Steve Lillywhite says "NLOTH" was 'failure'

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Steve Lillywhite seeks <i>Irish Times</i> retraction

Steve Lillywhite seeks Irish Times retraction
05 Oct 2010

U2 producer Steve Lillywhite has accused The Irish Times of misquoting him, in the headline on an article which appeared in the run-up to his appearance at The Music Show.

The news story was headlined "Producer admits last U2 album was a failure" – but the man who produced Boy, October and War, and later co-produced both How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and No Line On The Horizon for the band, with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, insists that this is not what he said.

“I never called U2 a failure,” he told the audience at the panel ‘Are Producers The Real Stars?’, where he appeared alongside Van Morrison and Waterboys producer Mick Glossop and Julie Feeney.

“It was said that I said No Line On The Horizon was a failure. That is a complete misquote, I never said the word ‘failure’ to that journalist.”

In fact the words do not appear in quotes in the article and so the headline – presumably tagged on during production – is totally unrepresentative of what was written by Irish Times reporter, Ronan McGreevy.

“I just wanted to clarify what I said (here),” Lillywhite continued. “I was saying that with albums like The Joshua Tree, which is set in the desert, the album and the sound invokes this mood as a whole, you just feel it. I just said that I didn’t think No Line On The Horizon did that as well. It was meant to invoke the whole feel of north Africa, of Morocco, and I didn’t think that was achieved as well as on other albums, where the atmosphere hits you. I would never call any of U2’s work a failure, and I did not.”

A sub-headline on the news story says that the album sold only “a fraction” of previous albums, by which one would normally understand that sales were well down on previous efforts. In fact the record has gone to No. 1 in at least 14 countries. outperforming even Achtung Baby. Its sales of over 5 million copies, against the 9 million sold by its predecessor How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb have to be seen in the wider context of shrinking record sales – and so represent a relatively good result for the band in a diminishing market.

Lillywhite is currently seeking a retraction from the newspaper.

“You’d expect better of The Irish Times,” he said afterwards. “They’re supposed to be a newspaper of record.”
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Hey guys, I'm Steve Lillywhite

Take a guitar sound
Now make it wishy-washy, reverb-y, so it sounds like underwater bells ringing backward

Now loop it

Now make a chimey guitar on top of it

Now have Bono or Kele sing something

i'm still a relevant music producer














Guys?


































Guys?
 
Lillywhite gets an unfair bad rap around here.

Mostly owing to dislike for HTDAAB.

He produced U2's entire early sound, with none of the bad elements we found on The Bomb, and is responsible for producing what is in my opinion, their first masterpiece, War.

War was far from chimey guitar, reverb and underwater echo overload.
 
U2387 said:
Lillywhite gets an unfair bad rap around here.

Mostly owing to dislike for HTDAAB.

He produced U2's entire early sound, with none of the bad elements we found on The Bomb, and is responsible for producing what is in my opinion, their first masterpiece, War.

War was far from chimey guitar, reverb and underwater echo overload.
Click to expand...
He belongs in the 80s, as far as U2 is concerned.

They seem to parachute him into the studio everytime they feel scared a song isn't radio-friendly enough.

At this point he's a crutch.
 
What confuses me is that surely the band knew that they were taking a risk when they released this album. It didn't have the strong songs as ARYCLB or HTDAAB had so it was bound not to sell as much. When I bought NLOTH I noticed that I payed more, per song, for the box set edition then I did when I bought the special edition of HTDAAB. So it further reinforced my perception that this album was going to be more niche than Bomb. It's for this reason that you pay more for new jazz and classical albums than you do for chart artists, because they need to make up for the shortfall in sales therefore they put the price up.

They are a mainstream band releasing an album for a niche audience. The same with Pop and Zooropa. So why are the band surprised that it didn't sell as well?

However, it still sold 7 million didn't it? They are many bands who'd love to sell this much.
 
purpleoscar said:
Finally some context. I'm glad Steve is talking smack back at the Irish Times.
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:up: It seems that a lot of journalism has become irresponsible and lazy, and it's time they were called on it.

That said, Neil McCormick had a series of tweets yesterday talking about how writers often find inappropriate headlines they didn't write attached to their articles. Either way, they should more accurately reflect the content of the article, rather than be sensationalized.
 
It's all about getting an attention grabbing headline and when you add that people wanted to pile on U2 even before the album came out after their Grammy success it's easy to know what would happen next.

Like it's said above selling 5 million copies in this environment is not a failure.
 
Cactus Annie said:
They are a mainstream band releasing an album for a niche audience. The same with Pop and Zooropa. So why are the band surprised that it didn't sell as well?
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I don't think though that either Pop or NLOTH were intended to sell to a niche audience - I'm pretty sure that in both cases the band were hoping that the singles would catch on in the mainstream.
 
wolfwill23 said:
Agree with the album's producer: NLOTH=FAIL.
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Obviously that's not what the producer (=Lillywhite) said, though I'm not so sure about the Irish Times totally making things up. There certainly was something going on in that interview and maybe he's getting cold feet now and wants to save his relationship with the band.

