lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
But I thought no one was still complaining about the album and it was just some tiny, unimportant faction on Twitter that made a lot of noise??
Next Album Rumours Thread II - Songs of Ass Scent
- Thread starter DaveC
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
That was the joke about calling him obsessed
LuckyNumber7
Blue Crack Addict
But for the record that conversation pertained to the youngs. You know, the ones who don’t know who the fuck U2 even is.
super fly guy
New Yorker
"We're always working on new material and songs," he said. "Where and when those are made public, I don't know. We're holding our breath to see what transpires over the next few weeks and months because it's*such a crazy time, but I remain very optimistic." — The Edge
super fly guy
New Yorker
Took from USA today.
https://www.stereogum.com/2103509/a...-turns-20/franchises/reviews/the-anniversary/
A good review on U2's last relevant album. And pretty damning towards latter U2, particularly the bastardised Ryan Tedder infused version of the band.
A good review on U2's last relevant album. And pretty damning towards latter U2, particularly the bastardised Ryan Tedder infused version of the band.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
I don’t agree with everything, but on the whole, this is very thoughtful and fair. Clearly someone who knows and loves them.
Or loved.
david
ONE love, blood, life
Damn, that was a good article. And damn did it take me back to the post 90s early 2000s optimism before 9/11 changed things.
tommycharles
War Child
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2005
- Messages
- 778
The “last relevant album” for a band is such an interesting thing to spot. In 2005 when Don’t Believe The Truth came out, it was just “the next Oasis album”, some people called it a return to form, but at the time, a new Oasis single commanded attention, and 2 of the singles from that album were very big in the UK. After that? Yeah, they made one more album, and packed out arenas and stadiums one more time, but none of those songs had any cut through at all.
I think that’s probably also true of Pearl Jam’s 2006 self titled album, as well - World Wide Suicide and Life Wasted were the last time new PJ songs were ever likely to pop up on radio or anywhere you’d hear them apart from at a PJ gig.
Whether U2’s last gasp was ATYCLB or HTDAB is up for debate I suppose, but it’s unquestionably true that when they came back in 2009, the world had moved on, that was the end.
I think that’s probably also true of Pearl Jam’s 2006 self titled album, as well - World Wide Suicide and Life Wasted were the last time new PJ songs were ever likely to pop up on radio or anywhere you’d hear them apart from at a PJ gig.
Whether U2’s last gasp was ATYCLB or HTDAB is up for debate I suppose, but it’s unquestionably true that when they came back in 2009, the world had moved on, that was the end.
lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
Hard to say that an album with a monster lead single that went multi-platinum and won the Album of the Year Grammy would be after the last gasp.
This writer makes some good points, but is too young to have a real objective sense of the band's career.
ATYCLB already felt like compromise when it came out. The period of adjustment he's talking about fans having to go through began there, not after the subsequent albums.
This writer makes some good points, but is too young to have a real objective sense of the band's career.
ATYCLB already felt like compromise when it came out. The period of adjustment he's talking about fans having to go through began there, not after the subsequent albums.
Last edited:
Reggie Thee Dog
Blue Crack Addict
Agree with Laz on this..while I love ATYCLB, I understand some fans feeling let down (somewhat) when Beautiful Day came out. However, even though it is a bit of a 'pop' album, it still holds up today. Also one of their best tours too...
lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
I agree that HTDAAB doesn’t have much of a sonic identity, probably for the first time in the band’s career you could say that about one of their albums. But there isn’t a drop-off in the quality of the songs, and it has significantly more energy than its predecessor. So to me, it’s hard to make an argument that they were spinning their wheels.
And No Line wasn’t going through the motions either. If we’re going to dissect the band’s downward trajectory, it’s not that they ran out of ideas, it’s that they lacked the conviction to follow through with them, and started a bad habit of changing producers, bringing in “ringers” to fix things, etc.
And No Line wasn’t going through the motions either. If we’re going to dissect the band’s downward trajectory, it’s not that they ran out of ideas, it’s that they lacked the conviction to follow through with them, and started a bad habit of changing producers, bringing in “ringers” to fix things, etc.
AndrewCowley
Refugee
From SOI onwards, they have lost their musical ambition. The big sounds are gone. Edge has sadly gone AWOL to a large degree. This is the main problem.
Hollow Island
New Yorker
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2011
- Messages
- 2,947
It's pretty easy for me to argue that they were spinning their wheels: for the first time, they brought nothing new to their sound. They were U2 doing "U2."
