HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Dave Mance
2005.01
While going over reviews of U2's latest album, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," I was struck by one in particular, appearing on Nov. 22, 2004 in the Chicago Sun-Times and written by "pop music critic" Jim Derogatis. I guess what struck me initially was the 1-and-½ star rating.
The review began by asserting “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” is, "less of an artistic statement or a significant step forward than a simulation of what some unadventurous fans think a U2 album ought to sound like, and at times it veers obnoxiously close to self parody."
It didn't get any kinder as he went on.
I began researching Derogatis' tastes so I could at least get some inkling of what sort of mind I was up against. I figured I would find that he was more of a rhythm and blues kind of guy, or a "Skynyrd Rules!" guy, or someone from Chicago who never quite got over the disbanding of the Smashing Pumpkins.
Surprisingly though, I found the answer was far simpler. Apparently, Derogatis doesn't like anything. If you do a Google search, you'll see that most everything related to him deals with promoting his latest book, aptly named "Kill Your Idols". The premise of the book is that everybody sucks, or, as a hippy doped to the gills once told me in a barroom scene right off a Hollywood set, "Dude, everything you know is wrong."
The book, ironically, has a 1-and-½ star rating on Amazon.com.
In an interview with mediabistro.com, Derogatis revealed that, "It [the book] took a long time to sell. I sent the proposal out for a while, and I got, invariably, ‘nobody wants to read a book all of negative reviews.' And I felt that was kind of a crock."
Indeed Jim.
In this collection of rock journalism, Derogatis and contributors blast 35 albums, including "Exile on Main Street," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Pet Sounds," "Blood on the Tracks," "OK Computer" and Nevermind, basically everything anybody thought was ever any good.
But as I write this, the book is not as hilarious to me as his personal title, proudly displayed above the U2 review for all to see—Jim Derogatis, Pop Music Critic, Chicago Sun-Times. I giggle, imagining the news room at the Sun-Times bustling with activity, everyone drinking Starbucks coffee with saggy eyes scrambling to get a paper out, reporters filing copy after a night spent in the city's underbelly, editors pouring over briefs from writers in Somalia or Fallujah or Sri Lanka, journalists on the phone demanding accountability from important public officials, and there in the corner, dressed like Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons," is Derogatis, pencil in mouth, pensively crafting just the right words to describe to us how crappy Ashlee Simpson's album is. I'm sure Hemingway is in heaven nodding his approval.
But I digress, back to the U2 album.
Derogatis' main point seems to be that the band has lost its creativity and vitality and that the "uninspired" songs on “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” are "inferior simulations of the genuine achievements that preceded them."
And to that I say bullocks, but I don't mean it like he thinks.
The problem with Derogatis' review, and with most pop music reviews, for that matter, is that they all measure creativity with inapplicable instruments, like recording the air temperature with a rectal thermometer. The measure of a great album is not dependent on a radical reinvention or brazen song structure or unique notes, but in the energy it contains, the soul, if you will. Pop stars like Bono and U2 are more shamans than musicians, the same reason why Sid Vicious or Patti Smith never went to Juilliard and why Yo-Yo Ma never got panties thrown at him.
At the risk of shattering Derogatis' notions of high art, or at least causing him to take a long hard look in the mirror with a "What am I doing with my life?" expression, I submit that all pop music is a superficial parody of something that's already been done. This is not rocket science, it's music born from the screams of teenyboppers at an Elvis show and the angst of musically illiterate '70s punks. As Bono pointed out in the '80s, it's three chords and the truth. I mean no insult to the medium, rather I'm just saying that judging and deconstructing pop music's simple beauty is a little like criticizing a sunset, it's like telling a landscape painter that, "The skies are always blue in your paintings."
The parameters of the medium are specific; you have a limited number of minutes and a limited arsenal of musical equipment with which to get a point across, you have a limited number of notes, you're limited by language, you're limited by traditions, drums sound like, well, drums.
To hear Derogatis complain about the album’s same old "bombastic choruses and tinkling atmospherics and oh-so-arty mid-song breaks" is like hearing a fish complain about water, that's what U2's music is, Jim. To take it a step further, saying a respected, established artist has become a parody of itself is like saying established writer Jim Derogatis has become a parody of himself. Since U2 claim to be nothing but a pop band, and Derogatis (in my imagination, anyway) claims to be nothing but a regressive literalist whose imagination was long ago dissolved in a head full of venomous bile, the whole self-parody saying, in any context, is an oxymoron, both simply are what they are.
