Next Album Rumours Thread III - The Gospel of Adam

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Like I met a girl at a bar 6 years ago that said it was a human rights issue. Lol.
 
Clean water, food, shelter, healthcare, and not having free music being forced upon you. The five core tenants of human rights.
 
Welcome, doxxer - I'd warn you about pun threads/Leo jokes/etc. but if you've been lurking for so long, you're probably pretty ready for this place. Also, I'm right there with you about SOI being my favorite post-2000 album.



I was in a not-great place (financially/mentally/soul-sucking job/etc) during the SOI and SOE era, so I missed both tours. It was partly on me for not preparing for onsales and whatnot, but it was also the first time I had major difficulty getting tickets for any of the markets around me, so I kinda just gave up. Following along, especially on opening night like you mentioned, was actually really... therapeutic, in a way, for me.

I was able to make it to JT30, though, in between all the weird personal madness. It was amazing, but I'll be honest in saying that if that's the last time I ever see U2 (having seen every tour since Popmart, excluding the i/E/e/I era), I'll be bummed. The (ambilvalent-towards-U2) girl I was dating at the time came with me and she loved it! She (happy) cried during Ultraviolet, and had similar reactions throughout the show. I didn't want to ruin her enthusiasm, but my internal reaction to the show was basically, "Screen looks great, guys sound great, I GOT TO SEE EXIT!!!! I wish I hadn't missed the arena tours..."

Anyway, as I approach 40 I guess I'm now in a position to drop $400+ on nosebleeds for Genesis (though will be reimbursed for 3/4 of that :panic:) so the next time U2 tickets go on sale? I'm pulling out all the stops.

Well, I sure hope you're in a better place now with things.

As for the arena tours, I would've had the same feeling as you if I missed I&E. As for E&I, I was kind of in a tough spot personally. Getting used to a new job that didn't live up to expectations and not having the time off to attend multiple shows. I saw Boston 2 that year, and had to pass on Boston 1 and Mohegan Sun Casino (Connecticut) due to work.

You didn't miss a ton not seeing the US leg of E&I. Of course, it's U2 so it was a spectacular and at times even transcendent (COBL, Staring/Pride) show, but if I had to pick a show of theirs I've seen that didn't match up to the others, that was it. I was honestly okay with giving the CT ticket to my Mom.

Don't get me wrong, as great as Acrobat and the other highlights I mentioned were, it didn't make up for what seemed like a half-assed re running of the SOI songs and visuals. I would've actually welcomed that if the passion was there as it's one of my favorite albums, but it seemed very "going through the motions" compared to the original in 2015. I also don't think the hard and fast prohibition on anything from JT helped any. I get they had just toured the whole album and focused on the back catalog for the first time in their career, so I wouldn't have expected 4 or 5 songs. However, is the show really going to be any better without or any worse with Streets? All of us know the answer to that. Plus, In God's Country or Running To Standstill or One Tree Hill.... any of the lesser played tracks, would've never worn out their welcome if they were thrown in here and there.
 
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Goofy Bongo-isms aside, this is kind of pretty good! Like a Joshua Tree b-side put through the ATYCLB wash cycle and finished off with some SOI harmonies.

The production though... the wind/wave samples and some of the other backing stuff sound very demo-y. Like, sonically, on par with what I could do right now with my dusty Tascam 4-track and beat up SM-58.

Nice find, Super Yo - looks like its from this:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11615706/
 
For all the pop smarts and “songwriting is our drug” bullshit, he’s still shoving too many words in every verse.

You know what, though? This is fine, if not outright preferred. Exhaust the stupid lyrics and pop focus on soundtracks and one-off collaborations and let the band do what it does best.

(I do like the one brief soaring vocal section.)
 
I do love his lower register, and then the harmonies in the chorus.

But agree, ever since ATYCLB he shoves so many words into the songs.

His style has always been to draw out the vowels and creating space, much like Edge's playing.

Maybe he can find a happy medium eventually.
 
Good grief it's not even top half of the album it's on, and I can't remember what half that album sounds like (that's the better half).

I agree, it's about the 4th best for me and it's on an album that I consider to be their worst. The live versions we heard were a lot better than the studio version.
 
Having a think about who should produce the next record... I hope they continue what they started with the Andy Barlow sessions.

I know lot's of people are hoping for U2 to get back together with Eno & Lanois, but I think that ship already sailed a long time ago & those guys are fast approaching their 70's now anyway, it's just doesn't seem very realistic, & they probably wouldn't want to be put through that amount of strain again..