Where you hear "more energy" on Bomb, I hear labour. Even the fun sounds laboured compared to Elevation, which sounds like fun.
I think there was a huge drop of in the quality of songwriting. Almost every song has an incredibly awkward bridge, and the chorus for All Because of You...
The bridge is even worse!The lyrics are pretty weak too. Bono sounds like he's going through the motions on much of the album. He's not putting any of himself in there. It continued on NLOTH, but the character sketches were a lot more convincing than the songs that were crammed with idiotic slogans. I just got that LP and finished listening to it and I swear that it gets worse every time I listen to it. From the first time I listened to it to today, I have enjoyed it less with nearly every play.
I'm listening to SOI now and while it sounds like they made an album without their lead guitarist, at least the songwriting is solid and Bono sounds emotionally invested. It's nice that he's singing melodies rather than just shouting syllable like on NLOTH. And I think I prefer no Edge to the harsh tone he had on NLOTH. The production and mix on that album is good, but the guitar tone...yikes!
All That You Can't Leave Behind didn't sound like a compromise to me. It sounded like U2 doing something new, and it was refreshing to hear a catchy, easy pop album from them that still expanded their sound. They had never sounded so relaxed before. I loved Pop, but found ATYCLB to be refreshing and more enjoyable. It was the last time they stuck to an idea, and the last time they successfully expanded their sound imo.
I listened to the JT 20th anniversary bonus disc and it just demolishes NLOTH and SOI. The drop off from late 80s to late 00s/early 10s is striking, and not just because of the quality of songwriting and inventiveness of the playing. Before Bomb, U2 sound like they were making music because they wanted to. Since then, it's sounded like they're doing it out of obligation and habit. Edge can't even be bothered to use new or interesting sounds, ffs! We're living through a golden age of guitar pedals! It's never been easier to find new sounds. At least Bono brought something to SOI. They were all on their game during ATYCLB, though.
I think the success of that album turned them into a different band. I can't really blame them, though. They set out to make a smash hit pop album and repair their commercial and cultural rep after Pop, and they did it. It's a remarkable achievement. There was nothing left to do after that.
What thread is this again?
lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
There is so much wrong in the above post, I don't even know where to begin.
There are no new sounds on ATYCLB. It has a "sound", but it just comes off like a watered-down version of the production of Pop to taste like beer made by Anheuser Busch, the little processed beats and flourishes come off like clip art compared to the interesting choices they used to make in the 1990s. Once again, the team paid so much attention to the writing, and not enough to the recording.
As far as Bomb is concerned, I'm not sure how you can say Bono isn't writing from a personal standpoint considering the loss of his father: you see familiar connections on Sometimes, One Step Closer, Original of the Species, A Man and a Woman. Crumbs comes right out of Bono's humanitarian work.
What, exactly, is so much more personal about ATYCLB?
I'm also baffled at you calling out SOI for being the album where Edge disappeared, considering the vital-sounding guitar on Volcano, Raised By Wolves, This Is Where..., the gorgeous solos on Sleep Like a Baby and The Troubles. Also great guitar work on the original version of Every Breaking Wave.
If you actually had ears, you'd point to SOE as the one where Edge doesn't seem to be participating, considering how many guest guitarists there are, and how anonymous the playing seems to be on all but a couple tracks. But it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about in general so it's par for the course.
There are no new sounds on ATYCLB. It has a "sound", but it just comes off like a watered-down version of the production of Pop to taste like beer made by Anheuser Busch, the little processed beats and flourishes come off like clip art compared to the interesting choices they used to make in the 1990s. Once again, the team paid so much attention to the writing, and not enough to the recording.
As far as Bomb is concerned, I'm not sure how you can say Bono isn't writing from a personal standpoint considering the loss of his father: you see familiar connections on Sometimes, One Step Closer, Original of the Species, A Man and a Woman. Crumbs comes right out of Bono's humanitarian work.
What, exactly, is so much more personal about ATYCLB?
I'm also baffled at you calling out SOI for being the album where Edge disappeared, considering the vital-sounding guitar on Volcano, Raised By Wolves, This Is Where..., the gorgeous solos on Sleep Like a Baby and The Troubles. Also great guitar work on the original version of Every Breaking Wave.
