined, or hewn, or some other metaphor where you chip away at an amorphous blob for months until a song emerges. That’s the thing they’ve got to get back to - the four of them and a producer or two just playing music for a year, and seeing if something interesting happens.

With No Line, they tried that with Eno and Lanois, and no hits emerged, so they wondered if Rubin had a point, and tried to cook up some pop songs. That’s where we lost them.

(That said, SOI is still a good record, and as you say, a few songs on SOE are alright. But it could be any group of musicians playing behind Bono - and often is.)

 

[Irvine511]

My guess is that 21st century U2 doesn’t have the time to sit in a room for weeks and play until something like Bad emerges. They have lives and families and other commitments now that you don’t have when you are 24. They are also (painfully) self-aware and now competent musicians. I think they know this. I think that’s why there’s been the emphasis on traditional songwriting for the past 20 years. They don’t have 6 months to stir paint together for 12 hours a day. And one of the reasons they may still even be together as a band is because they’ve changed how they work. Probably the closest they’ve come to the old ways in recent years was MOS.

 

[Weatherman]

They've got another great one in them

The last couple albums showed it.
You can quibble about producers, false starts, etc -- but no other band with 40 yrs on the odometer is making such strong original relevant music.

What would I like to see?
Something experimental.

The future hymns that Bono pursued in Morocco. Something like that, before they pulled back and tried to sound too much like themselves.

Something inside of me dies when I hear them (or any other band) say "oh we're going to get back to basics on the next record". Nobody wants four guys in a room basics. Basics was 40 years ago before you had all the musical knowledge you've got now. I like what Rush said: "Bands that go back to basics can't play anything else."

Maybe an album with a series of top-flight international collaborators. Kind of like what Coldplay did on their recent double album. Something like that. They need outside inspiration, which is only logical, since after 40 years of creativity their tanks are bound to be running low.

But please no more navel-gazing from Bono. He did enough of that in the last cycle of albums. I want him to step outside of himself -- which he has done in the past -- and look at the world.

By the way, this is my first post here. Thank you for reading. (I'm a lifelong fan, since 1990.)

 

[Weatherman]

My guess is that 21st century U2 doesn’t have the time to sit in a room for weeks and play until something like Bad emerges. They have lives and families and other commitments now that you don’t have when you are 24. They are also (painfully) self-aware and now competent musicians. I think they know this. I think that’s why there’s been the emphasis on traditional songwriting for the past 20 years. They don’t have 6 months to stir paint together for 12 hours a day. And one of the reasons they may still even be together as a band is because they’ve changed how they work. Probably the closest they’ve come to the old ways in recent years was MOS.

All of this. Absolutely.
They've become excellent nearly-elderly musical craftsmen. I wish they would stop talking about recapture the crazy punk energy of a teenage band. Leave that to actual teenagers.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

My guess is that 21st century U2 doesn’t have the time to sit in a room for weeks and play until something like Bad emerges. They have lives and families and other commitments now that you don’t have when you are 24. They are also (painfully) self-aware and now competent musicians. I think they know this. I think that’s why there’s been the emphasis on traditional songwriting for the past 20 years. They don’t have 6 months to stir paint together for 12 hours a day. And one of the reasons they may still even be together as a band is because they’ve changed how they work. Probably the closest they’ve come to the old ways in recent years was MOS.

I get what you're saying - but I'd add in that the main difference between the band at 24 and the band at 60 isn't that they have other things to do... I have other things to do than I did at 24, too. I still go to work every day (or whatever you call what we're doing now).

If I had the level of financial security and comfort where I never had to work again a day in my life? Yea, that motivation to do my job, even though I genuinely love it, would be harder to drum up every day.

 

[mikal]

I get what you're saying - but I'd add in that the main difference between the band at 24 and the band at 60 isn't that they have other things to do... I have other things to do than I did at 24, too. I still go to work every day (or whatever you call what we're doing now).

If I had the level of financial security and comfort where I never had to work again a day in my life? Yea, that motivation to do my job, even though I genuinely love it, would be harder to drum up every day.

It's funny because a buddy and I literally had the same conversation about Mike McCarthy (yes totally switching gears). But he started in Green Bay in 2006, only had an older daughter, single, all the time in the world to prepare. Then he met a woman, they had a kid, and he had less and less time to game plan. The offense and overall team performance still remained pretty good after SB 45 but something was missing those last few years. Because he wasn't 100% focused and keyed in like he was his first 5-6 years.

 

[Irvine511]

I think the lesson we can all take from this exchange is that children ruin everything.

 

[DaveC]

It's funny because a buddy and I literally had the same conversation about Mike McCarthy (yes totally switching gears). But he started in Green Bay in 2006, only had an older daughter, single, all the time in the world to prepare. Then he met a woman, they had a kid, and he had less and less time to game plan. The offense and overall team performance still remained pretty good after SB 45 but something was missing those last few years. Because he wasn't 100% focused and keyed in like he was his first 5-6 years.

the philadelphia eagles welcome mike mccarthy to the NFC east.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I think the lesson we can all take from this exchange is that children ruin everything.

