What's the most overrated new song?

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COBL is the next Streets for people who haven't had the opportunity, for whatever reason, to listen to Streets for the last 17 years. The only thing the two songs share is the people performing it.
 
Rolling Stones list of the top 500 songs of all time by no means impressed me at all.
 
rjhbonovox said:


Obviously not that impressed by 90's U2 then!:wink:
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Not true. I love nineties U2. COBL just beats all of it.

Originally posted by dmesq
City Of Blinding Lights goes nowhere, it's just bland & generically 'positive' in the same way that 'Unforgettable Fire' (the song, not the album) was.
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You clearly have vastly different tastes to me. I'd like to post a list. These, I feel, are the best songs ever made.

1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. Bad
3. The Unforgettable Fire
4. One Tree Hill
5. New Year's Day
6. City Of Blinding Lights

How dare you insult UF. That has to be one of the most beautiful sonic landscapes painted by any band EVER. It is a masterpiece. If you think it goes nowhere, you clearly are trying to listen for The Fly, not for a landscape to be painted in your mind. COBL does exactly the same as UF - it doesn't try to suck in the shallow listener with a wild guitar solo, it paints with sound. If you can't appreciate that, it's your loss.

Really, if you don't like COBL, I don't know why you like U2. It has the epic nature of Streets combined with the anthemic nature of Pride and the atmosphere of The Unforgettable Fire. It's a U2 classic, a masterpiece. What more could you want?

Oh, and I just read the latest Spin magazine cover story on U2, and Bono thinks "freedom has a scent/like the top of a newborn baby's head" are the BEST LYRICS ON THE ALBUM!?!?!?
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You clearly have not smelt the top of a newborn baby's head. (For the record, neither have I, but I'm going to listen to the people who have and very confidently state that the line is true and the simile valid.)
 
As bothered as I am by this post, I'm fighting the urge to jump in and name this song or that song, blah-blah song....
So, instead I'll just reflect on other peoples' music and try to think of the last time I was actually able to sit through a whole albums worth of material without bitching about what a waste of money it was. How overrated the whole album was. We all have definitly bought into this "U2 being the biggest little cult band" idea. Even if this album was a piece of shit, we'd still be their number one fans, right? With today's musical standards (or the lack there of) we're pretty lucky that there's only a couple songs we could do without hearing all the time, but are lucky they weren't written at all.
 
I love nineties U2. COBL just beats all of it.

You clearly have vastly different tastes to me. I'd like to post a list. These, I feel, are the best songs ever made.

1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. Bad
3. The Unforgettable Fire
4. One Tree Hill
5. New Year's Day
6. City Of Blinding Lights

How dare you insult UF. T hat has to be one of the most beautiful sonic landscapes painted by any band EVER. It is a masterpiece. If you think it goes nowhere, you clearly are trying to listen for The Fly, not for a landscape to be painted in your mind. COBL does exactly the same as UF - it doesn't try to suck in the shallow listener with a wild guitar solo, it paints with sound. If you can't appreciate that, it's your loss.

Really, if you don't like COBL, I don't know why you like U2. It has the epic nature of Streets combined with the anthemic nature of Pride and the atmosphere of The Unforgettable Fire. It's a U2 classic, a masterpiece. What more could you want?

You clearly have not smelt the top of a newborn baby's head. (For the record, neither have I, but I'm going to listen to the people who have and very confidently state that the line is true and the simile valid.) [/B][/QUOTE]


Gee whiz. This is perhaps the single most generic & mainstream posting I have ever read on this entire site. I bet this person eats at McDonalds once a day, gets all his news from USA Today (and believes everything he reads), and has never seen a movie that wasn't playing at his local multiplex.

Note to writer: consider LIVING OUTSIDE THE BOX for a change!!!!!

I always skip over Unforgettable Fire when I listen to that album. Look, the fact of the matter is, it just hasn't aged well at all - it sounds like sappy wet 1980's MTV kitsch. (The keyboards in the middle are downright embarrasing, it sounds like goddamned Duran Duran, for god's sakes.) I really do like the album itself - I like how experimental it is, unlike U2's more recent albums (ATYCLB and HTDAAB, specifically). But the song Unforgettable Fire is pretty hokey.

