nurse chrissi
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
This a the link to a great iPod/Music website - iPod Garage
It is also nice to see a good review by a fan of u2 - who might not know every detail about the album like we do
iPod Garage
Garage Music: is this the best U2 album ever? Believe it or not, yes.
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
Bill Palmer
Hey kids, Garage Music lives! I know, I know, it's only technically still Tuesday. Nothing like a little dental hijinks to throw you massively off your schedule, but I'll be darned if something as minor as (the lack of) a front tooth is going to keep me from getting this week's Garage Music column out the door on the correct day. So here it is, in all its glory. And trust me, it's a good one...well, if you're a U2 fan anyway.
You see, I'm sure that quite a lot happened in the world of music this week, but I really couldn't tell you too much about it, because I sort of spent all week getting completely lost in learning How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the new release from our friends U2. And although I've had about 168 hours now to digest the darn thing, I still can't begin to get enough of it. I'll put it this way: seeing as how U2 has been on an upswing so far this decade, it didn't surprise me at all that their latest release would challenge 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1992's Achtung Baby for the title of "Best U2 album ever." And it really didn't surprise me that this new album succeeding in doing so. But what blows my mind is that, at this point at least, the competition's not even close.
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb may just be the best album ever made by anyone.
This album is so stunningly strong, it's just absurd. I listen to HTDAAB and I hear seven, maybe eight potential singles. And I'm not just talking about songs that I personally think should be released as singles; I'm talking about them all actually making it onto radio and succeeding. Vertigo, that first single that doubles as an iPod advertisement? Sure, it's a strong song, but I think might actually be the weakest track on the album. There's nothing wrong with Vertigo at all, it's just that the nine tracks that follow it are just that good.
But rather than me simply filling the rest of the page with superlatives, I'll touch on each song individually, in the order that they appear on the album:
Vertigo: you've already heard it 52,348 times by now, so there's not much more that really needs to be said. One thing, though, that doesn't necessarily stand out in the TV spot is that the song actually has a bit of a well-disguised Led Zeppelin "Rock 'n Roll" undercurrent to it -- listen for it the next time you hear it. Oh, that, and the fact that this song never really does get old, no matter how overplayed it is at this point.
Miracle Drug: only U2, and I mean only U2, could start off an album with an iPod ad that flows directly into an earnest song about AIDS treatment, without missing a beat. It's almost as if Bono is declaring that he's going to sit you down for an hour and tell you some stories whose only connection is that they all mean something to him. After a gentle introduction, the song begins to build steam in a way that, musically if obviously not lyrically, evokes memories of the Sunday Bloody Sunday era. And for U2 fans, that can only be a good thing.
Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own: Here's a song that may actually (and I shudder to even write this) surpass One as U2's best ballad of all time. Written as a message to Bono's late father, there's a realness and a rawness here that finally bursts through with the lyrics "Can you hear me when I sing? You're the reason I sing, you're the reason why the opera's in me." If you can get through that midsection without welling up a bit, then as far as I'm concerned, you're just not alive. Seriously, be careful about listening to this song while driving. It will take your mind to other places than the road.
Love and Peace or Else: once again changing up styles at just the right time and in just the right way, this song comes on with a low, pounding rhythm section that instantly evokes comparison to Depeche Mode. But the difference here is that as the song goes on, the song actually manages to lift itself up and dance all over the top of its foundation...followed by a guitar feature that's fuzz-laden even by The Edge's standards.
City of Blinding Lights: at the end of the previous track, Bono asks "Where is the love?", and fittingly enough, in this song he answers his own question. After a soaring eighty-four second opening instrumental montage worthy of The Joshua Tree's "Where The Streets Have No Name," Bono punctures the landscape with a staccato "Oh...you...look...so...beautiful...tonight" that simply couldn't be better placed. This song is an instant U2 classic, and the only shame of it is that when this song eventually gets released a single sometime in mid-2005, the radio edit will probably feature no more than a fraction of those opening eighty-four seconds.
All Because of You: Somewhere in between "In God's Country" and the folksier moments of Rattle and Hum lies the perfect folk-rock song, and this just may be it. Don't let the simple chorus fool you here; there's a lot going on in this song both musically and lyrically. No worries, though, because you'll get to hear it several hundred thousand times when it hits the radio waves next month as the album's second single. It turns out that when the band was riding around New York City performing on the back of a truck last week, what they were actually doing is shooting the video for this song. No word on whether Steve Jobs was driving the truck, flaunting an iPod out the window. Just for fun, listen for the part of the song where Bono refers to himself as an "intellectual tortoise." It's mispronounced to fit the song's rhyming pattern, but it's in there.
A Man and a Woman: Once again the album shifts style and direction just when you were looking for it. If Bono's attempt to bring the Spanish in the opening line of Vertigo seemed like a hollow promise, then it pays off in this song, as the music travels as deeply into a latin feel as I can ever remember the band going. You get the feeling that U2 always had this kind of song in them, and now you finally get to hear it.
