A Couple Years Later...Bomb is Forgettable

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ponkine said:
In the 90s most of comments about U2 were always about being a revolutionary, innovative band. Now in the nougthies nobody call U2 revolutionary or innovative anymore, because they aren't anymore. The 00s has been by far the worst decade for U2 in terms of music. They have been writing songs in a extremely narrow way since Beautiful day because it's easier, cheaper and because the mainstream music always make much more money than experimental one.

Ponkine may be annoying as fuck and keep saying the same thing over and over. But he definitely has a solid point here I think.. that U2 are no longer seen as a cutting edge band, but more like a mainstream rock band.
 
that's because radiohead showed up.

anyway, isn't it a bit too much to ask that a band should be a cutting edge band for several decades? not even beatles did that.

i'm just enjoying that they're still capable of writing good songs.
 
Zootlesque said:


Ponkine may be annoying as fuck and keep saying the same thing over and over. But he definitely has a solid point here I think.. that U2 are no longer seen as a cutting edge band, but more like a mainstream rock band.

U2 were never seen as a cutting edge band. I thought you would have known better.

AB has as many pop songs as ATYCLB. Both Pop and Zooropa were poorly received by the critics.
 
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ponkine said:


The 00s has been by far the worst decade for U2 in terms of music. They have been writing songs in a extremely narrow way since Beautiful day because it's easier, cheaper and because the mainstream music always make much more money than experimental one.

How is it easier and cheaper? And I have no idea about the sales number, for I don't give a shit, but how are they guaranteed to make more money?
 
Bomb might've been better like this:

1.Love And Peace Or Else
2.Vertigo
3.Are You Gonna Wait Forever
4.Fast Cars
5.Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
6.Original Of The Species
7.City Of Blinding Lights
8.All Because Of You
9.Miracle Drug
10.One Step Closer

Singles:

LAPOE
Crumbs

Vertigo
Love You Like Mad

Sometimes
A Man And A Woman
Smile

Are You Gonna Wait Forever
Yahweh
 
Zootlesque said:


Ponkine may be annoying as fuck and keep saying the same thing over and over. But he definitely has a solid point here I think.. that U2 are no longer seen as a cutting edge band, but more like a mainstream rock band.

Umm...just because you praise a person doesn't mean you can also insult them.
 
roy said:

U2 were never seen as a cutting edge band. I thought you would have known better.

AB has as many pop songs as ATYCLB. Both Pop and Zooropa were poorly received by the critics.

In the 90s, they were! Maybe not in the 80s but in the 90s I was constantly hearing about how The Edge is fucking around with his guitar and producing innovative sounds never heard before and such!

AB may have pop songs but they were pop songs with a twist, be it the distorted vocals of Zoo Station, the un-conventional guitar intro to EBTTRT, the 'noise' in the intro to WGRYWH, the dance beats of MW... I could go on. It was no way as mainstream sounding as ATYCLB!

And so what if Zooropa and Pop were poorly received by the critics? Fuck 'em! U2 should go where their creative instincts drive them, not pander to the critics!


By the way, I didn't mean to insult Ponkine! :lol: Sorry I came off that way. :reject:
 
if you visit a board like atease or greenplastic and try to tell them that u2 were ever innovative, you'll get a million insults thrown at you. the 90s were innovative for u2 , since they redefined their own sound, and edge may have come up with some effects that weren't explored much before, but in the great scheme of things, I don't think anyone can say that u2 revolutionized music with ab, zooropa and pop, no matter how good they were.
 
U2Man said:
if you visit a board like atease or greenplastic and try to tell them that u2 were ever innovative, you'll get a million insults thrown at you. the 90s were innovative for u2 , since they redefined their own sound, and edge may have come up with some effects that weren't explored much before, but in the great scheme of things, I don't think anyone can say that u2 revolutionized music with ab, zooropa and pop, no matter how good they were.

Well yeah! If you compare them with Radiohead! :huh:

Do you or don't you agree that 90s U2 was more innovative than 00s U2? Just talking bout U2 here.
 
hey u2 are still innovative!

maybe not in their music or their tours anymore, but definitely in the way they market themselves!

thats gotta count for something!
 
Zootlesque said:


In the 90s, they were! Maybe not in the 80s but in the 90s I was constantly hearing about how The Edge is fucking around with his guitar and producing innovative sounds never heard before and such!

