HTDAAB is really immediate. Is that bad?

[ImOuttaControl]

After listening to HTDAAB a few times, I realized how incredibly immediate the entire album feels. It didn't take any "getting into" the songs for me, which is unusual. The only other U2 album that was this immediate for me was ATYCLB. When I got ATYCLB I played it constantly for probably a month, then it went into regular rotation with the other albums. On the other hand...

One of the beauties I always thought about U2 is that it took time to really "get" the music. Pop took me ages to get into, so did Achtung Baby and even The Joshua Tree(more like the 2nd half of it). Achtung Baby and Pop were spinning for months before I was really able to disect them, both lyrically and musically.

Is the fact that HTDAAB is so immediate, much like ATYCLB a bad thing? Do you think the novelty will soon wear off?

 

[Laura M]

Pop frightened me. I stored it behind a stack of cds for about 2 years. Out of sight out of mind.

The few songs I've heard from this new album sounded alright to begin with, after a few listens I'm starting to love them.

 

[ZeroDude]

no just and it'll be alrite, With that said it's great, funny enough i got Achtung first time round i think mentalists are the only ones who got it, the Beatles and Stones are immediate

 

[FullonEdge2]

I must say it's more immediate than some of their albums, but even I have not quite caught on to Yahweh yet.

 

[deltau922]

I think I need to quit listening to it on the damn computer before I can fully grasp it.

 

[Laura M]

I think I need to quit listening to it on the damn computer before I can fully grasp it.

There is something about hearing it for the first time in your cd player after tearing it from the shiny packaging indeed

(If I had a penny for everytime I've said that recently )

 

[deltau922]

Well I can listen in my car on my ipod once I get off work. I listened to it once through this morning, and when I went out at lunch I listened to some tracks in the car and they were a million times better.

But I'll still buy the CD

 

[Marko]

After listening to HTDAAB a few times, I realized how incredibly immediate the entire album feels. It didn't take any "getting into" the songs for me, which is unusual. The only other U2 album that was this immediate for me was ATYCLB. When I got ATYCLB I played it constantly for probably a month, then it went into regular rotation with the other albums. On the other hand...

One of the beauties I always thought about U2 is that it took time to really "get" the music. Pop took me ages to get into, so did Achtung Baby and even The Joshua Tree(more like the 2nd half of it). Achtung Baby and Pop were spinning for months before I was really able to disect them, both lyrically and musically.

Is the fact that HTDAAB is so immediate, much like ATYCLB a bad thing? Do you think the novelty will soon wear off?

I'll try to anwser with another question - How do you explain the fact that most of the people on this forum haild "Vertigo" as the best U2 song ever on that first day when it leaked? And now everybody (not literaly but.. ) is saying that all other songs on this CD are better than "Vertigo"!
I think - the more imidiate the songs are the sooner it will fade away. At least that is the fact in my case - AB was nowhere near imidiate, nor was POP or Zooropa, and today those are my favorite songs.
I had to listen to Light My Way or Acrobat for 150 times to appritiate them completely, but now after 13 years I can put them on repeat any day and listen to any of those songs for hours and hours.. On other hand, I imidiately liked Walk On, and today I like it, but I don't love it - it's like 115th U2 song on my list..

so - basicaly - I'm afraid that this will wear off quickly... it allready seems a little bit to bland, boring maybe...

I don't know how to express myself - but the biggest issue that I have with this CD just doesen't excite me.. I want to feel excitement when I listen to U2, but these songs just can't do it...

there is a one hope - tour! ATYCLB is my leas favorite U2 cd (together with RH and October) but it was the perfection when played live - on par with ZOO TV... and as I plan to catch them in UK, in Spain and mybe in France this coming year I think that I'll enjoy enough..

rant off..

 

[sue4u2]

Re: Re: HTDAAB is really immediate. Is that bad?

I don't know how to express myself - but the biggest issue that I have with this CD just doesen't excite me.. I want to feel excitement when I listen to U2, but these songs just can't do it...

I think I understand what you are saying. It excited me while I was downloading it Fri & Sat, however I didn't feel that initial Oh My God about any paticular track.

