Newspaper "Público" Review

Tyagu_Anaykus · Nov 5, 2004

They gave it 7/10

Well, considering that they're not a music newspaper I think it's pretty good.

I like this quote: "U2 being U2 again" :drool:

Here's the review:

From the last 25 years, side by side with the Echo & The Bunnymen or the Teardrop Explode, they represent the most relevant British music born form what post-punk had to offer.
In the beginning of the 80’s they released Boy and October, two healthy and agile albums, followed by both Epic War and The Unforgettable Fire, subtle records that required more listenings to love it and understand it. Live Aid “Mega-operation” in 1985 consumed the divorce.
From this moment U2 reached the top with The Joshua Tree and Rattle & Hum and tours that stopped the world.

In the 90’s the cycle that was started in the 80’s would suffer a new inflection. Finished the global affirmation, the four Irishmen were giving sign they didn’t know where to go. But solutions for this problem were found. After rising to the top, they had decided to “joke”, to play with their fame and with themselves with Acthung Baby and Zooropa and at the same time they made themselves surrounded with collaborators, like Howie B, capable to insert vitality to the project and to show other ways, like the synthetic Pop.

In 2000, All that You Can’t Leave Behind seemed to indicate a new era. After the pop irony in their last albums, they returned to the simple pleasure of rock, like if after playing with Entertainment culture’s mechanisms they wanted to believe in them, again.

How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb follows the same way, but with a lot more of confidence and power. It’s the album where U2 comes back to be U2 again, without irony.
This an album where a group of four musicians look back and realize that what they know to do better are great, solid rock songs, direct and efficient. It’s, like Bono says, an application of William Burroughs’ rule. To dig into the past, to look around to the present and to try to perspective the future.
It’s not a bold record, but it’s a record from a band that continues to manage the career like no-one else. Through the years they created antibodies and done some unfortunate steps, but they knew how to live with the scars, accepting in a normal way what’s the price to pay when you want universal communication. Even so,
"How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb", has excited several interpretations. Some say it’s a symbolic extension from some of the most politicized lyrics made by them, but also the state of Bono’s mind after the death of his father. They themselves promote the ambiguity, asking “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”. No-one has the answer unless Bono: “Love.”
In U2, what looks like individual transforms itself into something universal, the concrete to abstract and the lyrics continues to have impenetrable allegories, leading to several interpretations that however all people sings in unisonous. But this is the The Edge’s record. The opening theme, Vertigo could be created by The Strokes or by U2 in the earlier 80’s, with crying shouts of “yeah, yeah, yeah” at the end and pungent guitar. The same can be said to Love Peace or Else with the noisy guitar at its limits in a track of pure rock n’roll. Or like in Crumbs from Your Table and City of Blinding Lights with pedals of guitar in evidence. Miracle Drug promise a return to Boy and October like when Bono sings: “i want to trip inside your head, spend the day there, hear the things you haven't said".
In "Sometimes you can't make it on your own", the epic contours and the dramatic tension melt in the falsetto: "it's you when i look into the mirror".
In “A Man and a Woman” the acoustic guitar and the vibrant bass melt in a flutuant sound in one of the most obvious track of the album. But there is also room to ballads like One Step Closer or slower tracks that promote melodic developments in crescendo like Origin of the Species. But the dominant note is that the songs are dynamic and incisive, the metaphoric lyrics from Bono, the arsenal of solutions from The Edge and a kind of production that make us remember the first years of U2. It’s not a Rock Bomb. It’s the rock spirit from the past in a symbiosis to a tender look to the present (The Strokes, White Stripes, The Kills, etc,), packed by the recent melodic solutions with some semi-electronics effects. It’ll be a consistent Love-Bomb story.

Vítor Belanciano

U2
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Island, distri. Universal
(7/10)

you can find the this in

jornal.publico.pt/2004/11/05/Y/TADES01CX02.html

jackboy · Nov 5, 2004

I await David Sinclair's review in the Times newspaper in England...he always tears music apart...nice to see what he thinks

follower · Nov 5, 2004

That´s cool Tyagu

Did you translate the Expresso one as well? That was pretty good IMO.

Btw, I made a transcription into English of an interview with Anton Corbijn to the portuguese newspaper Expresso, the one I mentioned above. It´s available at @U2, as follows:

http://www.atu2.com/news/article.src?ID=3594

Photographs with Music

Expresso (Portugal), October 30, 2004

[Translation from Portuguese to English by Maria T. - thank you.]

Anton Corbijn has been the main U2 photographer since 1982. Anton is 49 years old, and started his career in his homeland, Holland, taking photographs in jazz concerts. In 1979 he went to England to work for New Musical Express. The first job he was given was to take photographs of Bill Haley. Everything worked all right, and he never stopped working on that field. He was responsible for a large number of NME photograph covers. He worked for NME up to 1985. After that he went on the road and photographed names as important as Depeche Mode, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Nirvana, Police, Sex Pistols, Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Tom Waits or R.E.M. He also became a videomaker and he has surprised everyone with his creativity. He's about to finish writing the book U2 & I, and it's on the Irish band that, now, he speaks to Expresso, after having brought them to Portugal for some photographic sessions for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2's 11th album, to be released next November 22nd.