AB may have pop songs but they were pop songs with a twist, be it the distorted vocals of Zoo Station, the un-conventional guitar intro to EBTTRT, the 'noise' in the intro to WGRYWH, the dance beats of MW... I could go on. It was no way as mainstream sounding as ATYCLB!

And so what if Zooropa and Pop were poorly received by the critics? Fuck 'em! U2 should go where their creative instincts drive them, not pander to the critics!


'The beats of Mysterious Ways', you mean their unoriginal attempt to appeal to an early 90's UK audience to gain some street cred? As for WGRYWH, Steve Lillywhites admission that WGRYWH was a sell out confirms a lot in my eyes. Believe me, I was in my 20s when those albums came out and none of them made U2 cutting edge. Just look at the original NME review of AB.
 
edit: a response to chizip's post.

what do you mean?

have they marketed themselves in any way recently that hasn't been done before by anyone else?

are you alluding to the path they took when they "went back to the roots" on atyclb and htdaab?

please explain, sir.
 
U2Man said:
what do you mean?

have they marketed themselves in any way recently that hasn't been done before by anyone else?

are you alluding to the path they took when they "went back to the roots" on atyclb and htdaab?

please explain, sir.

werent they the first of the big bands to appear in an ipod commercial, but yet not take any money for it in exchange for a U2 ipod and the complete u2 available to download on itunes?
 
ponkine said:
HTDAAB is their most weakest album ever. Just a copy-paste job from ATYCLB. It sounds like ATYCLB leftovers and the quality of songs is below average by U2 standards.

City Of Blinding Lights is, neverthless easily their best song of the noughties and their best one since the Sunday Bloody Sunday of the 90s: Please.

The rest of the album is filled with mid tempo cliches, ballads and silly canned iPod tunes like Vertigo and All Because of You.

Production is embarrasing to say the least, lyrics goes nowhere, filled with cliche rhymes, random words and cheap attempt at poetry.

Even the cover art is their worst ever, the band looking like KISS pretending to be "Punk Rock from Venus" while the album itself is their most lame, boring and uninspired ever. Playing it safe for the bucks, that's all.

This album in the end was just marketing, suspicious reviews from Rolling Stones (How many friends U2 have of that magazine?) and the obligatory Grammy Awards bulls***. But don't forget this album got the worst ever fans reviews on amazon.com, and that means a lot. On a US page (don't forget that US people usually don't like Zooropa and Pop and love ATYCLB), the worst reviews where given to the failed Bomb.


That say it all


"Failed"! What are you smoking! It sold almost 900,000 copies in the US in it's first week of release, the best selling rock record of 2004!
By the way I love "Crumbs" and "AMAAW".
 
oh i see. forgot about that.

but is that so different from appearing in a pepsi commercial like michael jackson and britney have done before? u2 didn't take any money...but they got the u2 ipod instead :shrug:
 
Yeah but music isn't relatable to Pepsi.

At least you can put U2 music on your U2 iPod.

Something like that.
 
U2Man said:
oh i see. forgot about that.

but is that so different from appearing in a pepsi commercial like michael jackson and britney have done before? u2 didn't take any money...but they got the u2 ipod instead :shrug:

well not taking money for a commercial is rather innovative, but you said u2 weren't really innovative in the 90's anyway, they were just doing stuff that they, themselves, havent done before

and you could say thats true about their marketing strategy in the 00's, as for the first time they:

played SNL (twice)
played letterman
played leno
did an entire episode of conan
sold their song to the olympics
sold their song (ABOY) to be played at halftime of the college football championship
broadcast their live show during halftime of an NBA game
played halftime of the superbowl
sold vertigo to be played during ESPN's sportscenter over highlights
did voices for ESPN soccer commercials
the ipod thing
selling 6 different super deluxe editions for every release

im sure theres more stuff that im not even thinking about right now, but in the 00's they have marketed themselves in ways they never have before
 
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U2Man said:
then stop calling him an annoying fuck.