If you actually had ears, you'd point to SOE as the one where Edge doesn't seem to be participating, considering how many guest guitarists there are, and how anonymous the playing seems to be on all but a couple tracks. But it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about in general so it's par for the course.
Alright this may take a while to get the point, but it was requested of me maybe a month ago regarding ATYCLB in another threat and I just never got around to it… alas…
Growing up I was really into music, but more of the safe sort – the music my parents listened to, from The Beatles to Billy Joel. BIG Billy Joel fan. I grew up on Long Island, it’s partially a requirement. I didn’t really get into grunge when it first hit as I was only 11-12 years old. I can remember watching the Grammys hoping that River of Dreams would win album of the year and being shocked when some unshaven guy with a cigarette dropped an F bomb after receiving an award – and then came back out like 10 minutes later to talk about Frank Sinatra. Even though I knew of U2 at the time, mostly through their videos on MTV, I honest to god had no idea who this man was. But I did notice that his cursing and smoking repulsed my parents a bit, which I think I liked.
The first album that I can remember buying (or rather stealing from my older sister) that was “unsafe” and had the potential to piss off my parents was Green Day’s Dookie – which came out that same year. Songs about teenage angst and jerking off? My word, what is this? Seems lame now, but yes – Dookie is the album that started to expand my horizons. But hey – 13 going on 14, 7th 8th grade? Makes sense.
So I started playing a little catchup – borrowing CDs and copying them to tape (yay early 90s). I didn’t go down any one road but took in as much as I could. I was really in to buying big soundtrack albums when they came out (which was a thing then) because a lot of them had a big range of genres. Enter Batman Forever, which I first bought because damn it I really liked Kiss From A Rose. But that first track was something different – something unexpected. Big guitars, big vocals… and an orchestral into? And it said “kill me” in the chorus? That seems like something that would piss my parents off. I think I like this.
And so Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me started me down the path of U2 fandom. The next album I got was Achtung Baby, which I got from a friend who had a Columbia Records 10 cds for 1 cent thing and accidently had two copies. Next came Joshua Tree. Finally when I was a junior in high school Pop came out. It was the first album by any artist that I bought on release day, and I absolutely adored it. That’s the album that made me obsessed. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. I went back and bought up every other album over the next year and a half or so. I think Boy was the last one I finally got sometime early in my freshman year of college. I didn’t see them live that tour only because my sister gave the ticket that was supposed to be mine to someone else. So instead of seeing PopMart at Giants Stadium, I spent that night watching the Mets play the Expos at Shea Stadium with my parents. Not the same.
A few other things happened for me musically my freshman year of college – the kid who lived across the hall from me in my dorm was a huge Springsteen fan, and we had many a drunken night playing Bruce and U2. That got me into Springsteen. The video for Do The Evolution and Live On Two Legs came out that fall as well. This got me into Pearl Jam. U2, Pearl Jam and Springsteen have been the holy trinity ever since. I also found this trippy website dedicated to U2 news and PopMart and ZooTV pictures and videos all over it called Interference. Alas.
I never got why Pop wasn’t successful. I spent the next couple of years trying to convince anyone who tried to tell me that it sucked that they were wrong, attempting to convert them with songs like Gone and Last Night On Earth. I can’t tell you how many people would tell me “isn’t it a dance record?” Ugh.
Over the next few years I bought the Best of 1980 to 1990, Million Dollar Hotel, and, yes, New Day (straight out of Dublin!) on release day. It was all building up to late 2000 when All That You Can’t Leave Behind was finally released. Side note – my car broke down the morning of the album release and I needed to get my parents to drive me to pick it up. Anyhoo…
Despite my first introduction to U2 being Pop and HMTMKMKM, I never saw All That You Can’t Leave Behind as a retreat. Yes, it was stripped back – but it still featured a lot of the influences that made their 90s output so unique. Yes, The Edge’s guitar had the chimey effect back on Beautiful Day, but nothing on this album sounded like any of their 80s output whatsoever.