Ahem, you don't think The Fly (one of U2's greatest & hardest-rocking songs ever) paints a landscape in your mind? You don't think any of U2's work in the 90's "paints landscapes in your mind," or "paints with sound"? Pardon my French, but what fucking solar system are you living in, buddy!?
I won't call your tastes shallow - but I will call them fairly predictable and conservative and just plain BORING - which is exactly what I think of the song "Unforgettable Fire," as well as "City Of Blinding Lights." Just look at the UF album - A Sort Of Homecoming and Promenade and even Elvis Presley And America paint much more of an evocative and compelling and ORIGINAL landscape-of-the-mind than does the tacky, cheesy, dated production qualities of UF.
Sure, New Year's Day is a classic - and so is Pearl Jam's "Jeremy." But if I never hear either of those songs again, it'll be soon enough.

The only original choice on your "All Time Best" list is "One Tree Hill" - which, although it is absolutely fantastic, is nowhere near as compelling to me as Still Haven't Found or Running To Stand Still or Red Hill Mining Town or Trip Through Your Wires or Mothers of the Disappeared.

I take it you're the kind of U2 fan who thought "Ultraviolet" was the best song on "Achtung Baby" - and you know why, because it's the one that sounds most like INXS. And I bet that you're a secret INXS fan who can only deal with 'straightforward' rock. No curveballs allowed in your musical universe. C'est la vie, monami. Have a great time with your 12-pack of Budweiser; I'll be enjoying my Guinness (and Belgian Leffe ale - yum) in the corner with my amigos.
 
Hahaha, dmesq, you make me laugh and you clearly haven't been at this forum long enough to know anything about me.

1. I HATE Ultra Violet. I think it's the worst song U2 have ever made, including Red Light.
2. I am hardly generic or mainstream when it comes to this forum. Generic and mainstream is bowing down at the altar of nineties U2. I prefer eighties U2 and almost predominantly listen to bootlegs from that era. My views often clash with the majority of U2 fans, especially because I do not rank Achtung Baby as a masterpiece. I doubt anyone's going to make a top six like I just did. Maybe a top two, but you'd be mad not to have those two songs somewhere in your top five.
3. I haven't eaten at McDonald's for seven years, I don't read the newspapers, and I've been to the movie theatre four times in the last twelve months. Your assumptions about me are completely wrong.
4. You clearly have no fucking clue about The Unforgettable Fire. Go see an ear specialist. There's something wrong with your hearing.
5. Nineties U2 does a good job of pushing the envelope, but I love the atmosphere, honesty, and passion of the eighties.

I live more outside the box than you could possibly imagine in your narrow-minded, deranged brain. Do yourself a favour and pull your head out of your arse. Thanks.
 
Yahweh_OMG said:
COBL is terrible, how can some people say that it's the next Streets....??? That is not nice for a song as good as Streets!

However, when I read all the threads, I think it's so good to see that everyone has a different opinion of the songs. Not 2 persons like the same and dislike the same songs. To me it means that they have done a very good album with lot's of good songs.
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How do you mean recorded in mono? :huh:
 
Original of the species,, One of the only U2 songs, where i actually wanna turn off the stereo when Bono starts with the - du-du-du - middle part,,, Ohhhhh, Crap.


dmesq:

Relax,,, We are talking about songs man,, You sound like somebody stole your fries at McDonalds :wink: Take a joke
 
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yimou said:
Original of the species,, One of the only U2 songs, where i actually wanna turn off the stereo when Bono starts with the - du-du-du - middle part,,, Ohhhhh, Crap.
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I understood that to be Edge doing the doo-doo-doo's in that song
 
jojoline said:


I understood that to be Edge doing the doo-doo-doo's in that song
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Could be,, I dont know.. I just dont like it :wink:
 
Axver said:
Hahaha, dmesq, you make me laugh and you clearly haven't been at this forum long enough to know anything about me.