Things just don't bode well for them working together again, I believe the last time the band mentioned them was during the SOI promo tour, when Larry said something about their relationship having run it's course/the well-running dry. And, having listened to NLOTH yesterday, I have to agree - that album has not aged well at all. It's ambitious, experimental feel is admirable, but to me it sounds extremely direction-less, weird for the sake of weird, and just doesn't resonate at all with me the same way all the other Eno & Lanois-produced albums have in the past.

I think the best move at this stage would to commit to an album entirely produced by Andy Barlow, with Declan Gaffney & Barry Gorey (aka St Francis Hotel) as co-producers. This would make sense since Barlow & Gorey went on tour with U2 and were responsible for the live sound design & arrangements for the 2017 JT-30 & 2018 E+I tour. They also produced the Europa EP & did the Gotham Experience remix of 'Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me'.

All three of these guys are firmly in the U2 camp, have the band's trust, & most importantly - will have a good understanding of how the band operate by now, so (at this point) they are in the best position of anyone as in being the most qualified to be producing the next U2 album. I would refrain from bringing in any new flavor-of-the-month producers who are unfamiliar with U2's unorthodox recording process in studio. Barlow, Gaffney, & Gorey would probably be the best move at this stage I think.
 
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i wonder who is going to get custody of Bono after Bill and Melinda's divorce hearing

This why a prenup is a necessity for folks like the Gateses. Now they'll be in court fighting over him:

Bill: "I don't want him, you can have him"
Melinda: "No way, I don't want him"
Bill: If I throw in an extra 3 billion, will you take him?"
Melinda: "Make it 4 billion to cover food costs and you take him 2 weekends a month and every other Thanksgiving and Christmas."
Bill: "Deal"
 
Having a think about who should produce the next record... I hope they continue what they started with the Andy Barlow sessions.

I know lot's of people are hoping for U2 to get back together with Eno & Lanois, but I think that ship already sailed a long time ago & those guys are fast approaching their 70's now anyway, it's just doesn't seem very realistic, & they probably wouldn't want to be put through that amount of strain again..

Things just don't bode well for them working together again, I believe the last time the band mentioned them was during the SOI promo tour, when Larry said something about their relationship having run it's course/the well-running dry. And, having listened to NLOTH yesterday, I have to agree - that album has not aged well at all. It's ambitious, experimental feel is admirable, but to me it sounds extremely direction-less, weird for the sake of weird, and just doesn't resonate at all with me the same way all the other Eno & Lanois-produced albums have in the past.

I think the best move at this stage would to commit to an album entirely produced by Andy Barlow, with Declan Gaffney & Barry Gorey (aka St Francis Hotel) as co-producers. This would make sense since Barlow & Gorey went on tour with U2 and were responsible for the live sound design & arrangements for the 2017 JT-30 & 2018 E+I tour. They also produced the Europa EP & did the Gotham Experience remix of 'Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me'.

All three of these guys are firmly in the U2 camp, have the band's trust, & most importantly - will have a good understanding of how the band operate by now, so (at this point) they are in the best position of anyone as in being the most qualified to be producing the next U2 album. I would refrain from bringing in any new flavor-of-the-month producers who are unfamiliar with U2's unorthodox recording process in studio. Barlow, Gaffney, & Gorey would probably be the best move at this stage I think.

agree x1000

Think it's quite likely they'll feature in the next sessions.

What's probable is that the next album, like the last 4-5, will the product of a smallish group (5 or 6?) of different producers.

Gone are the days when they work with 1-2 guys for the whole record. Their approach to recording doesn't allow for it.. they last tried with Danger Mouse but wouldn't commit to his vision alone. Band isn't keen to abandon families for months on end to live in a basement somewhere exotic. The answer of course is to commit to starting and finishing something in a limited timeframe - go record in like, Kingston Jamaica or something, for 6 weeks, and release whatever comes of it. But they don't trust themselves enough for this.

Recording sessions will be scattered over the next couple years, working from wherever they happen to be, with whoever is available/captures their muse at that point in time.

Think we just hope for some fruitful, inspired sessions, and that they get out of their own way (without recording another get out of your own way)
 
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They should absolutely pick one producer to helm this next project, rather than a grab bag of producers, and that person should be Andy Barlowe - all the best tracks on SoE seem to have his name on them. He seems to be able to balance the pop sensibilities of the songs with that U2-esque atmospheric quality that takes the songs to interesting places.

Their recent work has had some baffling production choices on them - there are good songs on some of these albums that get buried under shoddy production.

My case in point is Get Out Of Your Own Way. I know that's not a popular song around here, but I quite like it and I think it had the potential to be an *actual* hit on the radio. The melody and structure of the song are solid, but the song has no lift. The chorus to Beautiful Day sounds massive because just as Bono shouts the chorus line, the guitars come in loud and take the song to another plane. On GOOYOW, the "I can sing it to you all night..." part should sound huge, but inexplicably the guitar drops out, buried in the mix. It just deflates the whole thing. By the time you *do* get an audible guitar line, just before the guitar solo, it's still too low in the mix and the song's practically over and no one cares anymore.
 