Popular music really sucked in 2000/2001. Like… really really sucked. The airwaves and MTV were filled with boy bands and nu’metal. Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, 98 degrees, Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Alien Ant Farm… just awful. And here was U2, after being (unfairly) ridiculed for Pop, cutting through all of that plastic, fake noise with a record that had soul, heart and meaning. Just look at the 2001 MTV VMA’s – the big winner were Limp Bizkit and a remake of Lady Marmalade. And then there was U2 just separating themselves from the phoniness of the rest of it with their Video Vanguard performance. And of course we all know what happened a few days later…
I’ve often said that this album is the culmination of all of their previous work – and I’m not sure if that’s the right word, as it’s not their peak. But it is a great, great record. It’s the album of a band who’s grown up, taking all of that they’ve learned throughout their careers, their hits and misses, and putting it all on disc. Right from the start – they mix drum loops and the guitar flourishes and electronic atmosphere with a straight forward guitar rock song that is at the same time melancholy and full of hope. Beautiful Day sounds like nothing they’ve ever done before, while also sounding like everything they’ve done before. It’s a song that could not have been written without what they did in the 90s. It took the best elements of all of their work and put it together. It is a perfect pop rock song and has earned its place with the best of their work.
This underlaying of electronic flourishes lives throughout the album. As pronounced as in the 10 years? Perhaps not – but it’s still there. Even a straightforward rocker like Elevation – when you really listen to it closely, headphones and all, there’s a lot going on there. And Bono’s lyrics aside, that crunchy guitar sound would fit in with anything they did in the 90s. It was still Edge taking his guitar, punching it through his effects and making a sound that is not what you normally expect to hear from a guitar. There may not be the screaming 747 guitars that featured on Pop – it is still a very Edge centric album. He’s still breaking ground – maybe not in the same way as on Pop or Achtung Baby, but still remarkably different than much of what was popular in music at the time. Just because a slew of copycats followed doesn’t make it less so.
There is no doubt that this album is tighter than Pop, for better or worse. If there’s a “return to form” here, which is a phrase I hated at the time, but the return to form is in how tight the album is vs. the more meandering Zooropa and Pop. Achtung Baby may have been different from everything that came before it from this band, but it was still a very tightly crafted album. Maybe it’s the Eno/Lanois influence.
Bono also takes a lot of heat around here for his lyrics, and yea -fuck that noise. This was the first album where we kind of lose that narrative of songs about Iris Hewson and begin to really touch on his new reality as a parent and husband. I’m not sure what happened there as they’ve kept things remarkably quiet for such a widely known international rock star, but there are hints of infidelity and marital issues on New York an In A Little While (don’t buy the hangover story), Bono’s own mortality on Kite, suicide and the loss of a close friend on Stuck. Picking yourself off the ground and getting back in the fight is a theme that is throughout the album – which was undoubtedly about the issues around Pop but ended up being incredibly meaningful come September 2001 (almost a full year after the album’s release).
There’s an argument that I’ve read in one of the articles posted earlier, but has also lived on these boards for a while – that All That You Can’t Leave Behind marked the beginning of the end of U2’s adventurousness. While I don’t fully agree with that, I can at least see where the argument stems from. For my money that moment came on No Line. They shit the bed and couldn’t make a decision which way to go. Yes, the success of All That You Can’t Leave Behind (or more so the perceived failure of Pop leading into PopMart) likely weighed heavy on their minds, especially with their plans for 360 already in the works. This pattern of uncertainty has repeated itself on every subsequent release, from their abandoning of DangerMouse to their obsession with Ryan Tedder. But just because the band can’t get out of their own way (oh ohh ohhhh) shouldn’t lessen what they accomplished in the early 2000s. This indecision and obsession with recreating the moment from 2000 through 2009 is the band’s fault, not All That You Can’t Leave Behind’s fault – and just because they continue to go down the road doesn’t mean we should look down on these songs. They were the right songs at the right time – and they remain in the public conscious. You still hear Beautiful Day and Elevation.
So, yea. I love this album. I loved it then, I love it now. I do not see the need to separate this album from their work in the 90s. All That You Can’t Leave Behind couldn’t have been written without that work. They are intrinsically connected to each other in a natural maturation process of the band – both as musicians and as men, husbands, fathers. You can love Pop and that side of the band, and also love All That You Can't Leave Behind without being some sort of "ehrmagad evryting u2z duz is awwsum" sheeple.
This is a a great, great album – no matter what Laz would lead you to believe.
Growing up I was really into music, but more of the safe sort – the music my parents listened to, from The Beatles to Billy Joel. BIG Billy Joel fan. I grew up on Long Island, it’s partially a requirement. I didn’t really get into grunge when it first hit as I was only 11-12 years old. I can remember watching the Grammys hoping that River of Dreams would win album of the year and being shocked when some unshaven guy with a cigarette dropped an F bomb after receiving an award – and then came back out like 10 minutes later to talk about Frank Sinatra. Even though I knew of U2 at the time, mostly through their videos on MTV, I honest to god had no idea who this man was. But I did notice that his cursing and smoking repulsed my parents a bit, which I think I liked.
