HTDAAB: Better than JT?

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jick

jick

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From the USA Today:

"Atomic Bomb is U2's best album, eclipsing not only Achtung Baby and The Joshua Tree, but a good many 20th-century holy grails and prematurely anointed classics of the new millennium. U2 stands as rock's lone superpower, not after constantly defeating its challengers, but by constantly challenging itself."

Does anyone believe in this or is this just blind worship by a writer who is probably an Interference member? Looks like many here are quick to blow the whistle on reviewers who have great bias against U2. But I'd also like to blow the whistle on those who are overly biased for U2. Let me know what you think of those comments above.

I honesty don't think U2 will ever make an album that can surpass JT.

Cheers,

J
 
I still ask anyone caught up in the new album hype to sit quietly, put on some headphones, and listen top to bottom to both Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, and then tell me the new one is better.

You cannot (seriously, anyway).
 
HTDAAB is amazing but not as good as Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. In fact, if I was ranking my top 5 favorite albums I would rank it 5th....

1. Joshua Tree
2. Achtung Baby
3. Pop
4. The Unforgetable Fire
5. HTDAAB
 
Nah, Atom Bomb is damn good but not brilliant. It lacks timeless classics JT had like Where the streets and With or without you. I highly doubt that if they continue to tour a few tours later they will still play anything from this album.
 
Even a year from now it won't be better than JT (or AB). I think songs like COBL, Sometimes, & MD may become classics after the tour though. I can see everyone singing "Oh You Look So Beautiful Tonight" with their hands in the air...
 
I think they will play a couple from this album, if they do still tour in a few years time.
COBLY/OOTS being the 2 obvious ones for me.
Of course it all depends on what they play from it on this tour.

I can only see Beautiful Day and Kite being played from ATYCLB this time around. Maybe rotating with SIAMYCGOO and Walk On.


(Elevation....God forbid!)
 
Better than Joshua Tree?
Maybe.
Better tahn Achtung?
NO way.

All in all, I think it's the strongest U2 album ever in terms of the number of great songs, but as of yet there are more single standout perfections on Achtung, War and such.

You'll have to define what a good album is:
A few fantastic songs with good back-ups,
or great all the way without standouts.

Other than that, I miss newness.
U2 hasn't got a new sound on this one, like they did with All That You Can't Leave Behind or Achtung Baby or Joshua Tree.
It's not bothering me that much, but I have a tendancy of imagining what a new sound may had sounded like. How big it would have been.
 
listening to the unreleased stuff ...

they still have the spark of creativity ...

it is the production that is letting them down.

but ... it's what they want. so who am i to complain.
 
Well... as a person who likes, but doesn't love JT, yes, HTDAAB easily surpasses that album.

Does it surpass AB? As of this moment, no. AB does have one horrid song on it, but the others are so brilliant that "mistake" is forgiven. In contrast, there are no horrid songs on HTDAAB. But overall, I feel AB still is superior. Opinions change though...
 
to me the new album blows everything else they've ever done out of the water. and i love all the other stuff. joshua tree is great, but this is easily better to me. it's just more exciting. i love how loud the guitar is in the mix, and every member of the band delivers on every song. there is not a single bad song on this album. it's just awesome.
and having read a lot of reviews on this album, i don't see how you can say anything negative about it. it amazes me that this is so much better than ATYCLB (i liked that too, but this is so much better).
 
There is no way the it ranks any higher than #3 on the album list, but time is the ultimate judge for the quality of an album. I'd say that we need a few years to go by to say exactly how "good" HTDAAB is.
 
I'll already say that it's better than The Unforgettable Fire. But the Joshua Tree? I think it takes many more listens to determine that kind of trophy.
 
It's more direct than Unforgettable Fire. I think that album had potential, had a great start, all that. But I don't know if it had as many great/good songs as the new album has. For now, "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" has to be my favorite. I'd say it has instant classic all over it.
 
EP and A is a beautiful song!!! its just a little unfinished.

on topic: not better than the Joshua Tree...not yet.
 
I don't think this album will ever reach the status of The Joshua Tree or ever be as "classic" as the album, but I think that song for song, this album MIGHT, and I emphasize the word "might" be better than the Joshua Tree. The first FIVE songs on TJT are classics, but the rest are just great, only a couple fall just short of great (Exit=poor production and Trip Through your Wires)

HTDAAB has at least FIVE classic songs (Miracle Drug, Sometimes, LAPOE (rivals Bullet), City of Blinding Lights, and OOTS (though i haven't quite clicked with this one yet, I just KNOW it's classic.)) The rest are all GREAT songs, especially with Crumbs and All Because of You bordering on classic. Add in Fast Cars and it's got a darn good chance of being a better album than TJT, but of course no one will ever admit it.

thanks for the time,

Lance.
 