:lmao:

The thing is some people here don't even seem to want to admit that U2 was ever innovative. Just cos they're not innovative in this decade doesn't mean they weren't ever! :huh: One does not have to get defensive about the 00s to praise the 90s. It does not have to be one or the other! This does not have to be a competition. We're all fans of the same band for God's sake! :shrug:

And roy: I'm not saying Achtung was necessarily groundbreakingly new! But I won't dismiss it as simply pop songs either! Pop songs in 1992 were made by the likes of Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Lisa Stansfield, Salt N Pepa, TLC, Simply Red etc. :wink: U2 was rock, baby, rock! :rockon:

But I still maintain that Zooropa and Pop were the most innovative albums of U2's career... speaking of U2 alone and no other band here.
 
U2 also did the Simpsons voiceovers and MTV awards (now how's that for pandering to a young audience?) in the 90s. 4 times.

There were several TV specials such as the infamous ABC 1997 Pop special with bad viewer rating, and 3 MTV specials in 1992: Trabatland, Zoo York Zoo york and I think something called 120 Minutes.

Most definitely leaned onto MTV and made considerably more effort in making videos.

All this well before new genres came on board and pushed rock off the charts and before the ageism really kicked in. All this while U2 was still doing better with singles in US than anything off the last 2 albums.

Oh as for pandering to the critics, Achtung Baby came out of U2 recovering after being flamed off by the critics by doing what they said: lightening up and stop playing the saints image and preaching on stage. Yes the music was probably going to change, but I don't think the new image and themes and the presentation would be nearly as different if it wasn't for that flame.

edit: Let's not pretend U2 didn't care about critics' opinion or didn't promote themselves before 2000.

I'm also sure saying something like "it's the truth" or repeating the same thing to infinity automatically makes someone's opinion more valid.
 
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U2girl said:
U2 also did the Simpsons voiceovers and MTV awards (now how's that for pandering to a young audience?) in the 90s. 4 times.

There were several TV specials such as the infamous ABC 1997 Pop special with bad viewer rating, and 3 MTV specials in 1992: Trabatland, Zoo York Zoo york and I think something called 120 Minutes.

Most definitely leaned onto MTV and made considerably more effort in making videos.

All this well before new genres came on board and pushed rock off the charts and before the ageism really kicked in. All this while U2 was still doing better with singles in US than anything off the last 2 albums.

Oh as for pandering to the critics, Achtung Baby came out of U2 recovering after being flamed off by the critics by doing what they said: lightening up and stop playing the saints image and preaching on stage. Yes the music was probably going to change, but I don't think the new image and themes and the presentation would be nearly as different if it wasn't for that flame.

edit: Let's not pretend U2 didn't care about critics' opinion or didn't promote themselves before 2000.

I'm also sure saying something like "it's the truth" or repeating the same thing to infinity automatically makes someone's opinion more valid.

Damn, someone got owned!!!
 
um did i ever say u2 didnt promote themselves in the past?

i said they were promoting themselves in new ways

and did i ever say it was a bad thing?
 
Chizip said:
um did i ever say u2 didnt promote themselves in the past?

i said they were promoting themselves in new ways

and did i ever say it was a bad thing?

I don't think she was talking to you, atleast I didn't think so...:shrug:
 
odel61 said:



It sold almost 900,000 copies in the US in it's first week of release, the best selling rock record of 2004!

I NEVER wrote any word about album sellings :shrug:

Britney Spears, Robbie Williams, Backstreets Boys have sold albums like if they were God, but album sales usually doesn't mean album quality at all.

Also, best selling albums in the US (sorry folks) are rap, R & B, and mainstream corporate music offered also on iPod and all that fashionable bulls***

So, if an album sell a million copies in a week in the US doesn't mean it's an oustanding piece of music :down:

That's the reason why I don't like to measure album quality by record sales :heart:

Britney Spears Baby One More Time has sold 14 million copies in the US alone ... and I don't think is a better album than Achtung Baby
 
How do you measure album quality then?

The unabashed reviews of indietastic mags like Pitchfork?

Chiz brings up a great point, they have marketed themselves differently this decade. It was a direct cause of the success of ATYCLB, if it had flopped in the US (by U2 standards), they wouldn't have that "Biggest Band in the World" moniker.

Truth is, I think most people here are extremely critical of U2 like a parent is to a prodigal son. They will always create something good, and you'll enjoy it, but you think they might be capable of so much more.

I'd take some of U2's "worst" songs over the "most popular" songs on the radio any day of the week, but that's just me.
 
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