1. I HATE Ultra Violet. I think it's the worst song U2 have ever made, including Red Light.
2. I am hardly generic or mainstream when it comes to this forum. Generic and mainstream is bowing down at the altar of nineties U2. I prefer eighties U2 and almost predominantly listen to bootlegs from that era. My views often clash with the majority of U2 fans, especially because I do not rank Achtung Baby as a masterpiece. I doubt anyone's going to make a top six like I just did. Maybe a top two, but you'd be mad not to have those two songs somewhere in your top five.
3. I haven't eaten at McDonald's for seven years, I don't read the newspapers, and I've been to the movie theatre four times in the last twelve months. Your assumptions about me are completely wrong.
4. You clearly have no fucking clue about The Unforgettable Fire. Go see an ear specialist. There's something wrong with your hearing.
5. Nineties U2 does a good job of pushing the envelope, but I love the atmosphere, honesty, and passion of the eighties.

I live more outside the box than you could possibly imagine in your narrow-minded, deranged brain. Do yourself a favour and pull your head out of your arse. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Axver, I'm with you. I don't really think AB should be up there as a U2 'Masterpiece'. I can appreciate some of the songs (not Ultra Violet) and I like that U2 tried some new things, but I just really dig the soul stiring soundscapes they create in songs like UF, A sort of homecoming, Bad, Streets, COBL. To me, that is the "real" U2, the unique, defining essence of the band. Who can watch that spot on the Boston DVD (or in person) when Bad runs into Streets and not have shivers down the spine?

As for over-rated on HTTAAB I think OSC and Fast Cars. I'm still trying to give OSC a chance to grab me, but so far it's been easier just to skip it. The rest of the album is awesome!
 
OOTS is over rated, here anyway. I can't see that as being a single but some people are hyping it up like it should be. It's Okay but, about 6 or 7 of the songs on the album are better than it in my opinion.
 
Axver said:
Hahaha, dmesq, you make me laugh and you clearly haven't been at this forum long enough to know anything about me.

1. I HATE Ultra Violet. I think it's the worst song U2 have ever made, including Red Light.
2. I am hardly generic or mainstream when it comes to this forum. Generic and mainstream is bowing down at the altar of nineties U2. I prefer eighties U2 and almost predominantly listen to bootlegs from that era. My views often clash with the majority of U2 fans, especially because I do not rank Achtung Baby as a masterpiece. I doubt anyone's going to make a top six like I just did. Maybe a top two, but you'd be mad not to have those two songs somewhere in your top five.
3. I haven't eaten at McDonald's for seven years, I don't read the newspapers, and I've been to the movie theatre four times in the last twelve months. Your assumptions about me are completely wrong.
4. You clearly have no fucking clue about The Unforgettable Fire. Go see an ear specialist. There's something wrong with your hearing.
5. Nineties U2 does a good job of pushing the envelope, but I love the atmosphere, honesty, and passion of the eighties.

I live more outside the box than you could possibly imagine in your narrow-minded, deranged brain. Do yourself a favour and pull your head out of your arse. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Dear Axver,

1. "Generic and mainstream is bowing down at the altar of 90's U2" - uh, whatever. I guess that's why Zooropa is U2's most hated album amongst the die-hard fans (even more than the blandly rockish Pop), and why it won the Best Alternative Album Grammy for 1993. That's why barely anyone on this site ever mentions their Passengers album when they talk about some of U2's very best and MOST EXPERIMENTAL AND INNOVATIVE music. (For more on this, see #5 below.)
2. "You'd be mad not to have those top two songs in your top five"...not that Rolling Stone is the almighty arbiter of what's good/bad, but they didn't have 'em in their latest poll of the top 500 songs of all time. And quite frankly, while they're both great songs, I don't have them in my top five (or top ten) for that matter either. Guess it's time for me to check into the local asylum.
3. I sincerely apologize if my ribbing you got under your skin; but maybe what I was implying with that jokery was more telling than you'd care to admit. You certainly seem to have responded to it on a totally straightforward basis.
4. Boy oh boy, that's good. What a retort! Whoa! Geez, I bet you won the First Place Prize in your local district back on your high school speech/debate team w. shockingly insightful & eloquent observations like that!
5. Of course I'll agree with you about the atmosphere and passion of '80's U2, but honesty? Here's one of the main debates between U2 fans - does honesty necessarily equal earnestness and a total lack of irony, or does honesty mean using irony to deflate myths, coming clean about the oftentimes hurting state of the human heart, and embracing new forms of music (dance, ambient, techno, industrial, etc.) to express these themes? Wasn't there something completely honest about Bono's saying around Achtung Baby's release, "we tried to be everyone's heroes in the 80's, and we got kicked in the ass - so, now we're getting out"?

