New Best Of: What about M$H and ATYCLB?

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Should The Best Of 1990-2000 include tracks from the M$H soundtrack and ATYCLB?

  • Yes; it belongs on the upcoming compilation.

    Votes: 7 20.0%
  • No; save them for The Best Of 2000-2010.

    Votes: 28 80.0%

  • Total voters
    35

Achtung Bubba

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Here's part of the latest rumor about the second Best Of release. From youtwo.net:

The exact title of the "Best Of" compilation is not know yet, but it is thought from various rumors that the album will cover the years 1990-2001.

And yet...

Early December 2002: New U2 "Best Of 1990 - 2000" DVD release. This DVD will include the video clips to all tracks from the CD as well as special features.

If the DVD is indeed titled "Best of 90-00," the new album will probably be titled likewise... which still leaves unanswered the question on everyone's mind:

Will the album consider releases from the year 2000 - the Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack and All That You Can't Leave Behind?

If the album covered 91-00, the answer would probably be yes; it would mean that each year from 1980 on would be covered by one album, and only one album. 2000 would be covered by 91-00, so the 2000 releases would have to be included. Likewise, if the album covered 90-01, the M$H soundtrack and ATYCLB would obviously be covered.

But if the 90-00 title is correct, we will have the "bookend" years covered by two albums. The only 1990 release, "Night and Day," could have been included on either 80-90 or 90-00. (I believe it's clear that N&D is a proper precursor the Zoo era, rather than an epilogue to Rattle & Hum; it's better suited for 90-00.)

The year 2000 is another "bookend" year. It could be reserved for the next Best Of - The Best Of 2000-2010.

(Wouldn't that be cool? Our Boys making great music until 2010....)

So, U2 could put on "Stateless" and "Walk On" on this upcoming compilation, or they could wait for the next decade.

What do you think should happen?


Personally, I think they should wait, for three reasons:

1. There are already plenty of songs for this Best Of. Many will point out that there were only three official studio releases in the 90's - Zooropa being a happy accident, Passengers becoming a bit too odd to be called a proper U2 relase. I grant the obvious, but that's still more than enough quality material.

"Night and Day"

"The Fly"
"Mysterious Ways"
"One"
"Even Better than the Real Thing"
"Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses"
"Until the End of the World"

(UTEOTW is the fan-favorite from Achtung Baby - like "Bad," it is a song that probably should have been a single.)

"Numb"
"Lemon"
"Stay"
"The First Time"

(Recall that "The First Time" found its way onto the M$H soundtrack.)

"Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me"

"Discotheque"
"Staring at the Sun"
"Last Night on Earth"
"Please"
"If God Will Send His Angels"
"Gone"

(Gone is POP's "should have been a single.")

Include the Passengers' "Miss Sarajevo" and "Your Blue Room," and you already have twenty prime candidates for fifteen tracks.

2. All That You Can't Leave Behind does not belong with Achtung Baby and POP. The difference between POP and ATYCLB is as palpable as the gulf between Rattle & Hum and Achtung Baby. Certainly, there are bridges between the two pairs of albums ("God Part II" and "The Fly"; "Wake Up Dead Man" and "Peace on Earth"), but the differences dominate.

It would be like including Achtung Baby on the first Best Of.

3. It would undercut ATYCLB's total sales. Even though the album has slipped out of the many charts, it still sells a few copies each week; a handful of people finally decide to try out the album on the strength of singles like "Beautiful Day" and "Stuck in a Moment." As Boy, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby have already shown, those sales add up over time.

It's one thing to release a compilation ten years after the fact (1988's Rattle & Hum, 1998's The Best Of 80-90). It's one thing to release a compilation four years after the release of the lukewarmly received POP.

But All That You Can't Leave Behind was released less than two years ago. Each of its four singles won at least one Grammy, and the album is responsible for seven Grammys over the course of two years. Its tour was a phenomenal success, and U2 is once again considered by many to be biggest band in the world.

This album has legs.


What do you think?
 
I agree with you, basically for the reasons you stated. Besides, using material from ATYCLB would mean leaving off some of the 90s work and I want as much of it on there as possible. :D
 
This is a cut and paste from what i wrote in another similar thread. Leave ATYCLB for the next one!

ATYCLB to be included!!!?!?!?!?!?! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!

First of all there is enough material achtung - pop to make a greatest hits. No one says they have to have 17 songs on the album. Make it 14 with 2 new songs included. That means with Hold Me THrill me and Miss S., they would only need 10 songs from Achtung - Pop to comprise the album. 5 singles from Achtung Baby, Lemon and Stay, Disco, Staring, and Please rounds it out.

To me they are not gaining any sales by including the latest singles. People are burnt out on those songs right now. If they wanted to own them, they probably already bought the album within the last year or two. This also stunts future sales for ATYCLB. Why would the casual listener buy ATYCLB when they have all the big singles plus other 90's greatest hits on the Best of...?

And lastly, They are working on a new album right now. That album may have no hits on it, or just one or two. then how many more albums will U2 make? 2 more, for a total of three, before 2010? Maybe a total of 4 if they are lucky. They would have to have at least 3 to 4 hits off each album to comprise yet another Best Of... album. This is VERY wishful thinking. By keeping ATYCLB off of this one, they are sitting there with FOUR guaranteed hit songs to include on a future Best of...