The synthesis of the four minds in U2 creates the original sound we associate with U2, it's as simple as that. It's been like that since the beginning and as long as they stay together, it will be that way, as such they will always sound like U2 and they will never sound like anyone else. I would point out that if you want to hear a band that doesn't sound like U2, there's only about 80 million to choose from.
In case I'm coming off as a blindly partisan U2 head, let me interject here to say that this is not the case. I also want to back off a little on Derogatis in case he's a nice guy. At times in his review, I admit, he makes some valid points. I agree that "Vertigo" was formulaic, while I found some of Bono's lyrics to be pure poetry, I could picture others in a fortune cookie ("The only pain is to feel nothing at all"), and, yes, I was uncomfortable with the iPod campaign. But to dwell on a handful of flaws at the expense of what is, top to bottom, a solidly constructed work of art is to miss the big picture—Michelangelo's "David's" hands are too big, the pyramids of Giza look smaller in real life, Heidi Klum has a bit of cellulite on the backs of her legs. So?
Looking beyond the few specifics Derogatis offers in his review, his implication that the album lacks creativity is itself uncreative. He vaguely insists that a few tracks are "Joshua Tree" rip offs (I'm assuming he meant guitar parts or rhythm parts were replicated), yet anyone with ears will hear that in this album every U2 album has been ripped off to some extent, from "Boy" to "All That You Can't Leave Behind," this is what pop bands do, they discover sounds and use them to express things. The Edge has been using the same reverb and the same two chimey notes to make your neck hair tingle since "Into the Heart,"—the magic is that he does it like no one else can.
It's not just itself that the band rips off either, it's everyone. Larry Mullen, Jr. stole from Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham in "Bullet the Blue Sky" and Bo Diddly in "Desire." Bono steals many of his lyrics from authors, like "Quiet that comes to a house where nobody can sleep" from Raymond Carver (used in "Ultra Violet") and "In dreams begin responsibilities" from Delmore Schwartz (used in "Acrobat").
But here's the point, Derogatis, and I address him specifically here in hopes that he'll read this and really try to understand what I'm saying. None of that creativity, be it borrowed or stolen, makes a damn bit of difference because pop music is, above all else, about communication. A wise musician once said about Edge, "Never has someone done so much with so little." Those sentiments also apply to the band as a whole, indeed never has a group said so much with so little.
The miracle of U2 is not about the notes or the words, it's about the spirit; always has been. It's this unique spirit that turns a throw away song like "40," two boring chords and a bunch of verses pinched from the Bible, into a timeless mantra that U2 fans literally force into every show, even though the band retired the song years ago, "How long to sing this song?"; it's the spirit in a thousand people getting ready for work in their living rooms, oblivious to the fact that the baroque key section in "Original of the Species" may have been borrowed from The Beatles as they jump around singing at the top of their lungs, "Sugar come on, show your soul!" like a bunch of crazed, blissful, monkeys.
I wonder when the last time Derogatis jumped around to a song in his underwear was.
Mr. Derogatis, I wish you weren't a critic, I really wish you'd listened to this album because, with an open mind, you would have heard the band's most substantive offering since "Achtung Baby." You would have found rhythm parts that could out-punch anything on the radio waves today, spectral guitar tones from one of the greatest musical painters the world has ever known (representing the synthesis of 44 years of knowledge) and a crackly crooney voice (1/3 alter boy, 1/3 Rat Packer, 1/3 bluesman) that has matured like a fine wine. You would have found something unprecedented in pop music history: a band at age 25 that has released an album that's as good as anything it's ever done.
For your own sake, listen again.
At the end of his review, Derogatis offered a few choice jokes at Bono's expense. I gotta admit, they were funny, like "How many members of U2 does it take to change a light bulb? One. Bono holds the bulb and the world revolves around him." To return the favor, I'll end this article with a few of my favorite quips about critics.
"I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, 'I wanna grow up and be a critic.'"
-Richard Pryor
"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on a full suit of armor and attacked a hot fudge sunday.
-Kurt Vonnegut
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do."