I've mocked most of your observations thus far because they so blandly represent a majority of U2 fans out there who prefer 80's U2 and wish the band would bleed out the adventurous 90's from their system, which the band has now done for their most recent two albums (ATYCLB & HTDAAB). (So look at it this way: YOU'VE WON, you've got back the U2 you've always wanted. I hope you're totally, completely happy with their latest incarnation, and that you're eating every word out of Bono's mouth with absolute acceptance and devotion and not questioning a single syllable or a single musical note. As for me, I like a lot of their latest stuff, but I also find so much of it mediocre and it always leaves me wanting more.)

But to me your opinions are totally unexciting and typical and almost completely non-unique. It's like you're a programmer for a classic hard-rock station and have absolutely no adventurousness in your thinking. You want to know something, I honestly think the 6:56 'Lemon' is a better song than 'Bad'; I don't think 'Bad' is a bad song, I think it's a great song, but I actually prefer the full 'Lemon,' which I think in its own way is one of U2's most underrated epic songs. How's that for a unique and untypical opinion? And you want to talk "honesty," I think some of the most honest lyrics Bono ever wrote are:

And I feel like I'm slowly slowly slowly slipping under
And I feel like I'm hanging onto nothing
And these are the days when our work has come asunder
And these are the days when we look for something other

Which expresses U2's entire mission (up until the half-assed execution of the Pop album) throughout the 90's. U2 endeavored to explode their myth in the 90's, and it resulted in some of their (and anyone's) most amazing, unique, idiosyncratic, eccentric, original, creative and visionary music.

Whereas when it comes to earlier 80's U2, ala the song The Unforgettable Fire, or recent U2 like Miracle Drug or City of Blinding Lights, the more supposedly 'earnest' Bono tries to come off as, the more often I think he's full of shit.

Axver, you make me laugh (and it's a depressed, resigned laugh, like the laugh I gave when the results were in and Bush had won the last U.S. election). You're like a die-hard, unswervable Beatles fan who think their ABSOLUTELY GREATEST work was during "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help," and can't stop talking about how unbelievably amazing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Love Me Do" is, and how it's SO much better than anything off "Sgt. Pepper" or "The White Album" or "Abbey Road." Please. The only thing more depressing to me than Bono's supposed almighty & sacred "honesty" in the 80's is your (and so many other U2 fans') totally blind, unyielding devotion and unquestioning acceptance of every little ass-scratching lyric and turn-of-phrase he tossed out and then reheated like yesterday's leftovers way back when. Looks to me like YOU'RE the one who's joined the Almighty Unquestioning Cult of U2, muchacho. Hope you're having fun at your daily services as you bow three times towards Dublin on your knees like a good little devotee.
 
OOTS
its nice but i dont see what the hype is?

and ABOY - i prefer the unreleased version by far.
it has its good, no great points, but overall its a bit of a throwaway track for me
 
As for the album songs, hard to say.

The only song I head a problem at the start was COBL, and maybe LAPOE - but they both grew on me now.
 
Joshua_Tree_Hugger said:


How do you mean recorded in mono? :huh:
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Listen to this song thru a Dolby Digital amplifier and not thru a normal two speaker hi-fi system. Obviously it comes out in Dolby Pro Logic 2 channel etc but you listen to where nearly ALL the music is coming from, direct centre, out of the centre speaker, where normally the vocals is only most apparent. It is bloody awful how it is mixed. Also the same but not quite as bad is SYCMIOYO, where from the middle to the end it is nearly all out of the centre speaker and this makes the song distort in sound quality. Then compare this with Yahweh, One Step Closer, Original Of The species, All Because Of You, Vertigo etc and you will see what I mean, cos they have at least been mixed right. A song like COBL should have been mixed with a more space feel to it. They made a complete ARSE out of the mix of this song. THAT is what I mean by recording in mono!
 
