jick
Refugee
It's like a nice fancy Christmas present that is well-packaged. "Wow," you say to yourself. "With packaging this good, the inside must be good." But when you look inside, the gift doesn't meet up to the wrappings.
Bono has been hyping up the Edge as being "mad" and it refects in his guitar playing. Then when you hear the opening chords of Vertigo, you are quick to exclaim: "Whoa! The guitar rocks!"
But after a few listens, you realize that Edge is just playing regular "power" guitar chords with a riff any high school garage band could come up with. Nothing innovative or ground-breaking about his guitar playing. As a matter of fact, guitarists of this generation have tried and failed miserably to imitate Edge's repetetive, atmospheric, ringing, echoey, economical and expressive guitar style. Only Edge can play like the Edge. But on Vertigo, Edge decides to try to play like a pseudo-punk band like Green Day and Blink 182 rolled into one. And Edge fails miserably.
And upon closer listening, his guitar playing in Vertigo is actually uninspired. It just seem inspired and "mad" because of how loud and prominent the guitars are in the sound mix. Kudos should go to the sound technician, and not The Edge.
So while the song begs for your attention on first listen, in the long term the guitar playing is well below average and just seems "good" because it is loud. I am sure real musicians and guitar players in this forum will agree. Edge is at his best being the Edge and not trying to be someone else like the high school pseudo punk bands.
I'd give credit to the sound engineers and the producer in deciding to make the guitar loud in the mix. As for the Edge, little credit is his. At least for Vertigo his guitar playing was well-overrated. In the end, Vertigo will not be mentioned in the same sentence as Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride, Bad, Where The Streets Have No Name, or One. All in all Vertigo is a good single and a good song, it's just that I feel Edge is given much more credit than he deserves for the guitar playing of this song which is way overrated.
Cheers,
J
Bono has been hyping up the Edge as being "mad" and it refects in his guitar playing. Then when you hear the opening chords of Vertigo, you are quick to exclaim: "Whoa! The guitar rocks!"
But after a few listens, you realize that Edge is just playing regular "power" guitar chords with a riff any high school garage band could come up with. Nothing innovative or ground-breaking about his guitar playing. As a matter of fact, guitarists of this generation have tried and failed miserably to imitate Edge's repetetive, atmospheric, ringing, echoey, economical and expressive guitar style. Only Edge can play like the Edge. But on Vertigo, Edge decides to try to play like a pseudo-punk band like Green Day and Blink 182 rolled into one. And Edge fails miserably.
And upon closer listening, his guitar playing in Vertigo is actually uninspired. It just seem inspired and "mad" because of how loud and prominent the guitars are in the sound mix. Kudos should go to the sound technician, and not The Edge.
So while the song begs for your attention on first listen, in the long term the guitar playing is well below average and just seems "good" because it is loud. I am sure real musicians and guitar players in this forum will agree. Edge is at his best being the Edge and not trying to be someone else like the high school pseudo punk bands.
I'd give credit to the sound engineers and the producer in deciding to make the guitar loud in the mix. As for the Edge, little credit is his. At least for Vertigo his guitar playing was well-overrated. In the end, Vertigo will not be mentioned in the same sentence as Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride, Bad, Where The Streets Have No Name, or One. All in all Vertigo is a good single and a good song, it's just that I feel Edge is given much more credit than he deserves for the guitar playing of this song which is way overrated.
Cheers,
J