Spiral_Staircase
War Child
Maybe not worthy of it's own thread, but I thoroughly enjoyed this article in the local paper: http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/music/2749644.htm
Grammy sweep?
Finally, the Grammy Awards get it right ? U2 have been nominated for eight, and they deserve to win.
BY JIM WALSH
St. Paul Pioneer Press
I'm a lot like you. I try to avoid shows like this, the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. But I figure as long as the TelePrompTer's right there and we're all here, alive and everything, I guess I could say a few words.
You're a lot like me. You're made of skin, bone, heart, soul. You're a cynic, a mystic, a punk, a sellout, a moron, a genius, a lover, a fighter, a loner, a poet.
You wake up every morning somewhere between Caring Deeply and Totally Giving Up. You like pop music, and you love what U2's Bono said about it ('Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it'), which is one reason why you hope U2's anti-rat-race, reality-based opus to optimism, 'All That You Can't Leave Behind,' wins some of the eight Grammys it's nominated for tonight.
You've come to know, very personally, what the title of that CD means, because you listened to it not to escape, or to feel cool, but to remember who you are. You put it on to feel something in an unfeeling world. You put it on for inspiration.
You're not alone. Almost 4 million people own that record. Millions more heard those songs of self-discovery and freedom on the radio, on their way to work, school, first dates, last dates. They were played at birthday parties and funerals and picnics, in St. Paul and New York and Afghanistan and Africa.
You danced to it, wept to it, cooked to it. You all heard the same thing. Bono's opening line, "The heart is a bloom, shoots up through the stony ground," throbbing to that heartbeat kick-drum, was a bow on a gift you re-opened whenever the spirit called. You had a cruddy day, and there was Bono, hissing, "Life should be fragrant, rooftop to the basement." You had a good day, and there was Bono, cheerleading, "The goal is soul."
You felt lonely, and by the time the last track faded out, just after Bono sang, "Grace finds goodness in everything," you felt a boundless oneness.
You appreciate it when people say that "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was the perfect soundtrack for this year, but you know that U2 wasn't writing in a vacuum when they made it in 2000. Like all great and greatly prescient artists, U2 listened to their hearts and picked up on their fellow man and woman's organic need for an expression of truth, mortality and faith and promptly delivered 11 songs that stirred worlds.
The whole of those songs ? from the impossibly jubilant "Elevation" to the carpe diem manifesto "Kite" to the blues-bashing "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" to the minutia-jettisoning "Walk On" ? refracts humanity's enduring but often muted desire for something more than amusement parks, self-defining careers or family values.
You wait for the next big thing and for the other shoe to drop. You wait to get to the next stage, the next job, the next lover, the pearly gates, so much so that you often miss the Now Explosion.
Then along came 2001, awful and unforgettable 2001, and time stopped. Weirdly, there was U2, tough and trim and ready to go to war with songs like "Peace on Earth," and there was "All That You Can't Leave Behind," its black-and-white cover band photos taken in an airport, for God's sake, beckoning to lost souls from well-stocked supermarket shelves in every corner of the globe.
But that was then and this is now, and now is where we are, you and I. We're alive, when Joey Ramone and Bono's father and so many others are dead. And U2 is still on the warpath, still doing uncool talk shows and getting ridiculed for a Super Bowl halftime show that was, yes, all about selling records and shoving this message of hope down the throats of anyone who needed it, anyone who would listen.
Yes, corporate media control our minds and spirit. Yes, the big Grammy story at this time last year was Eminem and Elton's duet, and yes, Steely Dan won album of the year for a record that you and none of your friends heard. Yes, there is a laundry list of things to complain about and a lot of sadness, fear, bad music and a world of indifference.
But U2 made a record that could have vanished, the way so many great records vanish but didn't. U2 made a record that people talked to each other about. U2 made a record that the Totally Giving Up cared deeply about.
U2 made a record that was as important a record as any rock band has ever made, for a time that was as desperate as any time has been. U2 made a record that filled an unspoken void that is up for eight Grammys today. Tonight. Right now.
Tomorrow's headline: It's a Beautiful Day.