Muad'zin said:
Nah, Atom Bomb is damn good but not brilliant. It lacks timeless classics JT had like Where the streets and With or without you. I highly doubt that if they continue to tour a few tours later they will still play anything from this album.
Click to expand...

Right. Timeless. The album is out for fuckin' THREE DAYS! How can you tell what is timeless and what isn't?
 
I tend to agree about dj's validity of the Timeless issue. Maybe this could come into play a year from now, but probably not sooner.
 
For me, who thinks JT is at least in the top 15 All-Time (if not Top 10) for Rock and Roll albums, and AB is in the top 25-30, I am putting, right now, HTDAAB at #2 behind JT in U2's all-time catalog.

They go like this for me:

1. Joshua Tree
2. Atomic Bomb
3. Achtung Baby
4. War/Boy (tied)
5. ATYCLB
6. Fire

Bono and the boyz speak to me because a lot of the sound hearkens back to the day when I really began to love U2. I hear Boy in Vertigo and ABOY. I hear a recording that is more guitar driven than some of their past stuff (at least since AB) and that has always been U2's strong point. It feels gutsy and relevant to me because it says to the pretenders to the throne, "You don't even know what Rock is."

As for why JT is better to me than AB, the reason is simple. The greatest ballad on AB, "One" (even though it is beautiful), is eclipsed by not one (WOWY) not two (ISHFWILF) but THREE (RTSS) ballads with more pure power and beauty than most bands could create in their career. The strongest rock songs on AB, (FLY, Real Thing, UTEOTW) are eclipsed by BTBS, and the Tour de Force Streets which on album nearly has enough power to light a city block, and live during the JT tour had nearly enough power that if it could be housed would be a viable alternative to nuclear power.

This isn't even including the second side, Trip Through Your Wires, In God's Country, One Tree Hill, Red Hill Mining Town and the VASTLY underestimated Exit. Granted, I love AB. It is one of my favorite recordings ever, but if I only could take one rock and roll Desert Island Disk, it would be JT if only for Streets alone.

As for Bomb, listening to the opening of COBL (the keybords) gives me chills for the first time since hearing the opening to Streets. I like having that feeling again with a U2 album.
 
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the band needs to ditch the Pro Tools thing and go back to analog, a la White Stripes. I still cannot get over that Elephant was made in two weeks. wow.

The thing is, Bono's voice really NEEDS Pro tools. Or does it? Analog would make it sound fuller, but probably a bit rougher.

I don't know, I prefer the warmth and organic sound of analog vs. PT.
 
about the new album being the best … ONLY TIME WILL TELL. three days after AB or JT was released, did everyone realize it's brilliance? I don't think so. You might have heard Very good or great, but not timeless, classic masterpiece right from the get go.
HTDAAB will be considering better than AB in time, and challenge JT to the finish line of U2's career.
 
Song for song, I think HTDAAB wins. But Joshua Tree is iconic in a way HTDAAB never will be. JT marked U2 finally making the album they had the potential of making. JT broke U2 into the mainstream on the band's own terms, and completely redefined what 'guitar music' was, along with shattering the idea of 'arena rock' into a million tiny pieces. The Joshua Tree mixed arena rock bombast with personal, heartfelt, emotional and spiritual music like no other album had done before. HTDAAB may be more consistent in terms of song quality (I think the only true 'classics' on JT are WOWY, ISHFWILF, and Streets - though there are many other great ones), but Joshua Tree wins because of what it was and what it did to music. Joshua Tree made U2 who they are today, and it changed the face of music forever.
 
Miggy D, I don't think I could agree with you more. Htdaab I feel is probably a better album musically, and even lyrically than TJT, but that album is something more for U2. TJT is more of a landmark for U2. something more symbolic and well...a musical journey, really :wink:
 
i was just thinking about this very thing last night: what are the classic tunes from JT that make it so classic? i came up with:

WOWY
Streets
I Still …
Running to Stand Still

the rest is good stuff, but… nothing classic. But by association, those songs grades and stature are lifted b/c of the four tunes above imo.
 
HTDAAB will never come close to AB for me, but it might come close to JT and jump over it eventually, not right now though.
 
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