Untill today that is.
I only have it on my iTunes playlist so I'm just listening while on line or around the computer.
Just this afternoon however, I keep turning it up on certain songs, i.e. L&POE, then Crumbs from yr Table is blowing me away. OOTS is making me reach for the sound button along with A Man and a Woman.
Then there's Vertigo that still just makes me want to
Can't wait to hear this through surround sound when it arrives
KEEP LISTENING or not. Whatever works for you

 

[bcrt2000]

I don't know I thought only Vertigo, SYCMIOYO, COBL & ABOY were the only immediate ones... and even SYCMIOYO isn't immediate, unless you're a non-u2 fan because the hook is so NOT u2

 

[AtomicBono]

SYCMIOYO isn't immediate, unless you're a non-u2 fan because the hook is so NOT u2

I agree, I liked it at first but it didn't have nearly the impact on me it has now.

I don't think immediate is a bad thing...then again I guess I'm kind of backwards, at the tender age of 9 Pop pulled me into the world of U2 and I "got" it right away - at least, I got Discotheque, it took me a few hundred listens to finally force myself to go onto the next track once I did I was glad though...and when I finally got Achtung Baby I'm pretty sure I loved it from the first listen... some of the songs anyway, I'm sure others grew on me.

...on the other hand it's taken me countless times to get into Boy and October, and I'm STILL not really into October. I dunno, it has some great songs, but together on the whole album I get lost in this atmosphere...I dunno...I'm weird.


How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is brilliant. Vertigo's not the best song on the album by far (and I sure never hailed it as U2's best song ever, that would be silly) but it's still a bloody good song and I don't skip it to get to the tracks I haven't heard as much... after the one billionth time I still feel like rawkin out everytime I hear it!

 

[Bono's shades]

Isn't "immediate" all in the ear of the listener anyway? I fell in love with Achtung Baby the first time I heard it and couldn't stop playing it for months - and I still love it to death.

 

[AtomicBono]

Isn't "immediate" all in the ear of the listener anyway? I fell in love with Achtung Baby the first time I heard it and couldn't stop playing it for months - and I still love it to death.

exactly.

edit: I forgot to type my one word response

 

[Turnthedarkoff]

Sorry to be contrary

I think this is one of the least immediate albums I've ever heard.

I mean COBL takes like an hour to get to the hook (and even then the hook is burried). Miracle drug is another one that is just impenetrable at first.

I mean, I listen to the record and I don't hear any singles except Vertigo, L&POE and ABOY.

In fact, on my first listen, I was really dissappointed. The only ones that got me at first were L&POE and Crumbs.

BUT...

Now, after the fifth listen, all of the songs are opening up, and I suddenly realize how incredible this album really is. AB was like that when I first got it. I loved Mysterious Ways, but I thought the rest of it was really dull.

Today, I consider AB to be the finest Album ever produced (better than Revolver, Pet Sounds, Dark Side, or OK Computer).

Part of me worries that the album is too complex to be on the radio.

Compared with ATYCLB (the most direct and immediate record of U2's catalogue) this one is KID A impenetrable. But that's a good thing. Kid A is fantastic. The dense and diverse melodic structure of HTDAAB is AWESOME! It feels to me like U2 decided that rather than inovate sonically (as they did in the past) or condense all of their songwriting into 10 great simple pop tracks + Grace (ATYCLB) they have innovated in the writing, by making an album loaded with complex structures that curve inward and then expand. This record makes ATYCLB seem almost childish.

I really like this one, more and more with each listen.

My only knock is that I would like a few more dark rockers (Like Vertigo, L&P and ABOY). For my money L&P is the best track U2 have done since AB. But we'll see, Sat night I really hated COBL and now it's starting to climb the list of my favorite tracks. Same with SYCMIOYO. I really didn't like it at first,and then last night it made me cry it opened up so big.

I just hope people like it. A record this complex isn't supposed to get over on the radio.

turnthedarkoff

PS. 1) People always bag on POP and Howie B, those people can FUCK OFF. (What's my name? Let's see who the real music lovers are here.)

2) Part of me thinks they did Vertigo just to say "Yeah we could do ATYCLB Part 2, but we'd rather do something with more heft. So eat it you wankers."

 

[one4u2]

Pop frightened me. I stored it behind a stack of cds for about 2 years. Out of sight out of mind.

[/QUOT

Relisten to it, it takes some time to realize it's an excellent cd!

 

[one4u2]

Re: Sorry to be contrary

I think this is one of the least immediate albums I've ever heard.