Thank you for listening. Stay safe tonight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pop music critic Jim Walsh can be reached at jwalsh@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5553.
Grammy sweep?
Finally, the Grammy Awards get it right ? U2 have been nominated for eight, and they deserve to win.
BY JIM WALSH
St. Paul Pioneer Press
I'm a lot like you. I try to avoid shows like this, the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. But I figure as long as the TelePrompTer's right there and we're all here, alive and everything, I guess I could say a few words.
You're a lot like me. You're made of skin, bone, heart, soul. You're a cynic, a mystic, a punk, a sellout, a moron, a genius, a lover, a fighter, a loner, a poet.
You wake up every morning somewhere between Caring Deeply and Totally Giving Up. You like pop music, and you love what U2's Bono said about it ('Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it's not OK, but you can change it'), which is one reason why you hope U2's anti-rat-race, reality-based opus to optimism, 'All That You Can't Leave Behind,' wins some of the eight Grammys it's nominated for tonight.
You've come to know, very personally, what the title of that CD means, because you listened to it not to escape, or to feel cool, but to remember who you are. You put it on to feel something in an unfeeling world. You put it on for inspiration.
You're not alone. Almost 4 million people own that record. Millions more heard those songs of self-discovery and freedom on the radio, on their way to work, school, first dates, last dates. They were played at birthday parties and funerals and picnics, in St. Paul and New York and Afghanistan and Africa.
You danced to it, wept to it, cooked to it. You all heard the same thing. Bono's opening line, "The heart is a bloom, shoots up through the stony ground," throbbing to that heartbeat kick-drum, was a bow on a gift you re-opened whenever the spirit called. You had a cruddy day, and there was Bono, hissing, "Life should be fragrant, rooftop to the basement." You had a good day, and there was Bono, cheerleading, "The goal is soul."
You felt lonely, and by the time the last track faded out, just after Bono sang, "Grace finds goodness in everything," you felt a boundless oneness.
You appreciate it when people say that "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was the perfect soundtrack for this year, but you know that U2 wasn't writing in a vacuum when they made it in 2000. Like all great and greatly prescient artists, U2 listened to their hearts and picked up on their fellow man and woman's organic need for an expression of truth, mortality and faith and promptly delivered 11 songs that stirred worlds.
The whole of those songs ? from the impossibly jubilant "Elevation" to the carpe diem manifesto "Kite" to the blues-bashing "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" to the minutia-jettisoning "Walk On" ? refracts humanity's enduring but often muted desire for something more than amusement parks, self-defining careers or family values.
You wait for the next big thing and for the other shoe to drop. You wait to get to the next stage, the next job, the next lover, the pearly gates, so much so that you often miss the Now Explosion.
Then along came 2001, awful and unforgettable 2001, and time stopped. Weirdly, there was U2, tough and trim and ready to go to war with songs like "Peace on Earth," and there was "All That You Can't Leave Behind," its black-and-white cover band photos taken in an airport, for God's sake, beckoning to lost souls from well-stocked supermarket shelves in every corner of the globe.
But that was then and this is now, and now is where we are, you and I. We're alive, when Joey Ramone and Bono's father and so many others are dead. And U2 is still on the warpath, still doing uncool talk shows and getting ridiculed for a Super Bowl halftime show that was, yes, all about selling records and shoving this message of hope down the throats of anyone who needed it, anyone who would listen.
Yes, corporate media control our minds and spirit. Yes, the big Grammy story at this time last year was Eminem and Elton's duet, and yes, Steely Dan won album of the year for a record that you and none of your friends heard. Yes, there is a laundry list of things to complain about and a lot of sadness, fear, bad music and a world of indifference.
But U2 made a record that could have vanished, the way so many great records vanish but didn't. U2 made a record that people talked to each other about. U2 made a record that the Totally Giving Up cared deeply about.
U2 made a record that was as important a record as any rock band has ever made, for a time that was as desperate as any time has been. U2 made a record that filled an unspoken void that is up for eight Grammys today. Tonight. Right now.
Tomorrow's headline: It's a Beautiful Day.
Thank you for listening. Stay safe tonight.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pop music critic Jim Walsh can be reached at jwalsh@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5553.