-Dale Carnegie
2005.01
While going over reviews of U2's latest album, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," I was struck by one in particular, appearing on Nov. 22, 2004 in the Chicago Sun-Times and written by "pop music critic" Jim Derogatis. I guess what struck me initially was the 1-and-½ star rating.
The review began by asserting “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” is, "less of an artistic statement or a significant step forward than a simulation of what some unadventurous fans think a U2 album ought to sound like, and at times it veers obnoxiously close to self parody."
It didn't get any kinder as he went on.
I began researching Derogatis' tastes so I could at least get some inkling of what sort of mind I was up against. I figured I would find that he was more of a rhythm and blues kind of guy, or a "Skynyrd Rules!" guy, or someone from Chicago who never quite got over the disbanding of the Smashing Pumpkins.
Surprisingly though, I found the answer was far simpler. Apparently, Derogatis doesn't like anything. If you do a Google search, you'll see that most everything related to him deals with promoting his latest book, aptly named "Kill Your Idols". The premise of the book is that everybody sucks, or, as a hippy doped to the gills once told me in a barroom scene right off a Hollywood set, "Dude, everything you know is wrong."
The book, ironically, has a 1-and-½ star rating on Amazon.com.
In an interview with mediabistro.com, Derogatis revealed that, "It [the book] took a long time to sell. I sent the proposal out for a while, and I got, invariably, ‘nobody wants to read a book all of negative reviews.' And I felt that was kind of a crock."
Indeed Jim.
In this collection of rock journalism, Derogatis and contributors blast 35 albums, including "Exile on Main Street," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Pet Sounds," "Blood on the Tracks," "OK Computer" and Nevermind, basically everything anybody thought was ever any good.
But as I write this, the book is not as hilarious to me as his personal title, proudly displayed above the U2 review for all to see—Jim Derogatis, Pop Music Critic, Chicago Sun-Times. I giggle, imagining the news room at the Sun-Times bustling with activity, everyone drinking Starbucks coffee with saggy eyes scrambling to get a paper out, reporters filing copy after a night spent in the city's underbelly, editors pouring over briefs from writers in Somalia or Fallujah or Sri Lanka, journalists on the phone demanding accountability from important public officials, and there in the corner, dressed like Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons," is Derogatis, pencil in mouth, pensively crafting just the right words to describe to us how crappy Ashlee Simpson's album is. I'm sure Hemingway is in heaven nodding his approval.
But I digress, back to the U2 album.
Derogatis' main point seems to be that the band has lost its creativity and vitality and that the "uninspired" songs on “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” are "inferior simulations of the genuine achievements that preceded them."
And to that I say bullocks, but I don't mean it like he thinks.
The problem with Derogatis' review, and with most pop music reviews, for that matter, is that they all measure creativity with inapplicable instruments, like recording the air temperature with a rectal thermometer. The measure of a great album is not dependent on a radical reinvention or brazen song structure or unique notes, but in the energy it contains, the soul, if you will. Pop stars like Bono and U2 are more shamans than musicians, the same reason why Sid Vicious or Patti Smith never went to Juilliard and why Yo-Yo Ma never got panties thrown at him.
At the risk of shattering Derogatis' notions of high art, or at least causing him to take a long hard look in the mirror with a "What am I doing with my life?" expression, I submit that all pop music is a superficial parody of something that's already been done. This is not rocket science, it's music born from the screams of teenyboppers at an Elvis show and the angst of musically illiterate '70s punks. As Bono pointed out in the '80s, it's three chords and the truth. I mean no insult to the medium, rather I'm just saying that judging and deconstructing pop music's simple beauty is a little like criticizing a sunset, it's like telling a landscape painter that, "The skies are always blue in your paintings."
The parameters of the medium are specific; you have a limited number of minutes and a limited arsenal of musical equipment with which to get a point across, you have a limited number of notes, you're limited by language, you're limited by traditions, drums sound like, well, drums.
To hear Derogatis complain about the album’s same old "bombastic choruses and tinkling atmospherics and oh-so-arty mid-song breaks" is like hearing a fish complain about water, that's what U2's music is, Jim. To take it a step further, saying a respected, established artist has become a parody of itself is like saying established writer Jim Derogatis has become a parody of himself. Since U2 claim to be nothing but a pop band, and Derogatis (in my imagination, anyway) claims to be nothing but a regressive literalist whose imagination was long ago dissolved in a head full of venomous bile, the whole self-parody saying, in any context, is an oxymoron, both simply are what they are.