They're extra special during quarantine.

 

[Hewson]

They're extra special during quarantine.

Just wait till they're teenagers.

 

[mikal]

Just wait till they're teenagers.

My daughter is 11 and I'm already fucked. I was hoping she'd get ugly but no just more grey hair for this guy.

 

[Ai]

I dunno about this family stuff. Other than Adam, they are mostly done. All of a sudden, they are busy with family?

I have a teenager. I am waaaaaay less busy with family now than ten years ago. I just don't get this idea that suddenly they are parents are something.

What they are is older and less hungry. And that's okay. I just want another album. As long as it doesn't suck. Please don't let it suck.

 

[lazarus]

I dunno about this family stuff. Other than Adam, they are mostly done. All of a sudden, they are busy with family?

I have a teenager. I am waaaaaay less busy with family now than ten years ago. I just don't get this idea that suddenly they are parents are something.

What they are is older and less hungry. And that's okay. I just want another album. As long as it doesn't suck. Please don't let it suck.

This.

I don't buy the "they have families" argument.

 

[plp]

The last couple albums showed it.
You can quibble about producers, false starts, etc -- but no other band with 40 yrs on the odometer is making such strong original relevant music.

I agree with this 100%. I don't expect another Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby. Another masterpiece just isn't going to happen. But the last 2 albums have been, in my opinion, very good to excellent. Sure there was a few mediocre songs on each record, but for a band that's been around as long as they have to get songs like The Troubles, Crystal Ballroom, Little Things and 13 is more than enough for me.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

I think it’s entirely unfair to compare your family situations with a world touring rock band members family situation.

 

[Irvine511]

This.

I don't buy the "they have families" argument.

that's the most reductive way of looking at it.

they are older and their lives are about much more than being in U2. family, and they seem to have big ones, is a part of that.

 

[mikal]

For those that don’t buy the “families” argument, would you like to take my kids this weekend while I attempt to relive my 20’s?

 

[LuckyNumber7]

For those that don’t buy the “families” argument, would you like to take my kids this weekend while I attempt to relive my 20’s?

Well my point is that they got to keep on reliving their 20s every tour. We don’t get to do that. Rock stars on world tours do.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Adam sips tea and wears a kimono after concerts. They're not reliving their 20s.

It's not families - it's wealth and comfort. It's harder to sit in a cramped studio for months at a time when you could instead be sitting in one of your 12 houses - especially for bands.

 

[DaveC]

these days it's getting more and more difficult to get larry on board.

we were warned that this would happen.

 

[AEKU2]

Going back to the Q article I tried the NLOTH track order that was quoted in said article. I found it rather pleasing with SUC being at the front end less jarring. It’s not as malign an album as I once thought after revisiting. I used the alternate version of NLOTH, single version of crazy and added EBW in the works to see if it would fit as per the article (even though it’s cheating). Not bad at all.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

these days it's getting more and more difficult to get larry on board.

we were warned that this would happen.

 

[Weatherman]

these days it's getting more and more difficult to get larry on board.

we were warned that this would happen.

Haha.
It was easy to see that Larry was going to be a cranky old man. I mean, he was a cranky YOUNG man.
I can't imagine working with someone like him for forty years. I'm a Bono-style "idea" guy and Larry seems to only know the word NO. It would drive me nuts.

 

[The Panther]

Larry's such a sour-puss. He's hilarious. (Anyone see his wooden non-performance in Man On A Train? Don't give up hitting things, Larry!)

But thank God he's there to check Bono, and also Edge, sometimes. If not for Larry, I have a feeling U2's last twenty years would have consisted of musicals like 'Spider-Man' and more shite songs like 'Crazy Tonight'.

 

[dreamletter]

U2 certainly have another great LP in them. In my view there's been a steady decline in quality control since HTDAAB with more and more filler appearing on each album culminating in disinterest from the first listen of a new release. The anniversary tours in hindsight only affect a group like U2 in a generally negative way if you consider one of their lyrics is "we glorify the past when the future dries up".

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Nah

 

[womanfish]

U2 certainly have another great LP in them. In my view there's been a steady decline in quality control since HTDAAB with more and more filler appearing on each album culminating in disinterest from the first listen of a new release. The anniversary tours in hindsight only affect a group like U2 in a generally negative way if you consider one of their lyrics is "we glorify the past when the future dries up".

I'd say the increase in "filler" or let's just say, tracks I'd skip, started after POP. ATYCLB, HTDAAB and No Line being the 3 biggest offenders. SOI and SOE were actually a return to more consistency IMO.
Also the irony is that the "we glorify the past when the future dries up" line, appears on the album where they were literally glorifying the past of blues and American roots/rock music.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Artists need to hold consistent with the lines in their songs. U2 should have never done anything that glorifies the past, and The Who should have offed themselves at 33 to avoid getting old.