U2's judgement about their own material

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financeguy

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I sometimes think U2's judgement about their own material is questionable.

For example, if you read the U2 by U2 book, they are surprisingly dismissive of some songs that are in my opinion at least, gems. A case in point - Red Hill Mining Town is described as 'overproduced and underwritten', which I think is a bullshit judgement.

Interestingly, Bono quite likes 'Love Rescue Me', but that song is not at all popular among the fanbase, if this forum is to be judged.
 
This forum isnt a good spot to judge what is good and what isnt when it comes to U2.

Bono said back in the Joshua Tree days that he cant listen to U2s material in general as he finds too many things he would like changed.

I dont know if that opinion has changed now or not.
 
I tend to agree most closely with Bono's rankings of U2's music... ie, 80s being really overrated.
 
Personally I'm not too keen on artists explaining/justifying/judging their art. I think that when a piece of art is made public the artist should let go of its creature. It becomes an entity with a life of its own which should speak for itself. Often what it says and makes it dear to someone is not exactly what the artist meant to express, but then at this point that becomes irrelevant. That's why the endless arguments on the interpretation of lyrics are a waste of time. Personally I'm more interested in what art speaks to me than in what an artist claims it's supposed to say. I see the latter as a form of influence on the spectator which subtracts from the spontaneity of the reaction a piece of art may or may not cause.
 
"Red Hill Mining Town is described as 'overproduced and underwritten', which I think is a bullshit judgement."


Oh rly Bono?
 
I sometimes think U2's judgement about their own material is questionable.

For example, if you read the U2 by U2 book, they are surprisingly dismissive of some songs that are in my opinion at least, gems. A case in point - Red Hill Mining Town is described as 'overproduced and underwritten', which I think is a bullshit judgement.

Interestingly, Bono quite likes 'Love Rescue Me', but that song is not at all popular among the fanbase, if this forum is to be judged.

They're really poor judges of their own material, moreso than most bands. It's kind of shocking.

The poor judgment in differentiating between A-side and B-side quality is very telling.
 
IMHO, the band are most self-critical about their own work.

They're probably superskinsensitive about other people's criticism too.

They still take themselves too seriously, now more than ever. IMHO
 
alot of bands do that. seem to regret to past work. that thing i don't like about that is it makes the fan feel stupid. its like, ok so you put this out , and expect us to like it, and then change ur mind about it. and we're idiots for liking it in the first place. like we should know ahead of time. sometimes artists get in the way of enjoying music. the chilli pepper's guitarist john frustante is like that. i think he hates the fans and finds them to be annoying. and has this attitude like ur not supposed to get into his music at all. but it was ok for him to do it when he was just a fan.
 
I sometimes think U2's judgement about their own material is questionable.

For example, if you read the U2 by U2 book, they are surprisingly dismissive of some songs that are in my opinion at least, gems. A case in point - Red Hill Mining Town is described as 'overproduced and underwritten', which I think is a bullshit judgement.

Interestingly, Bono quite likes 'Love Rescue Me', but that song is not at all popular among the fanbase, if this forum is to be judged.
Totally agree. There's also a disturbing shift toward judging the quality of songs by metrics of popularity -- i.e. how many units were sold or whether the single topped the charts.

"The Fly" was perfect as is and didn't get better by 2005, Bono!

Also, if you listen to the free Rolling Stone interviews with Bono on itunes, his opinons are mad. He says stuff like "Achtung Baby" is a great album, but that ATYCLB and HTDAAB have better songs. Seriously, I think the band tends toward losing it. This was over a year after the album came out, so the syndrome of loving what they just made had worn off.

Bono, also in the Rolling Stone audio interview,thinks the lyrics on Joshua Tree are better than before, but aren't nearly as good as nowadays.

Complete madness!
 
alot of bands do that. seem to regret to past work. that thing i don't like about that is it makes the fan feel stupid. its like, ok so you put this out , and expect us to like it, and then change ur mind about it. and we're idiots for liking it in the first place. like we should know ahead of time. sometimes artists get in the way of enjoying music. the chilli pepper's guitarist john frustante is like that. i think he hates the fans and finds them to be annoying. and has this attitude like ur not supposed to get into his music at all. but it was ok for him to do it when he was just a fan.

Interesting view!

I kinda felt that way after loving much of HTTT by Radiohead. Thom Yorke said he only loved "Myxamatosis", "The Gloaming", "2+2=5" and "There There", and those were my least favorite on the album!
 
well, there's also their stories that we don't have. we don't know what went through 1- writing and 2- recording the song. could have been difficult for some band members recording and writing some parts to songs which could lead them to have a bias that we'd have no access to. as always with u2, they could have wished to be able to tweak something but had to put down whatever track they had instead of improving it. so yeah, while there's some great stuff in U2 by U2, we simply don't know the full story for how each song was created which could lead to a negative or overly positive bias by certain band members thanks to how the song was formed.
 