The synthesis of the four minds in U2 creates the original sound we associate with U2, it's as simple as that. It's been like that since the beginning and as long as they stay together, it will be that way, as such they will always sound like U2 and they will never sound like anyone else. I would point out that if you want to hear a band that doesn't sound like U2, there's only about 80 million to choose from.
In case I'm coming off as a blindly partisan U2 head, let me interject here to say that this is not the case. I also want to back off a little on Derogatis in case he's a nice guy. At times in his review, I admit, he makes some valid points. I agree that "Vertigo" was formulaic, while I found some of Bono's lyrics to be pure poetry, I could picture others in a fortune cookie ("The only pain is to feel nothing at all"), and, yes, I was uncomfortable with the iPod campaign. But to dwell on a handful of flaws at the expense of what is, top to bottom, a solidly constructed work of art is to miss the big picture—Michelangelo's "David's" hands are too big, the pyramids of Giza look smaller in real life, Heidi Klum has a bit of cellulite on the backs of her legs. So?
Looking beyond the few specifics Derogatis offers in his review, his implication that the album lacks creativity is itself uncreative. He vaguely insists that a few tracks are "Joshua Tree" rip offs (I'm assuming he meant guitar parts or rhythm parts were replicated), yet anyone with ears will hear that in this album every U2 album has been ripped off to some extent, from "Boy" to "All That You Can't Leave Behind," this is what pop bands do, they discover sounds and use them to express things. The Edge has been using the same reverb and the same two chimey notes to make your neck hair tingle since "Into the Heart,"—the magic is that he does it like no one else can.
It's not just itself that the band rips off either, it's everyone. Larry Mullen, Jr. stole from Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham in "Bullet the Blue Sky" and Bo Diddly in "Desire." Bono steals many of his lyrics from authors, like "Quiet that comes to a house where nobody can sleep" from Raymond Carver (used in "Ultra Violet") and "In dreams begin responsibilities" from Delmore Schwartz (used in "Acrobat").
But here's the point, Derogatis, and I address him specifically here in hopes that he'll read this and really try to understand what I'm saying. None of that creativity, be it borrowed or stolen, makes a damn bit of difference because pop music is, above all else, about communication. A wise musician once said about Edge, "Never has someone done so much with so little." Those sentiments also apply to the band as a whole, indeed never has a group said so much with so little.
The miracle of U2 is not about the notes or the words, it's about the spirit; always has been. It's this unique spirit that turns a throw away song like "40," two boring chords and a bunch of verses pinched from the Bible, into a timeless mantra that U2 fans literally force into every show, even though the band retired the song years ago, "How long to sing this song?"; it's the spirit in a thousand people getting ready for work in their living rooms, oblivious to the fact that the baroque key section in "Original of the Species" may have been borrowed from The Beatles as they jump around singing at the top of their lungs, "Sugar come on, show your soul!" like a bunch of crazed, blissful, monkeys.
I wonder when the last time Derogatis jumped around to a song in his underwear was.
Mr. Derogatis, I wish you weren't a critic, I really wish you'd listened to this album because, with an open mind, you would have heard the band's most substantive offering since "Achtung Baby." You would have found rhythm parts that could out-punch anything on the radio waves today, spectral guitar tones from one of the greatest musical painters the world has ever known (representing the synthesis of 44 years of knowledge) and a crackly crooney voice (1/3 alter boy, 1/3 Rat Packer, 1/3 bluesman) that has matured like a fine wine. You would have found something unprecedented in pop music history: a band at age 25 that has released an album that's as good as anything it's ever done.
For your own sake, listen again.
At the end of his review, Derogatis offered a few choice jokes at Bono's expense. I gotta admit, they were funny, like "How many members of U2 does it take to change a light bulb? One. Bono holds the bulb and the world revolves around him." To return the favor, I'll end this article with a few of my favorite quips about critics.
"I never met anybody who said when they were a kid, 'I wanna grow up and be a critic.'"
-Richard Pryor
"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on a full suit of armor and attacked a hot fudge sunday.
-Kurt Vonnegut
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do."
-Dale Carnegie