Stupid move to include ATYCLB in my opinion.
 
sulawesigirl4 said:
I agree with you, basically for the reasons you stated. Besides, using material from ATYCLB would mean leaving off some of the 90s work and I want as much of it on there as possible. :D

:yes: Even though ATYCLB came out in 2000, most of its singles were released in 2001...And it just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the 90s stuff.
 
woo hoo!!! i agree 10000000% with every single word everyone previously wrote. pleeeeeease, for the love of god guys, wait for 00-10 to put atyclb and m$h on there, instead of 90-00. (not that they're reading this, lol.) like it's been said, at the very least, i don't think they mesh well with the sounds of their 90's stuff. achtung baby, zooropa, passengers, pop...all of these albums are experimental, even a bit electronic-ish at times. atyclb would sound weird in comparison. i just can't imagine hearing something like numb, and then hearing stuck in a moment. it's just too weird.
 
While I have to agree with you all about the fact that ATYCLB doesn't fit in with the band's 90's material, the new album is probably going to feature the singles from ATYCLB anyway. According to a few reports, the band was recently working on leftover tracks from ATYCLB, which will probably end up being the new singles on Best Of. This obviously would mean that the ATYCLB singles will show up on the new compilation. Meanwhile, there just aren't enough big hits from the 90's period alone to warrant it a "Greatest Hits" compilation. Zooropa didn't have a single song with strong radio play here in the states, while Discotheque and Staring at the Sun were the only real hits from Pop. So, if the band wanted to make a compilation like the last one, where every song was a hit, they'd have to take a large number of songs from Achtung Baby. Of course, it isn't a good idea to have six songs from one album on this compilation as it would lead many to think that Achtung Baby isn't a necessary purchase. Finally, the fact that the new album will have 17 tracks, means that it would have to have four or five songs from Pop, which is out of the question since most of those songs weren't hits and the general public didn't really care for the record.

Come November, the album will be released and ATYCLB will have its singles prominently displayed on it. There's just no way around it.
 
BigMacPhisto said:

Come November, the album will be released and ATYCLB will have its singles prominently displayed on it. There's just no way around it.

:yes: We had a discussion about this a few weeks ago...I still stand by my opinion, but oh, well...what can we do? :happy:
 
BigMacPhisto said:
Come November, the album will be released and ATYCLB will have its singles prominently displayed on it. There's just no way around it.

Sad, but true. I really don't think there's any way around it. I don't think that they should include tracks from ATYCLB, but I think that there are some tracks from M$H (TGBHF and Stateless) that would make a nice addition to the compilation. :yes:

I really don't think that Night and Day belongs on the album because a) it's a B-side and b) it's not even an original!:no: Including Night and Day would be like putting that "It's Christmas Baby Please Come Home" song on the Best of 1980-1990.
 
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wertsie said:


Night and Day is going to be on it? :huh:

I don't know if it will be or not, wertsie. I just know that there are a lot of people who would like to see that song included.
 
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kariatari said:


I don't know if it will be or not, wertsie. I just know that there are a lot of people who would like to see that song included.

Ah...I really love their cover of it. Perhaps it'll be on the B-side disc...Wouldn't say that it belongs on the "main" disc though.
 
Still can't vote in polls. I'm logged in.. wtf?

I keep getting this message..

"The action you have attempted could not be performed as your session appears to be invalid. Click the below link to attempt this action again with a new session."

And then a link to retry voting. Each time it doesn't work.

Rrgh. :huh:!!
 
BigMacPhisto:

Assuming that the band and the label choose their titles carefully, I believe that there's a slight difference between a "Best Of" package and a "Greatest Hits" package. The former implies that it will include the highest quality material from the band; the latter implies that it will have the songs with the most success on the pop charts.

The Best Of 80-90 had "I Will Follow," "Bad" (which was never a single), and "October" as a hidden track. Not "every song was a hit," and it was clearly an attempt to chronicle their best songs, not their greatest hits.

(A clear example of a "Greatest Hits" package would be the Beatles "1" album or Aerosmith's latest compilation.)

(While I'm here, how the HELL do you justify new material on a Greatest Hits CD?)

So, U2 could easily justify keeping ATYCLB off this CD: there are enough strong songs between Achtung Baby, Zooropa, Pop, and the handful of minor releases.



kariatari:

I agree that "Night and Day" will probably not make the first disc. Beyond the reasons you give, they probably want to keep it exclusive to Red Hot + Blue to encourage fans to help a worthy cause.

But it is still good evidence that there are plenty of songs that could fill out this album.
 
As far as M$H goes...

My vote goes for Stateless and Falling at Your Feet...

I know I know... FaYF is a Bono/Lanois collaboration, ... but if you have Miss Sarejevo (of which Eno is a collaborator)... you've got to have Falling at Your Feet... that song is a masterpiece of a ballad.
 
I think that they should keep ATYCLB out of the Best of because its too soon for those songs to be on the Best of. I actually think that they are many good songs on the previos ATYCLB albums. Although I have a feeling that tracks from ATYCLB will be included.
:no:
 
Achtung Bubba said:


Assuming that the band and the label choose their titles carefully, I believe that there's a slight difference between a "Best Of" package and a "Greatest Hits" package. The former implies that it will include the highest quality material from the band; the latter implies that it will have the songs with the most success on the pop charts.

The Best Of 80-90 had "I Will Follow," "Bad" (which was never a single), and "October" as a hidden track. Not "every song was a hit," and it was clearly an attempt to chronicle their best songs, not their greatest hits.

Exactly what I was about to say.
 
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