The E&I tour was fine, but the only issue is that all of the iconic U2 live moments from that "era" didn't happen on the actual tour. The Harlem show, the Jimmy Fallon performance with BTBS, the BBC show with the orchestra were all amazing.
 
I don't hate "Get Out" either. Interference always has its whipping boys, and this just happened to be the one from the album. But I will say that my biggest complaint about the song is again....TOO MANY FUCKING WORDS!

Why does Bono do this all the time??!?!
 
Maybe he's trying to carry Edge since he clearly can't come up with a decent riff in years. Play the damn guitar!!!
 
Maybe he's trying to carry Edge since he clearly can't come up with a decent riff in years. Play the damn guitar!!!

What’s weird about that is that before the album came out, I remember there being a couple of leaks with some really cool Edge sounds and they obviously never made the album.
 
I don't hate "Get Out" either. Interference always has its whipping boys, and this just happened to be the one from the album. But I will say that my biggest complaint about the song is again....TOO MANY FUCKING WORDS!

Why does Bono do this all the time??!?!

This goes back about 20 years - since he started with Jubilee 2000/DATA/The One Campaign. He’s become a big sloganeer. To his credit, he’s actually pretty good at it. But what it means is that Bono will fall in love with a slogan or a line in his head and try to force it into a song, whether it fits or not. Sometimes it works (“there is no them, there’s only us,”), sometimes it doesn’t (“vision over visibility,” just about all of I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight).
 
agree x1000

Think it's quite likely they'll feature in the next sessions.

What's probable is that the next album, like the last 4-5, will the product of a smallish group (5 or 6?) of different producers.

Gone are the days when they work with 1-2 guys for the whole record. Their approach to recording doesn't allow for it.. they last tried with Danger Mouse but wouldn't commit to his vision alone. Band isn't keen to abandon families for months on end to live in a basement somewhere exotic. The answer of course is to commit to starting and finishing something in a limited timeframe - go record in like, Kingston Jamaica or something, for 6 weeks, and release whatever comes of it. But they don't trust themselves enough for this.

Recording sessions will be scattered over the next couple years, working from wherever they happen to be, with whoever is available/captures their muse at that point in time.

Think we just hope for some fruitful, inspired sessions, and that they get out of their own way (without recording another get out of your own way)

If U2 ever got back with Danger Mouse to make another album, this time they should really let him produce the whole album himself. And allow him to have writing credits because that's the space he thrives, the fully-involved collaboration. I could only see it working if U2 approached it in a similar way to NLOTH, where on that occasion they allowed Eno and Lanois to take full control of the artistic direction.

I'm pretty certain that on SOI the likes of Tedder and Epworth left only left Sleep Like A Baby Tonight and The Troubles unspoiled - and those were the two best tracks on the album by far!

There was actually one poster at the atu2 forum that I used to be a member of who had a line into Danger Mouse - and from conversations with that person I would say the chances of U2 and him working together again are extremely slim unfortunately.
 
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If U2 ever got back with Danger Mouse to make another album, this time they should really let him produce the whole album himself. And allow him to have writing credits because that's the space he thrives, the fully-involved collaboration. I could only see it working if U2 approached it in a similar way to NLOTH, where on that occasion they allowed Eno and Lanois to take full control of the artistic direction.

I'm pretty certain that on SOI the likes of Tedder and Epworth left only left Sleep Like A Baby Tonight and The Troubles unspoiled - and those were the two best tracks on the album by far!

There was actually one poster at the atu2 forum that I used to be a member of who had a line into Danger Mouse - and from conversations with that person I would say the chances of U2 and him working together again are extremely slim unfortunately.

Seems pretty clear to me that those two parties (Danger Mouse and U2) started working together with a singular vision in mind, with Danger Mouse telling them he wanted to make something conceptual and more akin to Zooropa or Pop, which he adored (this is documented). As per usual (since at least 1997) the band second-guessed the song selection and presentation and called in a litany of other, more "radio sounding" producers to dump a bunch of saccharine on something that could have been cool. They ripped the creativity and control from Danger Mouse's hands after he invested time and tabled other projects. I wouldn't work with them again either.

For the record, I think SoI, well more than SoE, had real potential to hang together. A couple song swaps and new arrangements (which by my best read is probably what DM was looking to tease out) and it could have been a damn fine record. Oh yeah, and a different release format. But we've gone over that.
 
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