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The Slow Loris said:
Thanks, U22837! Much appreciated! I just always felt a connection there between War and AB, but had never tried to articulate it before. I think there's also a connection between some songs on the Unforgettable Fire album and Achtung Baby as well. The poetic landscape of So Cruel and Wild Horses (the bridge of, "Heaven's white rose and the river laughing at you and me," for example) is painted by some of the same colours found in Promenade and the Umforgettable Fire title track.... Achtung Baby is almost like a hybrid of War and The Unforgettable Fire if those early pilgrims had grown up in Manchester is the early 90s...
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I'm really enjoying these album connections!

Here's to hoping that Red Flag Day has some War flavor!

 
The Slow Loris said:
Ah, fair enough. NLOTH was to me a modern day Zooropa with some of the poetic flair of the Unforgettable Fire (especially if it had included Winter and Soon)...

The Unforgettable Fire (even Joshua Tree cinamatography)...

The yellow sun
Well, it took the hand
Of a country boy
To a city in a far-off land

We made no mark
No shadow at all
On the ancient, holy streets
Where I learned to crawl

The broken and the bruised
The young and the used
The sure and confused
All here...


The silence in the foreign ground
Listening to the thunder
The sky is strange
Stretched over everyone



And Zooropa-esque philosophical sloganeering...

Sing yourself on down the street
Sing yourself right off your feet
Sing yourself away from victory
And from defeat

Sing yourself with fife and drum
Sing yourself to overcome
The thought that someone has lost
And someone else has won...
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So like many here, I think NLOTH is a diamond hidden with a bunch of trash (the middle 3) and actually didn't love Winter or feel it as an album track until I heard the piano/acoustic Version on Linear. Amazing. That would be album closer for me- I also think Kingdom fits and even could have seen North Star on it. With those changes, it would be similar to Zooropa and I also think the tour set list would have improved. No gripes, I saw three different 360 shows in person, but the new tracks werent coherent in the set list. With a more heady record like the one hinted at here, I'd have started the 360 shows with an ambient, NLOTH-heavy 4 or 5 song set opening the show and closing with MOS or Winter at the end. That would have been far more cohesive in my view.
 
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That's a well written and thought out review - I'm more excited for the album than I was five minutes ago.

I'm really happy that the reviewer sees American Soul and Get Out as the album's low point too.
 
Excellent, I really like blackout but the other songs are just fine, nothing special. It will be a relief if these four tracks aren’t the best ones on the album.
 
So far we have 3 official review scores?

Mojo- 8/10 (4 stars)
Q- 8/10 (4 stars)
Uncut- 6/10

Am I missing any?
 
I remember Neil McCormick tweeting on the night of U2's surprise Itunes release of Songs of Innocence saying that they risked pissing off music journalists because not one writer had been given a preview of the album.

But that said, looking at some SOI reviews they weren't too bad. But it was all pointless really because the whole stunt in itself badly overshadowed that album to the point that reviews were redundant. They redeemed themselves with the innocence tour thankfully but it was never going to banish the stain of that poor piece of publicity.
 
Hollow Island said:
That's a well written and thought out review - I'm more excited for the album than I was five minutes ago.

I'm really happy that the reviewer sees American Soul and Get Out as the album's low point too.
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I read it as the reviewer thinking GOOYOW is a low point, not AS. On the contrary he thinks the chorus of AS is a "winner".
 
hpantazo said:
I agree. American Soul is an excellent rock song, GOOYOW is mediocre.
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The 'You are rock n roll' segment on AS works so much better in that song than Volcano where the chorus seems tagged on/cut and paste. Agree about GOOYOW. First time I heard it I thought 'decent pop song' and then it very quickly lost it's flavour on listening to it for a second and third time. The 'uhh uhhh uhhhs' are so unnecessary and the manner in which the falsetto/backing vocals are dropped on 'way' is jarring to say the least. And then the Kendrick addition at the end is poor and seems hamfisted to say the least. He may be the most socially conscious and aware rap star this generation but I find his voice irritating. Good job the song comes relatively early in the album.
 
hpantazo said:
I agree. American Soul is an excellent rock song, GOOYOW is mediocre.
Click to expand...



That’s how I took it as well. Great that everyone who has heard the album seems to have their own favorite tracks. Hopefully it’s an indication of the album’s overall strength.
 
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