Only the band have any insight whatsoever into the actually processes that went into production.

With regards to RHMT, maybe they had 50 other versions in rawer form that Bono liked more, for whatever cosmic reason it is that humans like the sound of one thing more than another. Just because we love the song doesn't mean it couldn't have been better, and doesn't mean that Bono can't feel differently.

I would defy anyone to judge the way the band critique their own music, as they have infinately more experience with the songs than we do, especially with regards to the writing and recording and producing processes
 
It's sad for me to hear the band/Bono talk negatively of Red Hill Mining Town, that might be my favorite U2 song ever.
 
Also, if you listen to the free Rolling Stone interviews with Bono on itunes, his opinons are mad. He says stuff like "Achtung Baby" is a great album, but that ATYCLB and HTDAAB have better songs. Seriously, I think the band tends toward losing it. This was over a year after the album came out, so the syndrome of loving what they just made had worn off.

Yeah, I seriously doubt this.

Bono(or any musician for that matter) will always say their latest is their best while touring it, but I don't believe for one second that he would state in the context you stated it.

I find that you tend to not understand the context or sometimes just completely get it wrong because you project your own feelings into a few lines.
 
I think sometimes fans put far too much weight on what musicians say about their work, and honestly sometimes it's just difficult to put in words what you really feel about your own work.

I've seen some musicians say the song is about this, next interview the meaning is a little different and the next is something entirely different... you know why? because some songs are like that. They have different meanings on different days.

Personally speaking and I know I've seen this in a lot of other musicians I follow it's almost impossible to judge a song purely based on that 4 minutes of audio you hear.

When I hear back a song I recorded 3 years ago, I hear all the things I could have done, should have done, or I'll hear the all the effort it took to write and record that song. But another song I may hear the effortless writing. So it's not always the end product we're listening to, we're reliving the experience or process sometimes.

If any musician had the ability to listen to their own songs just like you and I listen to them, I would say they are somewhat detached.
 
People who have actually made a work of art will always have a different opinion, different thoughts and feelings about it then someone from the public who is only "consuming" the art.

Just because the band has different opinions about songs than many fans doesn't make their opinion "questionable". They have every right to do so. In many cases I can understand it, like being very self-critical, thinking a song isn't finished, wishing you could re-work stuff, etc. I'm an artist myself, I can relate to that.

People from outside cannot look into an artist's mind and have no idea what a certain work of art means to them. It's only possible to judge based on your own opinion, because art is subjective, but you cannot say an artist is wrong because they don't agree with you about a certain song or album.
 
when you read U2 by U2 you notice that as a general rule the band feels that they could have done better
they are very critical about their own work and hardly ever feel the result was what they aimed for

of course you can find 3 songs that suit your own point of view
but implying that the band's statements show that their judgement seems to favour inferior is far fetched, based on nothing and therefore sadly predictable
 
Any artist will judge their own works from a different point of view, the relationship with them is completely different, I tend to judge my own work in terms of how near it gets to the ideal image of it I have in my mind, but also, as someone has stated before, the process is important, it's not the same if it has been a difficult or an easy one, I feel prouder of myself when I get through a difficult process that eventually fisnishes up with something near my ideal, something as if I end up winning a fight against my own clumsiness, that's why at different periods I love my works, and at some others I hate them (even the same ones) and I can never see them as finished, when I look at any of them I keep seeing where they could have been improved or how much they differ from what I really wanted to do, but at the same time I feel very sensitive towards anybody else's criticisms because they're part of me, I'm exposing myself when I show them.
I don't think the artist intention is not important, it is important, art is not only form or sound, art should convey meaning, that's what the artist tries to express, but sometimes the piece of art, as a rebel child, escapes your control, do you know the theory about the three levels of meaning in any artistic piece of work? one: the meaning the artist tried to express with it, two: the meaning the artist finds in it after its conclusion, and three: the meaning the audience finds in it, all the levels are important, I find really important how well I have been able to express myself so that the public can get what I wanted to say, I also like them finding other different meanings, but I hate it when most people can't recognise what I intended, even if they like it.
U2 relation with their own work is similar to most creative people who are not overindulging themselves, I think.
 
I don't think the artist intention is not important, it is important, art is not only form or sound, art should convey meaning, that's what the artist tries to express, but sometimes the piece of art, as a rebel child, escapes your control, do you know the theory about the three levels of meaning in any artistic piece of work? one: the meaning the artist tried to express with it, two: the meaning the artist finds in it after its conclusion, and three: the meaning the audience finds in it, all the levels are important, I find really important how well I have been able to express myself so that the public can get what I wanted to say, I also like them finding other different meanings, but I hate it when most people can't recognise what I intended, even if they like it.
U2 relation with their own work is similar to most creative people who are not overindulging themselves, I think.

