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LemonMelon said:
2. If it weren't for some very clumsy writing, New York would be a favorite U2 song for me. It's one of the few songs on the album with some darkness and danger to it. It has such a disturbing atmosphere and Edge's guitar work transitions from graceful to powerful at the drop of a hat. And, lest we forget, it's one of the only creative things Larry has done with a drum kit in years.

I don't dislike all of the lyrics either. It starts off great:

In New York freedom looks like too many choices
In New York I found a friend to drown out the other voices
Voices on the cell phone
Voices from home
Voices of the hard sell
Voices down the stairwell
In New York, just got a place in New York

Bono tries too hard to be clever and opaque after that, but I've always loved that verse.
Click to expand...

New York is my favorite song on the album, and by far the best live song from the album.
 
I think Walk On became something a lot bigger and powerful. New York was a great live rocker but didn't exactly get transcendent like the band at their best.
 
I like the Linear movie version of Boots, a bit more raw in sound, and the creepiness of the mustache bar chicks make it even better.
 
I frankly dislike ATYCLB (though it's some kind of perfect next to the abortion that was HTDAAB) but I will third or fourth some of the comments on New York. It's always struck me as one of the most musically interesting songs on that record. So much so that I wouldn't be at all surprised if the music had been lying around since some time in the mid nineties. The lyrics aren't awful or anything... at least he's being honest or something.

I also like In A Little While. A lot. But only the studio recording. It's one of the few times on that record when they actually sound like a band.
 
Having a little measured in light years distance now from the three albums of the 2000s, I like ATYCLB the best. I think some of its production is underrated, particularly Side B with New York and Grace. Not a great album by any stretch - I really dislike Elevation and Peace on Earth - but a bit better than the two that followed.

NLOTH would have been better had they realized their purported ambition.
 
ATYCLB and HTDAAB are U2's worst efforts, but I think ATYCLB is worse - it's just so beige. What's frustrating about both is that you can make pretty decent alternate versions by exchanging some tracks for b-sides and unreleased material. HTDAAB in particular becomes enjoyable. U2's infamous inability to recognise their best work struck particularly hard in the early 2000s.

PS IWB, I can't believe you have a reputation of hating on so much, yet ATYCLB of all things escapes your wrath. I figured you'd be destroying copies in ritual burnings or something.
 
Mercy and Moment of Surrender are IMO the only bona fide great songs U2 have released in the last ten years. And they didn't technically 'release' Mercy, as such, right, so...
 
Bona fide since 2000 - Ground Beneath Her Feet, Beautiful Day, Stuck, Kite, When I Look at the World, City of Blinding Lights, Mercy (travesty that they never released the original, easily the best of anything they've done post-Pop), Moment of Surrender, Fez Being Born, Cedars of Lebanon.

But, like several have expressed here, I have grown to hate the band as they currently are. Just so many stupid decisions, second-guessing and general crap.
 
Since 2000, the whole forteen years, I'd agree with a few of those for sure.

In the 'not bad, fairly good' category, add Fez Being Born, Fast Cars, Stateless, New Yawk, In A Little While, Beautiful Day, among others.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VYXECtjOos

From the upcoming Leonard Cohen album

Lyric: Almost Like The Blues by Leonard Cohen
Transposed by Lennard Torbijn

I saw some people starving
There was murder, there was rape
Their villages were burning
They were trying to escape

I couldn’t meet their glances
I was staring at my shoes
It was acid, it was tragic
It was almost like the blues
It was almost like the blues

I have to die a little
between each murderous plot
and when I’m finished thinking
I have to die a lot

There’s torture, and there’s killing
and there’s all my bad reviews
The war, the children missing, lord
It’s almost like the blues
It’s almost like the blues

Though I let my heart get frozen
to keep away the rot
my father says I’m chosen
my mother says I’m not

I listened to their story
of the gypsies and the Jews
It was good, it wasn’t boring
It was almost like the blues
It was almost like the blues

There is no G-d in heaven
There is no hell below
So says the great professor
of all there is to know

But I’ve had the invitation
that a sinner can’t refuse
It’s almost like salvation
It’s almost like the blues
It’s almost like the blues
 
martha said:
You can't mention Nick Cave in the same sentence as Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. Nick has a lovely singing voice.
Click to expand...

I just threw his name in there for lower register sakes. If Cohen and Cave ever sounded similar it was during Cohen's 1980s work.
 
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