And no, NLOTH wasn't a fail, it's an amazing album. Given the sales figures, it's not even a fail commercially. And given the current tour that started out in support of the album, U2 is far from being a fail. The fail talk = fail.
 
last unicorn said:
Obviously that's not what the producer (=Lillywhite) said, though I'm not so sure about the Irish Times totally making things up. There certainly was something going on in that interview and maybe he's getting cold feet now and wants to save his relationship with the band.

And no, NLOTH wasn't a fail, it's an amazing album. Given the sales figures, it's not even a fail commercially. And given the current tour that started out in support of the album, U2 is far from being a fail. The fail talk = fail.
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The first time I heard this album, I literally fell asleep. 20+ year U2 fan, been to every concert since ZooTV and I fell asleep! The songs are subpar and in many cases, downright boring.

Only thing I think they could have done differently to possibly increase sales was to release Crazy Tonight as the first single.
 
wolfwill23 said:
The first time I heard this album, I literally fell asleep. 20+ year U2 fan, been to every concert since ZooTV and I fell asleep! The songs are subpar and in many cases, downright boring.

Only thing I think they could have done differently to possibly increase sales was to release Crazy Tonight as the first single.
Click to expand...

You may want to have the doctor look at your meds... narcolepsy is a very serious problem.
 
wolfwill23 said:
The first time I heard this album, I literally fell asleep. 20+ year U2 fan, been to every concert since ZooTV and I fell asleep! The songs are subpar and in many cases, downright boring.

Only thing I think they could have done differently to possibly increase sales was to release Crazy Tonight as the first single.
Click to expand...

Really? To every single concert since ZooTV? Wow, no wonder you are so tired! You should get some sleep and then try and listen to the album again, maybe a little rest would help.

You're very wrong about NLOTH being "subpar" and "boring". But maybe U2 just aren't for you and some current music from the charts could cheer you up.
 
Get ready for some beautiful days and vertigos on the next album then. It'll be embarrassing to watch U2 trying to win over another young audience again with songs they have done before. It was bad enough ten years ago when they went all out to woooo the pop crowd with rehashed songs like Beautiful Day BUT it'll be even worse seeing them do it again. And it looks like it'll happen again as well with what Lilywhite says. NLOTH is their best album since Pop but it'll end up an unplayed album live, like Pop has. They've already dropped the songs from the current tour so you'll probably never hear them again. Anyway can't wait to hear that coke riff come straight back on the next single!:lol:
 
U2387 said:
Lillywhite gets an unfair bad rap around here.

Mostly owing to dislike for HTDAAB.

He produced U2's entire early sound, with none of the bad elements we found on The Bomb, and is responsible for producing what is in my opinion, their first masterpiece, War.

War was far from chimey guitar, reverb and underwater echo overload.
Click to expand...

Not unfair at all. He's a bit of a dick!:wink:

and War is nowhere near a masterpiece. What would you rather listen to Sunday Bloody Sunday studio (crap violins) or Sunday Bloody Sunday live from Under Blood Red Sky!
 
last unicorn said:
Really? To every single concert since ZooTV? Wow, no wonder you are so tired! You should get some sleep and then try and listen to the album again, maybe a little rest would help.

You're very wrong about NLOTH being "subpar" and "boring". But maybe U2 just aren't for you and some current music from the charts could cheer you up.
Click to expand...

How can you listen to UC or Magnificent and be like, 'Oh, that's great music!' You think there's a reason U2 aren't playing those songs live anymore? Like Pop (which the band admitted they weren't happy with) NLOTH missed the mark.

U2 is by far my favorite band, the music I listen to most. They are the band for me.
 
rjhbonovox said:
Not unfair at all. He's a bit of a dick!:wink:

and War is nowhere near a masterpiece. What would you rather listen to Sunday Bloody Sunday studio (crap violins) or Sunday Bloody Sunday live from Under Blood Red Sky!
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Pretty sure the producer is not entirely responsible for the sound of an album. The band has some say. Like it or dislike it, one person is never responsible.

Not to get on a diversion about the merits of War, but the studio version of Sunday Bloody Sunday is just one song and the violin is just one small element of that song. Overall, I very much enjoy the studio SBS, though live is much, much better! But that is of course the U2 we know and love, better live!

Sunday Bloody Sunday
New Year's Day
2 Hearts Beat As One
The Refugee
Surrender
Seconds
Like A Song
Drowning Man(brilliant hint at things to come, fits in with the rest of War)
40

Hard hitting, visceral, evocative and some of the strongest lyrics U2 has ever written. And they're only kids in their early 20s!

2 songs that have attained iconic status in rock and roll.

I rest my case.
 
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