Random Music Talk XXXVII: Powerhour cares more about Spotify than you do

[u2popmofo]

I remember really, really liking The Hands That Built America when it came out. Listened to it a week or two ago, and was surprised how much my opinion on it had changed. It's still ok, I just don't like it anywhere near as much as I did.

 

[PhilsFan]

I know a guy whose two favorite U2 songs are SYCMIOYO and Hands That Built America. The fuck?

 

[corianderstem]

aka tone 214 on their KORG.

Ha!

I like the song well enough. It's not great, but it's far from terrible. I like some of the lyrics.

I swear, Gangs of New York has been on various cable movie channels for months and months. I have been known to watch the last few minutes if I happen to be flipping through channels at the right time, to catch the swell of music as the skyline changes and the gravestones fade away.

Nifty.

 

[Danny Boy]

 

[lazarus]

I even like the oh bits at the end of Yahweh.

I seem to be in a minority of people who love Cockweh, might be my 3rd fab on the album (after Friggin' Cobbler and Miracle Shot). And I'm not religious by any stretch. It really reminds me of One Cock Hill, at the beginning at least, and while the guitar sound is Hedge 101 it's bursting with joy and hard for me to resist.

The cliche lyric that ends the song (and the album) is unfortunate, though. And it's yet another song that was neutered in the live setting, though seeing Harry Muffin on keyboard was pretty damned amusing.

 

[corianderstem]

It's been ages since I've listened to or watched a Vertigo bootleg, but I remember really liking the acoustic version. It stripped away the bits from the album that were painful, production-wise. I know very little about production, but everything just seems too loud and too much.

Although it came up on shuffle the other day on my iPod, and it was the first time I'd listened to the album version in ages, and it wasn't as bad as I had remembered.

 

[lazarus]

I remember really, really liking The Hands That Built America when it came out. Listened to it a week or two ago, and was surprised how much my opinion on it had changed. It's still ok, I just don't like it anywhere near as much as I did.

Ha!

I like the song well enough. It's not great, but it's far from terrible. I like some of the lyrics.

I swear, Gangs of New York has been on various cable movie channels for months and months. I have been known to watch the last few minutes if I happen to be flipping through channels at the right time, to catch the swell of music as the skyline changes and the gravestones fade away.

Nifty.

I love how the main credits come on at the end with that bold, metal news-type font, with the music crashing in behind it. And it should be nothed that the big electric guitar solo at the beginning is, perhaps not surprisingly, nowhere to be found in the tepid and lifeless studio version.

I've said it before, that a band riding a wave of popularity like Shuttlecock was back in 2002/2003 was unable to win an Oscar over Eminem (who admittedly had a great track) is all the proof you need that the song was a dull turkey.

 

[u2popmofo]

I seem to be in a minority of people who love Cockweh, might be my 3rd fab on the album (after Friggin' Cobbler and Miracle Shot). And I'm not religious by any stretch. It really reminds me of One Cock Hill, at the beginning at least, and while the guitar sound is Hedge 101 it's bursting with joy and hard for me to resist.

The cliche lyric that ends the song (and the album) is unfortunate, though. And it's yet another song that was neutered in the live setting, though seeing Harry Muffin on keyboard was pretty damned amusing.

I like it a lot too, Laz. I didn't necessarily love it at first, but similar to Cori, I liked the acoustic live version quite a bit. The studio version really grew on me after that.

SYCMIOYO

My brain is not allowing me to comprehend what this is.

 

[joyfulgirl]

I loved Yahweh live, after hating on it for some time before the tour.

I'm kind of neutral on Hands That Built America. I, too, thought it was powerful in the film, though.

 

[joyfulgirl]

My brain is not allowing me to comprehend what this is.

Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own which Bono sang directly to ME in Phoenix. No really. Really really.

 

[lazarus]

It's been ages since I've listened to or watched a Vertigo bootleg, but I remember really liking the acoustic version. It stripped away the bits from the album that were painful, production-wise. I know very little about production, but everything just seems too loud and too much.

Right when Boner finishes that "this love is like a drop in the ocean" and Hege comes chiming back in, it's one of the most triumphant moments they've had in the last decade.

 

[LemonMelon]

Will third the more tasteful acoustic version of Yahweh being far superior to the bombastic album version with that awful vocal take.

"Take this city and make it safe" always went over well with Vertigo crowds; great moment.

 

[u2popmofo]

Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own which Bono sang directly to ME in Phoenix. No really. Really really.

Pfft, he was singing it to me. I could tell from the nose bleeds that he was looking right at me, and wanted me to personally know that sometimes I cannot make it on my own.

And I guess I'm not too surprised that I didn't recognize the title, because for some reason I was incredibly negative on Atom Bomb from about a year after it was released until a few weeks ago. I realized that it makes no sense hating an album where I like essentially every song.