NotAnEasyThing said:
Axver, I'm with you. I don't really think AB should be up there as a U2 'Masterpiece'. I can appreciate some of the songs (not Ultra Violet) and I like that U2 tried some new things, but I just really dig the soul stiring soundscapes they create in songs like UF, A sort of homecoming, Bad, Streets, COBL. To me, that is the "real" U2, the unique, defining essence of the band. Who can watch that spot on the Boston DVD (or in person) when Bad runs into Streets and not have shivers down the spine?
Click to expand...

That's spot on. Really, I don't need to say any more after that. I frankly don't feel like replying to dmesq as such a discussion will likely descend into further flaming. If I think a reasonable conversation can be had, I'll return, but for now, I'm out. I've spoken in defence of COBL (aka the Streets of the 2000s) and that's all I wished to do.
 
dmesq said:
I love nineties U2. COBL just beats all of it.

You clearly have vastly different tastes to me. I'd like to post a list. These, I feel, are the best songs ever made.

1. Where The Streets Have No Name
2. Bad
3. The Unforgettable Fire
4. One Tree Hill
5. New Year's Day
6. City Of Blinding Lights

How dare you insult UF. T hat has to be one of the most beautiful sonic landscapes painted by any band EVER. It is a masterpiece. If you think it goes nowhere, you clearly are trying to listen for The Fly, not for a landscape to be painted in your mind. COBL does exactly the same as UF - it doesn't try to suck in the shallow listener with a wild guitar solo, it paints with sound. If you can't appreciate that, it's your loss.

Really, if you don't like COBL, I don't know why you like U2. It has the epic nature of Streets combined with the anthemic nature of Pride and the atmosphere of The Unforgettable Fire. It's a U2 classic, a masterpiece. What more could you want?

You clearly have not smelt the top of a newborn baby's head. (For the record, neither have I, but I'm going to listen to the people who have and very confidently state that the line is true and the simile valid.)
Click to expand...


Gee whiz. This is perhaps the single most generic & mainstream posting I have ever read on this entire site. I bet this person eats at McDonalds once a day, gets all his news from USA Today (and believes everything he reads), and has never seen a movie that wasn't playing at his local multiplex.

Note to writer: consider LIVING OUTSIDE THE BOX for a change!!!!!

I always skip over Unforgettable Fire when I listen to that album. Look, the fact of the matter is, it just hasn't aged well at all - it sounds like sappy wet 1980's MTV kitsch. (The keyboards in the middle are downright embarrasing, it sounds like goddamned Duran Duran, for god's sakes.) I really do like the album itself - I like how experimental it is, unlike U2's more recent albums (ATYCLB and HTDAAB, specifically). But the song Unforgettable Fire is pretty hokey.

Ahem, you don't think The Fly (one of U2's greatest & hardest-rocking songs ever) paints a landscape in your mind? You don't think any of U2's work in the 90's "paints landscapes in your mind," or "paints with sound"? Pardon my French, but what fucking solar system are you living in, buddy!?
I won't call your tastes shallow - but I will call them fairly predictable and conservative and just plain BORING - which is exactly what I think of the song "Unforgettable Fire," as well as "City Of Blinding Lights." Just look at the UF album - A Sort Of Homecoming and Promenade and even Elvis Presley And America paint much more of an evocative and compelling and ORIGINAL landscape-of-the-mind than does the tacky, cheesy, dated production qualities of UF.
Sure, New Year's Day is a classic - and so is Pearl Jam's "Jeremy." But if I never hear either of those songs again, it'll be soon enough.

The only original choice on your "All Time Best" list is "One Tree Hill" - which, although it is absolutely fantastic, is nowhere near as compelling to me as Still Haven't Found or Running To Stand Still or Red Hill Mining Town or Trip Through Your Wires or Mothers of the Disappeared.

I take it you're the kind of U2 fan who thought "Ultraviolet" was the best song on "Achtung Baby" - and you know why, because it's the one that sounds most like INXS. And I bet that you're a secret INXS fan who can only deal with 'straightforward' rock. No curveballs allowed in your musical universe. C'est la vie, monami. Have a great time with your 12-pack of Budweiser; I'll be enjoying my Guinness (and Belgian Leffe ale - yum) in the corner with my amigos. [/B][/QUOTE]

Man, you have serious problems if you think The Unforgettable Fire sounds like Duran Duran....serious problems....
 
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