The first album that I can remember buying (or rather stealing from my older sister) that was “unsafe” and had the potential to piss off my parents was Green Day’s Dookie – which came out that same year. Songs about teenage angst and jerking off? My word, what is this? Seems lame now, but yes – Dookie is the album that started to expand my horizons. But hey – 13 going on 14, 7th 8th grade? Makes sense.
So I started playing a little catchup – borrowing CDs and copying them to tape (yay early 90s). I didn’t go down any one road but took in as much as I could. I was really in to buying big soundtrack albums when they came out (which was a thing then) because a lot of them had a big range of genres. Enter Batman Forever, which I first bought because damn it I really liked Kiss From A Rose. But that first track was something different – something unexpected. Big guitars, big vocals… and an orchestral into? And it said “kill me” in the chorus? That seems like something that would piss my parents off. I think I like this.
And so Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me started me down the path of U2 fandom. The next album I got was Achtung Baby, which I got from a friend who had a Columbia Records 10 cds for 1 cent thing and accidently had two copies. Next came Joshua Tree. Finally when I was a junior in high school Pop came out. It was the first album by any artist that I bought on release day, and I absolutely adored it. That’s the album that made me obsessed. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. I went back and bought up every other album over the next year and a half or so. I think Boy was the last one I finally got sometime early in my freshman year of college. I didn’t see them live that tour only because my sister gave the ticket that was supposed to be mine to someone else. So instead of seeing PopMart at Giants Stadium, I spent that night watching the Mets play the Expos at Shea Stadium with my parents. Not the same.
A few other things happened for me musically my freshman year of college – the kid who lived across the hall from me in my dorm was a huge Springsteen fan, and we had many a drunken night playing Bruce and U2. That got me into Springsteen. The video for Do The Evolution and Live On Two Legs came out that fall as well. This got me into Pearl Jam. U2, Pearl Jam and Springsteen have been the holy trinity ever since. I also found this trippy website dedicated to U2 news and PopMart and ZooTV pictures and videos all over it called Interference. Alas.
I never got why Pop wasn’t successful. I spent the next couple of years trying to convince anyone who tried to tell me that it sucked that they were wrong, attempting to convert them with songs like Gone and Last Night On Earth. I can’t tell you how many people would tell me “isn’t it a dance record?” Ugh.
Over the next few years I bought the Best of 1980 to 1990, Million Dollar Hotel, and, yes, New Day (straight out of Dublin!) on release day. It was all building up to late 2000 when All That You Can’t Leave Behind was finally released. Side note – my car broke down the morning of the album release and I needed to get my parents to drive me to pick it up. Anyhoo…
Despite my first introduction to U2 being Pop and HMTMKMKM, I never saw All That You Can’t Leave Behind as a retreat. Yes, it was stripped back – but it still featured a lot of the influences that made their 90s output so unique. Yes, The Edge’s guitar had the chimey effect back on Beautiful Day, but nothing on this album sounded like any of their 80s output whatsoever.
Popular music really sucked in 2000/2001. Like… really really sucked. The airwaves and MTV were filled with boy bands and nu’metal. Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, 98 degrees, Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Alien Ant Farm… just awful. And here was U2, after being (unfairly) ridiculed for Pop, cutting through all of that plastic, fake noise with a record that had soul, heart and meaning. Just look at the 2001 MTV VMA’s – the big winner were Limp Bizkit and a remake of Lady Marmalade. And then there was U2 just separating themselves from the phoniness of the rest of it with their Video Vanguard performance. And of course we all know what happened a few days later…
I’ve often said that this album is the culmination of all of their previous work – and I’m not sure if that’s the right word, as it’s not their peak. But it is a great, great record. It’s the album of a band who’s grown up, taking all of that they’ve learned throughout their careers, their hits and misses, and putting it all on disc. Right from the start – they mix drum loops and the guitar flourishes and electronic atmosphere with a straight forward guitar rock song that is at the same time melancholy and full of hope. Beautiful Day sounds like nothing they’ve ever done before, while also sounding like everything they’ve done before. It’s a song that could not have been written without what they did in the 90s. It took the best elements of all of their work and put it together. It is a perfect pop rock song and has earned its place with the best of their work.