Why did you chose to photograph musicians and rock bands? Was it an option?

Because I adore music. I started by photographing jazz and blues musicians, and later on pop and rock musicians. When I was younger I preferred music to photograph. Taking pictures of musicians was a sort of natural extension for my musical interest. There was a bunch of musicians that I used to like. I discovered a photo camera and the combination seemed obvious to me.

What makes you a professional and a good photographer?

I have no idea. I don't know, it's difficult for me to think about that.

But when you're taking pictures, what do you usually look for? Do you follow your intuition?

I've been always searching, hoping the camera to discover something that is meaningful to me somehow, something pleasant to be seen, you know, along those lines. I've been looking for something huge, whether is in the aesthetic level or in terms of content.

Why did you chose Portugal to make some photograph sessions with U2?

Because I succeeded on dragging them with me.

Do you know Portugal well?

Quite well. I've been there several times. First time was in the '80s to photograph some people and to shoot a video. Later on I made a series of videos with Depeche Mode for Enjoy the Silence, half filmed there, half in England. I shot another video in Portugal, for a German group, the Rain Birds. Also many times, during the winter, it's very cold in England and I prefer to take pictures in places a little warmer. I really enjoy Portugal and I like the people there. Portugal is a very good spot to film, in terms of environment. I also worked with an English producer, Nicholas Cave, who passed away three years ago, he used to have an office in Portugal.

So was that the reason why you brought U2 with you this time?

We needed to take pictures at late April and here (in England) was still cold. On the other hand, if we photographed in London or in Dublin, it would be very difficult for us to feel concentrated. We are all very accustomed to everyday things, we are always making and receiving phone calls, always meeting people. It is difficult to have the band to feel all by themselves, you know, like a whole. The pictures would be much like each one on his own, like pictures of a person alone. It was important to leave Dublin. I had said them to travel to some place no more than two hours flying from Dublin, to the South. They had chosen Barcelona, but I said that I thought Lisbon was better. Then I came first, to search for nice spots, and I took some pictures and I showed to them. They agreed with me.

Did everything work all right during the photograph sessions?

They were fantastic. I chose places around Lisbon to photograph, therefore it won't be obvious that we were in Lisbon when you see the pictures.

Is it your photograph on the cover of their new record?

Yes.

Where was it taken?

I don't want to reveal, but it was close to the city.

You've been working on the book U2 & I, is it a photograph book only or it also tells stories?

It is a photograph book, but not only that. It has more than 400 pages and it is presented as a manuscript diary. There are texts by other people, as the one by former president Clinton, for example. And there is also a long interview I did with Bono.

When is it going to be released?

In February.

Of all phases/eras that you have worked with U2, which would be your favorite?

It is difficult to say because all mean different things for me.

And your relationship with them also has turned into friendship...

Yes, I guess so. It has been more than 20 years since we first met...

Do you think you have helped to develop the image of the group?

Yes, I do.

And do you feel powerful about that, knowing that we are talking about the biggest rock 'n'roll band in the world?

It is truth. But it is not exactly power that I feel, perhaps there are more a certain satisfaction and happiness for the things to have happened so well. The Joshua Tree was an idea of mine that resulted in something very beautiful, even the colourful work for Achtung Baby, or the Trabant that I chose to be the symbol of that record. But everything is a team work. Bono has helped me many times, and I have done the same. To be true, we have helped each other to grow and to develop a better work.

Does U2 give you total freedom to photograph them the way you want?

Do you mean if they let me to bring my camera? (Laughs)

Of course not. I would like to know if you can always choose the places for the photographic sessions, the situations to photograph...

It is always different. They hope I can come up with good ideas. If they turn not to be good, of course they don't accept them. But sometimes they are the ones who come up with ideas that I don't think to be that good. What we usually do is to talk, to find out which would be the best solution.

Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen are good models?

They can be pretty good, if they feel comfortable with, as it happened in Portugal. They enjoyed it very much. They have already played in Portugal, but they never had spent a night in Lisbon. It was new ground for them, and it helped them to relax and to make them feel more concentrated during the photographic sessions. In this case they were excellent models.

How would you describe those times when you worked for the New Musical Express?

Epic, chaotic and full of learning spirit, and an open door to meet people, at the same time.

And what have you been working on lately?

In this U2 book, that already has taken me five months work and not a single day on vacations. But I have done new things...

Is there someone you would like to photograph and still hasn't succeeded?