 

[powerhour24]

Yahweh is yet another song that was better during the Chris Thomas sessions.

Alright, since we're talking U2 an I was wondering this while listening to JT on my way home last night. What's your favorite U2 closer? I find it really hard to choose between Mothers of the Disappeared & '40', with Love is Blindness & MLK being right behind.

 

[lazarus]

Pfft, he was singing it to me. I could tell from the nose bleeds that he was looking right at me, and wanted me to personally know that sometimes I cannot make it on my own.

And I guess I'm not too surprised that I didn't recognize the title, because for some reason I was incredibly negative on Atom Bomb from about a year after it was released until a few weeks ago. I realized that it makes no sense hating an album where I like essentially every song.

Haha, yeah it's hard to call it a great "album", but I really like all the songs and thats nit something I can say about No Net. And it has more balls than its predecessor.

A shame that the bonus track (Fist Scars) is better than almost everything on there, and an outtake (MercyRule) as well, minus the "almost".

 

[joyfulgirl]

What's your favorite U2 closer? I find it really hard to choose between Mothers of the Disappeared & '40', with Love is Blindness & MLK being right behind.

Love is Blindness/Can't Help Falling in Love was absolutely brilliant for ZooTV. Just blows me away every time.

 

[LemonMelon]

Yeah, I enjoy basically everything on Bomb, I just don't love any of it. Bad production makes it seem worse than it actually is. I don't listen to the album much, but my imaginary version of the album features these tracks and is a rocking good time:

Native Son
Love And Peace Or Else
Xanax And Wine/Fast Cars (I like them both)
All Because of You (alternate)
Love You Like Mad
Are You Gonna Wait Forever
A Man And A Woman
Crumbs
Miracle Drug
City of Blinding Lights
One Step Closer
Mercy

 

[joyfulgirl]

Pfft, he was singing it to me. I could tell from the nose bleeds that he was looking right at me, and wanted me to personally know that sometimes I cannot make it on my own.

And I guess I'm not too surprised that I didn't recognize the title, because for some reason I was incredibly negative on Atom Bomb from about a year after it was released until a few weeks ago. I realized that it makes no sense hating an album where I like essentially every song.

I am still pretty negative on Atom Bomb but I haven't listened to it even once since the Vertigo tour so maybe I need to do that. I thought it was great the day it was released. I was driving in a Uhaul cross country with a friend and made him pull into the first Walmart we saw (somewhere in Alabama) so I could buy it. We rocked out to it and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. For a week.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Love is Blindness/Can't Help Falling in Love was absolutely brilliant for ZooTV. Just blows me away every time.

^ That one

 

[powerhour24]

Love You Like Mad (which is an ATYCLB track) instead of Sometimes?

 

[powerhour24]

For the record I was talking album closers, but yes Love is Blindness works for both.

 

[LemonMelon]

Love You Like Mad (which is an ATYCLB track) instead of Sometimes?

Love You Like Mad fits far better on Punk Rock from Venus than Sometimes does.

One Step Closer is the better song of the two thematically similar tracks, I think, so I kept that one.

 

[u2popmofo]

I know I've mentioned it many times before, but my issue with Atom Bomb is that the songs don't really feel like they belong together at all to me. No real cohesive sense of it being an "album". I could just be hearing things since I know how many different producers and sessions were involved, but it always just seemed really strange to me. Also, I was (and still am), annoyed by their Vertigo obsession.

Other than that, I honestly do like everything on there.

 

[powerhour24]

The whole album is Bono in personal reflective mode so to say Sometimes, the centerpiece of that doesn't fit is baffling to me. Preferences may be different, but this just doesn't jive for me.

 

[joyfulgirl]

For the record I was talking album closers, but yes Love is Blindness works for both.

Oh, sorry. With so much talk about the closing song on this tour I just assumed...

 

[powerhour24]

No, popmofo, that's kind of the consensus, there's some strong songs, though not their best, but there were far too man cooks in the kitchen to be sure.

 

[Reggo]

I can get pretty down on ATYCLB and HTDAAB. Haven't listened to them in ages. I should rectify that.

 

[powerhour24]

I have alternate track lists for every 2000s album that I prefer. All of them started with a cohesive concept that gave way to too much tinkering and worrying about pleasing all kinds of fans.

 

[LemonMelon]

The whole album is Bono in personal reflective mode so to say Sometimes, the centerpiece of that doesn't fit is baffling to me. Preferences may be different, but this just doesn't jive for me.

Clearly, my tracklisting eschews the theme(s) of Bomb in order to recreate the original fun-time atmosphere they claimed to have been going for on the Chris Thomas version of the album.

Sometimes fits very nicely on the version we have today.

 

[mobvok]

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