I mean COBL takes like an hour to get to the hook (and even then the hook is burried).

Are we listening to the same album /song?????

 

[Turnthedarkoff]

Re: Re: Sorry to be contrary

Are we listening to the same album /song?????

Play any of the first 9 songs of ATYCBL and then listen to COBL, trust me we're listening to the same Album.

And yes the phrase "city of blinding lights" and the hook of "Oh You look so beautiful tonight" takes nearly 2 minutes to arrive in a five minute song. That is burried in my book. Then you add into that the way the jangly guitar line that we all think of as edge trades places with the piano in the first establishment of the melody. This is much less direct or immediate that Walk on or anything on ATYCLB (except maybe Kite and NY).

Like I said, this one is much less direct than the last. And that's a good thing. It would have been a big let down if it held no surprises, and instead (especially after Vertigo) it's nothing but surprises.

IMHO

turnthedarkoff

 

[If you shout...]

I don't necessarily think that an album's needing to be dissected and grappled with in order to be appreciated has to be the calling card of a great album; at the same time, I don't think that instant accessibility has to disqualify an album from greatness.

The first time I listened to both Achtung Baby and Pop , I loved them; I still do, and I rank them as U2's first and third best albums, respectively. At the same time, later tracks on The Joshua Tree took some time for me to fully appreciate, and now every song on that album is classic to me and I think it's U2's second best album ever.

I think (MAN, this is hard to articulate...) that there are different kinds of accessibility and depth. For me, All That You Can't Leave Behind was accessible in a shallow way; I LOVED LOVED LOVED that album when it first came out, but I still remember suddenly realizing the next September that I simply did not listen to the album, any more...and that I had no desire to. I still don't. I just break it out every now and then to catch a song or two, here and there.

I unfortunately recognize myself finding How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb accessible in much the same way that I found All That... to be accessible, four years ago. It's not the same sort of accessible that I thought Achtung Baby was.

So what am I saying...? GOOD QUESTION. I guess that I'm saying that I fear the new album's accessibility may end up being a bad thing once the tour is over and we've had some time to sit on it. In twenty years (and this is all TOTAL conjecture...what the fuck do I know, right now, in the grand scheme of things?), I don't know that people will still be listening to this album in the same way they'll listen to the tunes the band broke out with in '87 and '91...

 

[ADecentMelody]

After listening to HTDAAB a few times, I realized how incredibly immediate the entire album feels. It didn't take any "getting into" the songs for me, which is unusual. The only other U2 album that was this immediate for me was ATYCLB. When I got ATYCLB I played it constantly for probably a month, then it went into regular rotation with the other albums. On the other hand...

One of the beauties I always thought about U2 is that it took time to really "get" the music. Pop took me ages to get into, so did Achtung Baby and even The Joshua Tree(more like the 2nd half of it). Achtung Baby and Pop were spinning for months before I was really able to disect them, both lyrically and musically.

Is the fact that HTDAAB is so immediate, much like ATYCLB a bad thing? Do you think the novelty will soon wear off?

I hear what you're saying. I'm kinda worried about it too. Although, there are a few that are not so immediate to me that have gotten better already (good sign!) like Miracle Drug, A Man and a Woman, Yahweh, SYCMIOYO, One Step Closer.

Original of the Species is still my favorite and I hope it doesn't wear off. That was the one thing about U2 that is unique. It takes a while to get into them. But once you do, you're clamped for good.

 

[Matthew_Page2000]

Re: Re: HTDAAB is really immediate. Is that bad?

so - basicaly - I'm afraid that this will wear off quickly... it allready seems a little bit to bland, boring maybe...

I don't know how to express myself - but the biggest issue that I have with this CD just doesen't excite me.. I want to feel excitement when I listen to U2, but these songs just can't do it...

rant off..

Download the songs to your Ipod and then jump off the side of a mountain while listening to it. Now that's exciting.

 

[Bunbury]

Favorite tracks so far Vertigo, Miracle Drug, SYCMITOYO, Love and Peace, COBL (as much as I hate to admit it this song has a Coldplayish feel), CFUYT, and OFTS

So about half, the other half honestly sound like fillers , maybe I need to listen a couple of more time, but the problem is that, I shouldn't be listening to it so many times to like it, it should be on the first time I didn't have this problem with POP or any of the previous albums, WTF is going on????