Certainly. But I still have time. I've been more interested in developing my work as a photographer. If you take a look at the books that I have made in the last 15 years, you can see the evolution of a very intuitive photograph for a much more conceptual photograph. I made a self-portrait book, a book from papparazzi photographs. I don't want to be a photographer who reveals people. I am interested in photograph, but also in architecture, I make videos, I make staging for the Depeche Mode. I like to evolve. I don't like to do always the same. I'm planning exhibitions in the near future, I have personal projects. I'm going to open a big exhibition next January, in Belgium.

What's the meaning of an image in a world that has given less and less importance to the words?

It is a fight to find something that is not only amusement. We are accustomed to have a very reduced concentration time and we are accustomed to look at photographs quickly, without interpreting them. It is difficult to create something meaningful without trying to shock people. It's excellent to be able to take a photograph that lasts in people's memory, a photograph that actually says something, without being about sex or violence.

Which is the next step that would like to follow?

To start making films. I have already shot more than 80 videos and I'm sick of it. I don't know if I will ever come back to shoot more videos. To make films it is indeed what interests me nowadays.

© Expresso, 2004

Tyagu_Anaykus · Nov 5, 2004

follower I never read this interview. this is great :up:

U2_Guy · Nov 5, 2004

Olha que isso aqui tá muito bão, isso aqui tá bão demais!
LOLOLOL

follower · Nov 5, 2004

Tyagu_Anaykus said:
follower I never read this interview. this is great

I can send you the original in Portuguese if you want it, just lemme know.

MT

follower · Nov 5, 2004

Okay, took some time and made a transcription of the Expresso newspaper review, as follows. I apologise in advance if some things sound weird, it was not that of an easy task.

U2 are back to play U2

The 11st album of the Irish band is centered in the sound of guitar, bass and drums, in a return to the past. Bono Vox guarantees that "How you the Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" is "our first rock´n´roll album", an original way to affirm that the U2 have returned to its origins at large. And he´s right. How you the Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is nothing more than U2 playing like they did during the 80s. It is a return to the past of the Irish band, and they treat themselves with eight producers to this record alone, being Steve Lillywhite, old friend of Boy, October and War eras, to manage the whole work now presented. And this "first album", to be released in November 22nd, is all about rock´n´roll. The Edge´s guitar, Adam Clayton´s bass, and Larry Mullen´s drums make an inseparable trio, along with Bono´s voice that, although trembling a bit while hiting high notes, seems to melt in each ballad of the record, and they are several.

Lets start talking about "Vertigo", the first single of the new record, already in heavy rotation in radiostations around the world, to be released in next Nov 8th. “Vertigo”, a song that sounds like Ramones, will be released in two different editions plus a DVD. The first one will contain "Are You Gonna Wait Forever?" as b-side. The second one will contain a remixed version by Jacknife Lee (another one of the producers of the record). The DVD will include "Are You Gonna Wait Forever?" and three versions of "Vertigo", being one of them the Lisbon Video, the video filmed in Portugal, in late April, when the group were in Lisbon and outskirts for some photographic sessions and filming. "Miracle Drug", is a typical ballad written by Bono, with lyrics mixing love and a global pacifist speech. By the way, this is another characteristic of How you the Dismantle an Atomic Bomb - to make a perfect crossing between what can be considered a love subject and what is not more than an appeal to the global peace.

"Sometimes You Can´t Make it on Your Own", produced by Chris Thomas, resembles to "Ultraviolet" and also to "Velvet Dress". "Love and Peace" brings Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois trademark, and precedes "City of Blinding Lights", with a characteristic sounding provided by the producer - Flood. No more experiences with electronica, the record continues to show the purest U2 sound. "All Because of You" is an example, one hundred percent rock´n´roll and a good single for the future. "A Man and a Woman", a ballad, was meant to be first single of the album, only later on they decided to choose "Vertigo". The following "Crumbs from Your Table", "One Step Closer", a mixture of "The First Time" and "Grace", and "Original of the Species", where it seems that we are listening to somebody plagiarizing U2, in a perfect imitation. The record finishes with "Yahweh", God in Hebrew, with Bono reaching his higher level to fight for world-wide causes. Only the special limited edition brings an extra track, and there´s also a DVD and a book called Love and Fear where, among many messages, there is also the Human Rights Declaration, plus a series of photos taken in Praia Grande, Portugal. That´s it, the most anticpated record of the year and one surrounded by secrecy – more of the same coming from the biggest rock´n´roll band in the world.

MT

Edited to add: I received the original in Portuguese from a friend, along with Anton´s interview. The link shows the title of the article, but it´s a subscribers-only area. Anyways, this is it:

http://semanal.expresso.clix.pt/actual/default.asp?edition=1670

TheBrazilianFly · Nov 5, 2004

follower said:
To start making films. I have already shot more than 80 videos and I'm sick of it. I don't know if I will ever come back to shoot more videos. To make films it is indeed what interests me nowadays.[/I]