This underlaying of electronic flourishes lives throughout the album. As pronounced as in the 10 years? Perhaps not – but it’s still there. Even a straightforward rocker like Elevation – when you really listen to it closely, headphones and all, there’s a lot going on there. And Bono’s lyrics aside, that crunchy guitar sound would fit in with anything they did in the 90s. It was still Edge taking his guitar, punching it through his effects and making a sound that is not what you normally expect to hear from a guitar. There may not be the screaming 747 guitars that featured on Pop – it is still a very Edge centric album. He’s still breaking ground – maybe not in the same way as on Pop or Achtung Baby, but still remarkably different than much of what was popular in music at the time. Just because a slew of copycats followed doesn’t make it less so.
There is no doubt that this album is tighter than Pop, for better or worse. If there’s a “return to form” here, which is a phrase I hated at the time, but the return to form is in how tight the album is vs. the more meandering Zooropa and Pop. Achtung Baby may have been different from everything that came before it from this band, but it was still a very tightly crafted album. Maybe it’s the Eno/Lanois influence.
Bono also takes a lot of heat around here for his lyrics, and yea -fuck that noise. This was the first album where we kind of lose that narrative of songs about Iris Hewson and begin to really touch on his new reality as a parent and husband. I’m not sure what happened there as they’ve kept things remarkably quiet for such a widely known international rock star, but there are hints of infidelity and marital issues on New York an In A Little While (don’t buy the hangover story), Bono’s own mortality on Kite, suicide and the loss of a close friend on Stuck. Picking yourself off the ground and getting back in the fight is a theme that is throughout the album – which was undoubtedly about the issues around Pop but ended up being incredibly meaningful come September 2001 (almost a full year after the album’s release).
There’s an argument that I’ve read in one of the articles posted earlier, but has also lived on these boards for a while – that All That You Can’t Leave Behind marked the beginning of the end of U2’s adventurousness. While I don’t fully agree with that, I can at least see where the argument stems from. For my money that moment came on No Line. They shit the bed and couldn’t make a decision which way to go. Yes, the success of All That You Can’t Leave Behind (or more so the perceived failure of Pop leading into PopMart) likely weighed heavy on their minds, especially with their plans for 360 already in the works. This pattern of uncertainty has repeated itself on every subsequent release, from their abandoning of DangerMouse to their obsession with Ryan Tedder. But just because the band can’t get out of their own way (oh ohh ohhhh) shouldn’t lessen what they accomplished in the early 2000s. This indecision and obsession with recreating the moment from 2000 through 2009 is the band’s fault, not All That You Can’t Leave Behind’s fault – and just because they continue to go down the road doesn’t mean we should look down on these songs. They were the right songs at the right time – and they remain in the public conscious. You still hear Beautiful Day and Elevation.
So, yea. I love this album. I loved it then, I love it now. I do not see the need to separate this album from their work in the 90s. All That You Can’t Leave Behind couldn’t have been written without that work. They are intrinsically connected to each other in a natural maturation process of the band – both as musicians and as men, husbands, fathers. You can love Pop and that side of the band, and also love All That You Can't Leave Behind without being some sort of "ehrmagad evryting u2z duz is awwsum" sheeple.
This is a a great, great album – no matter what Laz would lead you to believe.
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
it's interesting ... do "kids today" form as deep an attachment to albums as "kids 20 years ago" did because you had to go out and buy the CD and live with it.
this isn't a dig. i love my streaming services and having the entire history of music under my thumb. but i wonder if it prevents me from putting in the time to fall in love with albums the way i used to. ATYCLB might be the last album, at least the last U2 album, that i truly loved and have incorporated into my personality.
it could also be that i became a real adult in the years between ATYCLB and Bomb, and most of us change our relationship with popular music during those years.
this isn't a dig. i love my streaming services and having the entire history of music under my thumb. but i wonder if it prevents me from putting in the time to fall in love with albums the way i used to. ATYCLB might be the last album, at least the last U2 album, that i truly loved and have incorporated into my personality.
it could also be that i became a real adult in the years between ATYCLB and Bomb, and most of us change our relationship with popular music during those years.
super fly guy
New Yorker
I disagree with everything on this post,but this took the biscuit. Ever heard sometimes you cant make it on your own. One step closer,even miracle drug.