I think it's natural for a piece of art to escape the artist's control; it's the result of a piece of work producing a reaction. While the levels of meaning in artistic expression may sound logical from a theoretical point of view, I think art is not ruled by such strict parameters. Otherwise a lot of what is considered art wouldn't be such. There are pieces of art which don't convey any special meaning, are merely representative but do cause an emotional response on the spectator, others which do try to convey a certain meaning and still others where the spectator's interpretation is paramount for the art to make any sense.

While I can understand the artist's anxiety about his/her piece conveying a certain meaning, there's nothing he/she can do if people don't understand it the way it was meant. In that case the artist needs to examine where he/she went wrong, if the interpretation of a particular meaning were important. What I mean to say is that the artist's explanation/justification/public judgment of a piece does not add, but rather subtracts from the experience someone as a spectator establishes with that piece of art.
 
:shrug: They can't be objective because they write the songs.

For the most part they made the right calls. The only big mistakes were not putting Hold me thrill me kiss me kill me and Ground beneath her feet on a U2 album. (and Mercy but that may yet be corrected if the last comments are anything to go by)
 
It is pretty funny when you consider how obsessively critical people are (this forum is the ultimate example) of some band's music. It's pretty ballsy for anyone to put their art into a public forum, but to do it for 30 years like U2, and then to get nothing but critical flack from people (look at the Pitchfork thing) has got to be pretty disheartening on some days. It's to their credit that they still care; nobody else in their position does, I don't think. I really did feel like they deserved to be cut some slack after 2000-2001 grand "comeback" -- I couldn't believe that they were still doing it with that much conviction after that long.

I'm sure the band still expects and wants to be critically evaluated -- otherwise, they wouldn't be so self-critical and they'd just take the money and run to the greatest hits tours -- but still, it's funny when people are sure they know more about the band's music than the band.
 
I think it's natural for a piece of art to escape the artist's control; it's the result of a piece of work producing a reaction. While the levels of meaning in artistic expression may sound logical from a theoretical point of view, I think art is not ruled by such strict parameters. Otherwise a lot of what is considered art wouldn't be such. There are pieces of art which don't convey any special meaning, are merely representative but do cause an emotional response on the spectator, others which do try to convey a certain meaning and still others where the spectator's interpretation is paramount for the art to make any sense.

While I can understand the artist's anxiety about his/her piece conveying a certain meaning, there's nothing he/she can do if people don't understand it the way it was meant. In that case the artist needs to examine where he/she went wrong, if the interpretation of a particular meaning were important. What I mean to say is that the artist's explanation/justification/public judgment of a piece does not add, but rather subtracts from the experience someone as a spectator establishes with that piece of art.

I'm explaining what I think and feel about my own work, I really feel any piece of art must convey a meaning, but when I say meaning I say it in a very broad interpretation, of course an emotional reaction is meaning for me, and most of the times I try to express emotional states and not ideas, every artist is compelled to express different things, I know I can't do anything if people don't understand me, what I try to explain is that one of my parameters to establish if my work is good or not is if people understand what I want to say with any determinate piece or if I get from them the reaction I was aiming to, and although I love people finding different things in what I do, sometimes things I have never thought about before, I hate it when they don't get my "message", and I hate it because it reminds me how far I am from being the artist I would like to be, because it is my way of communicating, it's not only the aesthetic part involved, it's a kind of necessity I feel deep inside.
The theory about the 3 meanings is a simplification, but I find it very useful to explain why art judging is not objective., we could also speak about taste, tradition, culture and many other parameters, of course.
When I say that sometimes your work escapes from control I'm talking about the production process, sometimes I have an idea of something I want to transmit and I start working about it, but what comes to the surface is a very different one, it is like something appearing from my subconscious, in many cases I can't do anything to change it, it's usually better if I don't do anything, I live it like a gift, something that comes to me, I don't know if I have explained it clearly enough. After the piece is finished and thrown to the world, it has its own life, so to say.
I feel very egocentric talking about myself this way, what I wanted to explain with examples is why the artists judgement of their own art is so different from the spectator's, they aren't going mad as someone said before, it is a very complex process, every person would use different parameters, I don't believe mine are the universal for every artist, but they can be very, very different from what the public are judging.
Finally, to get back on topic, I think that U2 relationship with their own work is a healthy one, every one in the band has different opinions about songs, different favourites and that's normal, they are four people, not one, and, of course, their favourites don't have necessarily to be the ones from the audience.
 
I'd say it's mostly Larry who has the poor judgement. Decided he didn't like Mercy and it shouldn't be on Bomb, doesn't like Passangers, wanted to make a Joshua Tree 2 after Rattle and Hum.

And it's still going on too. Leaving Winter off the new album was fucking madness. I'm sure Larry had something to do with that.
 
I don't care at all about what they say. It's the lower quality tracklistings and the weaker setlists that make their poor judgment a disappointment.
 
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