Was listening to Songs of Innocence today after a very long time. I’m shocked at just how vanilla and dull it is. Slap bang middle of the road music - incredibly disappointing and shockingly unambitious, it is without doubt the worst album U2 have ever released.
They clawed it back somewhat with Songs of Experience, quite a feat after the risible singles that were released prior to it, but in particular, Love Is All We Have Left, Lights of Home, The Little Things and 13 saved their bacon considerably.
They have to take a much more adventurous route for the next album. That doesn’t mean reverting back to 90s electronica (that phase as great as it is is over) but doing something very unique and original. It’s just a shame then that the original conception of No Line never really came to fruition as they decided to bring in coffee salesman Will.I.Am to help them write shit songs. But something along the lines of ‘futuristic hymns’ or immersing themselves in Arabic folk music with Eno and Lanois was something to really get excited about, and if they’d only developed that concept more comprehensively and not resorted to pathetic ‘rawk’ music that fucked the album up, it could have been their best work since the early 90s.
I don’t need to hear another U2 song with a big pop chorus and Chris Martin style ‘woahs’ ever again. They’ve done all that, they should have a bit more fun and adventure next time around - I’d rather a studio album with no concern for how it should sound live, a bit like how Bowie made Blackstar. Lord knows why they’d continue making MOR radio baiting songs when they don’t even get played in radio anymore. Unless they want to cater to Cliff Richard loving Radio 2 fans.
And for god sake, stick to one or two producers rather than a billion. Too many cooks is what ultimately ruined the Innocence and Experience project, along with ultimately shocking creative voids at the helm like Ryan Tedder.
An album with Andy Barlow, who is really the only producer to come out of the entire sessions with a greater reputation, would be interesting. Going back to Eno and Lanois would be exciting too (as said No Line had the potential but the band themselves fucked it up) or at least a modern producer of exciting talent, like Jon Hopkins or the fantastic Erland Cooper who combines ambient with folk.
Perhaps an introspective ‘folktronica’ album is in order - keeping up with their musical invention and creating folk songs with a modern twist, they’re from a country where they could really plunder into their cultural backwaters.
Good luck getting that image out of your mind.