This is a great point. It seems obvious to us only because we've had the benefit of 3 albums and 16 years since 2004 and HTDAAB.
I became a fan with ATYCLB and the 2002 Super Bowl performance, then became a super fan when HTDAAB came out senior year of high school.
I spent my college years going over the back catalog, with a heavy focus on live performances courtesy of this new site called youtube. Throughout that time, I had every reason to believe that the next U2 album would also be the next big U2 album; hell, maybe even the next big album in music. After all, ATYCLB and HTDAAB were huge albums, with big radio singles and massively successful tours. U2, to me, were as much a part of the culture as anyone.
I was massively invested in the run up to NLOTH. On this forum every spare second, reading every bit of U2 news that I could, walking a mile in sub zero Vermont winters to my car, warming it up for 10 minutes and driving to the bookstore to see if Q Magazine had been delivered yet. I did that a few times per week.
I'll never forget Boots coming out, getting played for a few days (seemingly out of respect for the name U2), then going away. Similar story for the album. It was number 1 at debut because of the U2 name and the fact that albums were a little more a thing in 2009 than now, obviously. Then it just faded from the public consciousness seemingly overnight.
360 was obviously amazing, but any tour they did was going to be huge. To my tastes, it didn't really get going until 2010 and only fully lived up to its potential in 2011 when they added all the AB songs.
But yeah....totally different weight to that entire cycle as compared to the previous 2. Even the week long Letterman run and the promo shows didn't anywhere near the draw.
You put it well....it was clear the world had moved on.
Hollow Island
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Are you a child?
No shit Edge doesn't seem to be participating on SOE - nearly every song has other people adding keys and guitars, and there aren't a lot of guitars to begin with. I wouldn't be surprised if there were actually songs that he didn't play on, given how anonymous the playing is on every track. Little Things is like and Edge preset in a pedal; it sounds like him but it could be anyone. SOI is nearly as unremarkable, though. I like the album, but it seems like you're using "vital" as a synonym form "interesting" when the guitars are merely occasionally prominent. The guitar playing itself is basic and largely uninspired (and derivative of his past playing), and his tone and usage of effects sound like he stuck to plugin presets. If you were to say to someone who hadn't heard U2 that they had one of the greatest guitarists and then played them SOI they'd laugh at you. I like the album, but the Edge may as well not have been there. And it only got worse on SOE.
No new sounds on ATYCLB? There are clearly sounds that they hadn't used before, mainly synths and guitar effects, though there were also new drum treatments, and they unify the songs on the album, giving it a distinct identity. New York, for example, is filled with sounds that were new to them. NLOTH also had a bunch of new sounds, but the four principles let the material and their auxiliary members down.
A lot of Bomb - even Sometimes - seems forced. There may some personal things on it, but there's a fuckton of nonsense, and a lot of it seems forced. Did you really go to bat for the lyrics for A Man and A Woman? Of all songs? That song is laboured and empty. It wants to be profound, but it's nonsense. The mysterious distance between a man and a woman? Jesus Christ...that's as embarassing as his pronunciation of "apartheid." Nice bass line, though. One Step Closer is the sound of man trying very, very hard to be profound, and it's a warning against taking lyrical inspiration from Noel Gallagher. As if All Around the World wasn't warning enough...
Many of the lyrics seem like they contain lines Bono used in interviews. The early versions didn't have that quality, so the flaws may have more to do with the songs being worked to death than in a loss talent. There's nothing on it that has the heart of Kite, Peace on Earth, Stuck in a Moment, When I Look at the World, Grace...fuck, of any song of ATYCLB. But that might be because that album was relatively easy to make. Whatever the reason, ATYCLB is, to me, the last time Bono consistently sounded sincere and invested in the songs. It was also the last time where the "fun" songs actually sounded fun, and the songs meant to be moving earned their weight. Sometimes You Can't Make It is a main offender in in the "unearned gravitas" category. The soaring bridge sounds like they thought "well, this is a big U2 ballad, so this is what has to happen," and then Bono's SIIIIIIINGING very loudly about how his dad is the reason he sings and the reason he has...the opera in him? The opera? Really? That's what he has in him? Sorry, I don't buy it. It completely kills the song for me and makes it unbelievable. It sounds like Bono is acting rather than living, and you shouldn't be able to tell that the man on stage is acting. ATYCLB had none of that.