Crumbs From Your Table: at some point, every album inevitably runs out of gas, because there's only so much great music a band can make, and the lesser tracks are almost always placed near the end, as if to bury them where no one will find them. But what's truly remarkable about this album is that you keep waiting for it to fall off a cliff, and yet it never does. As each of the later tracks progresses, you keep thinking, "ooh, I like that, I like where that song went." You know and I know that this just doesn't happen on ninety-nine percent of all albums you've ever listened to. Give this song a first-listen, and you'll swear it's about the decaying relationship between two people. Then do your homework, find out that it's actually Bono's take on the way Superpower nation(s) deal with the starving third world, and then go back and listen to it again -- it's a whole different song. It also might be even catchier than Vertigo. I haven't heard anything about this song being released as single, but perhaps there's hope for a release date in 2006. And don't be surprised if the album is still at the top of the charts at that time as well.
One Step Closer: it's tempting to write this song off as merely a return to what worked so well in Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own, but this song builds to the point where it stands on its own as well. Acoustic guitar, stretches of near-silent percussion flowing into gently rolling drums, it's just a beautiful landscape.
Original of the Species: if the album ended with the previous track, you'd go home plenty satisfied. But like Rasputin, HTDAAB rises up one more time, for one more change in direction, and this time Bono brings the sarcasm. Just for kicks, about halfway through the song, he drops the line "some people got way too much confidence, baby" like...well, like an atomic bomb. For a moment, you almost think it's 1992 again. It took me about four listens to grasp what could cause Steve Jobs to declare that this is his favorite song on the album, but now I can see it pretty clearly. Songs this slow don't usually stay in your head all day.
Yahweh: somewhere along the line, Bono began a tradition of spending the last song of each album talking to God, which I suppose is reassuring when you realize that at least he doesn't think that he is God. In lyrics that work far better than they should, Bono offers God shoes, a shirt, his hands, a mouth, the city, and finally, his heart. Finally capping off with the line "take this heart and make it break," the only heartbreak around here is that the album has come to an end.
But then again, like with a lot of things, there's always the chance to start over at the beginning, just to see how well Bono's conversation with God manages to flow into the iPod advertisement that is Vertigo. Not surprisingly, that particular unintended transition flows quite nicely as well.
Garage Music will be back next week, and promises to focus on some stuff other than U2...well, maybe. See you next Tuesday. In the mean time, if you run into me on the street, please try to resist the urge to make fun of my temporary lack of a front tooth. Just don't ask me to smile.
It is also nice to see a good review by a fan of u2 - who might not know every detail about the album like we do
iPod Garage
Garage Music: is this the best U2 album ever? Believe it or not, yes.
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
Bill Palmer
Hey kids, Garage Music lives! I know, I know, it's only technically still Tuesday. Nothing like a little dental hijinks to throw you massively off your schedule, but I'll be darned if something as minor as (the lack of) a front tooth is going to keep me from getting this week's Garage Music column out the door on the correct day. So here it is, in all its glory. And trust me, it's a good one...well, if you're a U2 fan anyway.
You see, I'm sure that quite a lot happened in the world of music this week, but I really couldn't tell you too much about it, because I sort of spent all week getting completely lost in learning How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the new release from our friends U2. And although I've had about 168 hours now to digest the darn thing, I still can't begin to get enough of it. I'll put it this way: seeing as how U2 has been on an upswing so far this decade, it didn't surprise me at all that their latest release would challenge 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1992's Achtung Baby for the title of "Best U2 album ever." And it really didn't surprise me that this new album succeeding in doing so. But what blows my mind is that, at this point at least, the competition's not even close.
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb may just be the best album ever made by anyone.
This album is so stunningly strong, it's just absurd. I listen to HTDAAB and I hear seven, maybe eight potential singles. And I'm not just talking about songs that I personally think should be released as singles; I'm talking about them all actually making it onto radio and succeeding. Vertigo, that first single that doubles as an iPod advertisement? Sure, it's a strong song, but I think might actually be the weakest track on the album. There's nothing wrong with Vertigo at all, it's just that the nine tracks that follow it are just that good.
But rather than me simply filling the rest of the page with superlatives, I'll touch on each song individually, in the order that they appear on the album:
Vertigo: you've already heard it 52,348 times by now, so there's not much more that really needs to be said. One thing, though, that doesn't necessarily stand out in the TV spot is that the song actually has a bit of a well-disguised Led Zeppelin "Rock 'n Roll" undercurrent to it -- listen for it the next time you hear it. Oh, that, and the fact that this song never really does get old, no matter how overplayed it is at this point.
Miracle Drug: only U2, and I mean only U2, could start off an album with an iPod ad that flows directly into an earnest song about AIDS treatment, without missing a beat. It's almost as if Bono is declaring that he's going to sit you down for an hour and tell you some stories whose only connection is that they all mean something to him. After a gentle introduction, the song begins to build steam in a way that, musically if obviously not lyrically, evokes memories of the Sunday Bloody Sunday era. And for U2 fans, that can only be a good thing.
Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own: Here's a song that may actually (and I shudder to even write this) surpass One as U2's best ballad of all time. Written as a message to Bono's late father, there's a realness and a rawness here that finally bursts through with the lyrics "Can you hear me when I sing? You're the reason I sing, you're the reason why the opera's in me." If you can get through that midsection without welling up a bit, then as far as I'm concerned, you're just not alive. Seriously, be careful about listening to this song while driving. It will take your mind to other places than the road.
Love and Peace or Else: once again changing up styles at just the right time and in just the right way, this song comes on with a low, pounding rhythm section that instantly evokes comparison to Depeche Mode. But the difference here is that as the song goes on, the song actually manages to lift itself up and dance all over the top of its foundation...followed by a guitar feature that's fuzz-laden even by The Edge's standards.
City of Blinding Lights: at the end of the previous track, Bono asks "Where is the love?", and fittingly enough, in this song he answers his own question. After a soaring eighty-four second opening instrumental montage worthy of The Joshua Tree's "Where The Streets Have No Name," Bono punctures the landscape with a staccato "Oh...you...look...so...beautiful...tonight" that simply couldn't be better placed. This song is an instant U2 classic, and the only shame of it is that when this song eventually gets released a single sometime in mid-2005, the radio edit will probably feature no more than a fraction of those opening eighty-four seconds.
All Because of You: Somewhere in between "In God's Country" and the folksier moments of Rattle and Hum lies the perfect folk-rock song, and this just may be it. Don't let the simple chorus fool you here; there's a lot going on in this song both musically and lyrically. No worries, though, because you'll get to hear it several hundred thousand times when it hits the radio waves next month as the album's second single. It turns out that when the band was riding around New York City performing on the back of a truck last week, what they were actually doing is shooting the video for this song. No word on whether Steve Jobs was driving the truck, flaunting an iPod out the window. Just for fun, listen for the part of the song where Bono refers to himself as an "intellectual tortoise." It's mispronounced to fit the song's rhyming pattern, but it's in there.
A Man and a Woman: Once again the album shifts style and direction just when you were looking for it. If Bono's attempt to bring the Spanish in the opening line of Vertigo seemed like a hollow promise, then it pays off in this song, as the music travels as deeply into a latin feel as I can ever remember the band going. You get the feeling that U2 always had this kind of song in them, and now you finally get to hear it.
Crumbs From Your Table: at some point, every album inevitably runs out of gas, because there's only so much great music a band can make, and the lesser tracks are almost always placed near the end, as if to bury them where no one will find them. But what's truly remarkable about this album is that you keep waiting for it to fall off a cliff, and yet it never does. As each of the later tracks progresses, you keep thinking, "ooh, I like that, I like where that song went." You know and I know that this just doesn't happen on ninety-nine percent of all albums you've ever listened to. Give this song a first-listen, and you'll swear it's about the decaying relationship between two people. Then do your homework, find out that it's actually Bono's take on the way Superpower nation(s) deal with the starving third world, and then go back and listen to it again -- it's a whole different song. It also might be even catchier than Vertigo. I haven't heard anything about this song being released as single, but perhaps there's hope for a release date in 2006. And don't be surprised if the album is still at the top of the charts at that time as well.
One Step Closer: it's tempting to write this song off as merely a return to what worked so well in Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own, but this song builds to the point where it stands on its own as well. Acoustic guitar, stretches of near-silent percussion flowing into gently rolling drums, it's just a beautiful landscape.
Original of the Species: if the album ended with the previous track, you'd go home plenty satisfied. But like Rasputin, HTDAAB rises up one more time, for one more change in direction, and this time Bono brings the sarcasm. Just for kicks, about halfway through the song, he drops the line "some people got way too much confidence, baby" like...well, like an atomic bomb. For a moment, you almost think it's 1992 again. It took me about four listens to grasp what could cause Steve Jobs to declare that this is his favorite song on the album, but now I can see it pretty clearly. Songs this slow don't usually stay in your head all day.
Yahweh: somewhere along the line, Bono began a tradition of spending the last song of each album talking to God, which I suppose is reassuring when you realize that at least he doesn't think that he is God. In lyrics that work far better than they should, Bono offers God shoes, a shirt, his hands, a mouth, the city, and finally, his heart. Finally capping off with the line "take this heart and make it break," the only heartbreak around here is that the album has come to an end.
But then again, like with a lot of things, there's always the chance to start over at the beginning, just to see how well Bono's conversation with God manages to flow into the iPod advertisement that is Vertigo. Not surprisingly, that particular unintended transition flows quite nicely as well.
Garage Music will be back next week, and promises to focus on some stuff other than U2...well, maybe. See you next Tuesday. In the mean time, if you run into me on the street, please try to resist the urge to make fun of my temporary lack of a front tooth. Just don't ask me to smile.
Since I've listened to the cd and DVD. Sounds like something positive needs to be inserted there as well. I don't know if you actually had to buy the album from them to post, but I'll find out...They need to be blitzed..
