Carmanah
The Fly
I remember an interview, from the early 90's... perhaps it was the mid-90's. Bono, post-Zooropa, with his scruffy chin and blue glasses explaining that people aren't buying rock albums anymore because "the records are boring". I taped that interview on an old video cassette, now stacked somewhere in my parents garage in a cardboard box...
... and this is exactly the quote I hear Bono saying as I listen to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb for the second time around. "The records are boring".
I remember Bono, while winning the Best Alternative Music Grammy for Zooropa, smugly shunning his competition, the Smashing Pumpkins, saying in his speech with a grin, that he'd like to see the Pumpkins sell out arena tours, suggesting perhaps that they could not. Of course, the Smashing Pumpkins then prompty released a successful double album that gained them fame and glory, and they sold out tours in arenas two years later.
I'm back to U2 and on the second song on HTDAAB. I almost feel myself wanting to skip ahead because the song is lacking the excitement or the substance that I used to crave out of this band. Is it too much to ask if the lyrics aren't screaming out to me anymore? I know that I go to Nickelback if I want radio-friendly formula rock, and I know that the context of this thought and associating U2 with it is sacriligious.
I read a review about coping with the second cr@p album (to which to my surprise, Pop was listed as the first cr@p album), yet, what I found even more alarming were the reviews praising HTDAAB as a masterpiece. It's amazing the difference in opinions.
I think my sister said it best when she told me that she's "more interested in what Bono's doing politically than what he's doing musically". We both sighed about it, and then I agreed with her.
I miss the exciting U2. With the occasional glimmer of magic in a few tracks here and there, I'm finding myself bored with this album. Oh, I'll give it another chance... and another, and another, etc, because it's U2. And the songs will grow on me because they're U2, but even then there's only a limit. That will only take me so far.
My sister, again, told me something quite telling tonight. She said, "I was watching U2's new music video on TV the other day, where they're in New York and perhaps it's a play on the Where The Streets Have No Name video, but they're on this truck driving through the streets of the city, and everyone is
freaking out and crying at the sight of them. But it only makes them look like they have big egos now... it actually looks silly. But the thing about this is, when I think back about it, all I can remember is their video. I don't remember the song. "
... and this is exactly the quote I hear Bono saying as I listen to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb for the second time around. "The records are boring".
I remember Bono, while winning the Best Alternative Music Grammy for Zooropa, smugly shunning his competition, the Smashing Pumpkins, saying in his speech with a grin, that he'd like to see the Pumpkins sell out arena tours, suggesting perhaps that they could not. Of course, the Smashing Pumpkins then prompty released a successful double album that gained them fame and glory, and they sold out tours in arenas two years later.
I'm back to U2 and on the second song on HTDAAB. I almost feel myself wanting to skip ahead because the song is lacking the excitement or the substance that I used to crave out of this band. Is it too much to ask if the lyrics aren't screaming out to me anymore? I know that I go to Nickelback if I want radio-friendly formula rock, and I know that the context of this thought and associating U2 with it is sacriligious.
I read a review about coping with the second cr@p album (to which to my surprise, Pop was listed as the first cr@p album), yet, what I found even more alarming were the reviews praising HTDAAB as a masterpiece. It's amazing the difference in opinions.
I think my sister said it best when she told me that she's "more interested in what Bono's doing politically than what he's doing musically". We both sighed about it, and then I agreed with her.
I miss the exciting U2. With the occasional glimmer of magic in a few tracks here and there, I'm finding myself bored with this album. Oh, I'll give it another chance... and another, and another, etc, because it's U2. And the songs will grow on me because they're U2, but even then there's only a limit. That will only take me so far.
My sister, again, told me something quite telling tonight. She said, "I was watching U2's new music video on TV the other day, where they're in New York and perhaps it's a play on the Where The Streets Have No Name video, but they're on this truck driving through the streets of the city, and everyone is
freaking out and crying at the sight of them. But it only makes them look like they have big egos now... it actually looks silly. But the thing about this is, when I think back about it, all I can remember is their video. I don't remember the song. "
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p.s. HTDAAB is not crap I have to keep saying it's good but not great