Hollow Island
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I agree with all of this, and it's cool to read about how you got into them. For some reason I thought you were older than me and had been into them since the 80s, but we're the same age. My dad was big Billy Joel fan too, but I hated him. Don't mind him now, though.
I hadn't heard the original version of Elevation for a long time before my LP arrived last week and was blown away by the layers of guitars and synths on it - there's a lot going on! At the time it sounded like a continuation of the experiments in guitar torture that had been occurring since Achtung Baby, but I forgot that. For more than a decade I've thought of it as the first of their dumb rock songs, but it has qualities that, to me, Vertigo and GOYB.
You also nailed how tight the album is - that's something that struck me last week, but I couldn't quite explain. I thought of it as "easy," but not in the easy listening sense. It's just easy to listen to - the songwriting is tight, it's sequenced well, the songs are all different from each other (and everything that was out at the time, as you noted), but they're still unified by common sounds.
It's remarkable how much of Bono's life is private given his profile and perceived openness. The album hints at infidelity, but we know nothing of his love life save that he's been with Ali since he was a teen. That's how it should be, too. I hope his memoir doesn't give too much away. I could see it being more of a philosophical work than a traditional memoir. "After leaving the studio, I hooked up with Bowie and we fucked some broads. I was 69ing one of them and got a crick in my neck. 'I'm stuck in moment that I'll never get out of,' I thought. 'How will I explain this to the missus?'"
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OP
OP
DaveC
Blue Crack Addict
this also later became the basis of the lyrics for This is Where You Can Reach Around.
AndrewCowley
Refugee
Wow some amazing posts and insights here.
For mine, SOE with proper guitar playing from Edge would be an album for the ages. Such a shame that for SOI and SOE, Bono finally gets his lyrical shit together and Edge checks out.
I really really like the lyrical content on SOE. Just let down by bland music.
For mine, SOE with proper guitar playing from Edge would be an album for the ages. Such a shame that for SOI and SOE, Bono finally gets his lyrical shit together and Edge checks out.
I really really like the lyrical content on SOE. Just let down by bland music.
Agree if we’re not including the 1-2 piss poor punch of Get Out and American Soul.
If only American soul was the xxx Kendrick version then we’d be talking about a completely different album
lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
Fixed.
ascender_RS
Refugee
Do you not think that Best Thing could have been a "hit" under different circumstances? I thought it was one of those radio-friendly pop songs the band writes occasionally which just needed a bit of luck or a remix which got some airplay in order to gain some traction? Hokey lyrics or not, I was surprised it didn't do better.
Its really interesting to read polar opposite views and interpretations of songs and albums on here, whether I agree with them or not. One thing I agree with in a lot of the recent posts is that they'd benefit massively on the next record from sticking to one producer and a cohesive idea/theme/approach from start to finish. It might not produce their best ever album, but I bet it produces a much more interesting album for us to digest.
I've said it before, but I think U2 are still punching above their weight in terms of the quality of new music we should reasonably expect from a band whose original lineup is still together after all these years.
I don't think any song U2 puts out now, at their age, will be a hit shy of something flukey happening - like, say, when Pearl Jam had Present Tense briefly chart this past spring because it was used at the end of The Last Dance documentary.
That said - they could still have a mild hit on adult alternative or modern rock stations - and Best Thing and Love Is Bigger both performed fairly well on the AAA charts.
I think their best / only shot at something any bigger than what they had on SOE (and still nowhere near the early 2000s and earlier) is with a very U2ey sounding song like Little Things. Something grown up and adult, i.e. nothing remotely chasing mainstream success.
JamietheEdgefan
Refugee
This is an interesting 'what if'.
I don't know if it could ever have reached 'Beautiful Day' levels of success, but I think if the final mix of 'Best Thing' had been more like the Kygo Remix, it could have done a lot better. The Kygo version (imo) sounded stronger, more contemporary, and very effortless and confident. I remember the leaked beach clip back in 2016, it was the first time we heard a clip of the song (it ended up being the Kygo mix), and I remember immediately liking the vibe of the track.
All of that was lost imo when they put out the final single version, which to me sounded too over the top and had a rock n' roll vibe which would have worked in 2005, but not 2017. The Kygo mix, with it's dance/electro elements, sounded more in keeping with the times, kind of how Coldplay moved from making stuff like 'Yellow' to 'A sky full of stars' in order to stay relevant in the charts.
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