Here's an interesting interview bit from after Amnesiac was released:

Yago: It seems like Radiohead is the only major label band that's allowed to take these huge artistic and stylistic risks. Why is that?

O'Brien: It's the economics of the fact that OK Computer sold 4.5 million records [worldwide] — it gives us some leeway. That's the bottom line. They wouldn't be giving us this amount of freedom if OK Computer sold 200,000 copies. No way.

Melting legos...:drool:

My brain is deeply attracted to music that veers from the traditional verse-chorus-verse model. I love the tempo changes, the non-structured kinds of music. That's what I really enjoy about Kid A, parts of Ok Computer...and probably most of U2, come to think of it.

"Songs" are great, if they're original, but I love finding magic in the madness.

now THAT is the truth.

Ahh Zoot, you know I love you :sexywink:

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1. Making a mess out of the 90s Best Of, by not only remixing and butchering perfectly good songs but also by including 2 songs from the 00s just so it would sell better!

The 90's Best Of was an absolute mess, I agree. I wish they hadn't included anything from ATYCLB at all. As for ES and HTBA, fuck that shit, if it belongs on any best of album, which I doubt they do, it would be 2000-2010, with ATYCLB. And the remixes were pointless. But hey, whatever makes U2 happy.

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2. Apologizing for Pop (unfinished blah blah), Popmart etc. They seem to practically dis-own that gem of an album! :sad:

I think everyone knows how I feel about Pop at this point :wink: It's unfortunate that the only Pop song on Vertigo tour (which was also the BEST VERSION EVER) got dropped... maybe someday, years from now, U2 will finally realize that Pop was one of their greatest efforts. It just doesn't help that any article you read about U2's history or whatever, Pop is always mentioned as a "failure" or "misstep," and not from U2 themselves, though U2 sure like to throw around the word "unfinished" a lot. For an unfinished album, songs like Mofo and Wake Up Dead Man sure have a lot of shit going on.

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3. The lyrics have gone down recently but I admit that's only my opinion!

Eh, I sort of agree. I would say that comparing the lyrics of everything from the 00's to everything from the 90's, the 90's is better. Probably the 80's is better too. Bono's style has just changed a bit, I guess. But there's some absolutely brilliant stuff - Mercy, for example. I love the crazy lyrics to Fast Cars, the message of the song is actually very ZOOTV-media-overload. City of Blinding Lights actually has some fantastic lines ("Time won't leave me as I am, but time won't take the boy out of this man"). And of course ATYCLB has some good stuff, like BD and Kite (I think I'm the only person in the world that actually likes the last verse of Kite). I guess Bono's lyrics are sort of hit and miss these days, but really, they always have been, perhaps just now a little more than usual. But, again, I think they'll get better. I'm hoping Bono will maybe try to focus more on the music this time. But he's accomplished a lot as a humanitarian so I can't really blame him, in the end helping Africa is far more important than good lyrics, though I want good lyrics.

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4. Is it just me or does Bono overdo everything!!! Everything is super hyped up! Over produced! Over worked! Extreme stage posturing even more so than in the past! It's so obvious he's trying hard to be the biggest in the world! Like Lennon?... or maybe Jesus??? You say there's nothing wrong in that? Ok, that's fine. But when somebody's trying too hard to project an image, it's just not that attractive IMO. :huh: :shrug:

Uhh, I dunno quite what to say to that. ZooTV was the epitome of exagerration. Bono's always had quite the stage presence and it doesn't seem any more extreme (WOOOOOO XTREME MOUNTAIN DEW XBOX SK8RZ!!!!11) now than before, in fact I think it's slightly more mellowed, but not much. Over hyped - well, they always hype their latest album, don't they? Don't all bands? Was HTDAAB really much more hyped than Pop or AB? And of course, we live in a different world now, with different technology, so now with the internet and all it's kind of impossible for an album to "slip through the radar" like Zooropa did, so might as well hype it eh? Over produced - I agree that the last two albums were overproduced, especially HTDAAB. But that's not entirely Bono's fault. Bono wasn't the producer. Yeah he made the final decisions, but so did Larry, Adam, and Edge. You can't put all the blame on Bono.

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Just thinking out aloud here, don't kill me. :wink:

I won't kill you, just correct you :wink:

Sorry, nothing to add. I just wanted to see that again.

Hee!

Yes, that was fucking brilliant!! :drool:

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly.

Who is that directed at? I don't exactly get what you're saying there...

I was merely quoting a lyric.

:angel:


















No, really!.... :lol:

Hail to the Theif has plenty of 'songs' on it.

They aren't straight up vanilla pop rock, but they are pretty direct, verse chorus, bridge and so on. Guitars, basses, drums and pianos. They tried to take that formula, the basic direct rock/pop stuff and mix it up, make a longer verse, put the choruses at the back of the song, tempo changes, U2 need to start thinking like that again, I think.

Contemporary rock/pop can be a complete bore even when it's great. Radiohead aren't doing anything revolutionary, they are trying to take Beatles rock and make it more interesting. That's all they are doing. U2 are doing Beatles rock and trying to make it better. That's the difference to me.

back to HTTT, besides Myxamotosis and Backdrifts, most of them are straight up songs, they are just more sonically interesting than basic shit that has been done 90 million times. I get a little bored by direct songs that have nothing sonically interesting to say. Otherwise it's complete retread, even if they can be good or great, it's retread of a sort. They are just trying to do something a little different than what they've heard over and over again.

Bravo, to them for trying.

You better be, or I WILL EAT YOU ALIVE :macdevil:

:up:

Yeah, exactly!!! I don't get Brau's point about songs because if not songs, what are they, then? :huh: At least RH is making it more interesting sonically with drum loops, backwards recordings and timing changes. What's wrong in incorporating these techniques into perfectly good 'songs'? :shrug:

There'll be no more lies... :sexywink:

Yes!

:applaud: :rockon:

I think Brau was probably just put off by Kid A/Amnesiac

I really think HTTT owes more to The Bends than anything.

Naaaahh :wink:

Atomic Bono has made some good points indeed even if I don't agree one bit on Beautiful Day! LOL
U2 want to be the biggest band in the world so they are out in the mainstream. Whilst there might have been certain label pressure in trying to persuade them to make more commercial material I agree that the change of direction was actually what the band wanted. They probably thought that continuing in the Pop direction might have ended up into making them a niche band as opposed to a widely popular one. Add to that the fact that particular members (Larry basically) were not that comfortable with the deviation from the pop/rock band standard and everything fits smoothly in the picture. The problem with us fans (esp those fond of the 90s as myself) is that we believe U2 is capable of coming up with more interesting material than what they are doing now but that material, which doesn't necessarily involve electronica, but perhaps the sort of songwriting that spawned songs like Stay, The Fly or Gone and that was still alive in The Ground Beneath Her Feet, sadly is incongruent with the desire to stay at the top of people's preferences nowadays. However, artists have the right to put out what they feel they should and us public the prerogative of saying yea or nay. As far as sales and current tour go general public seems to be saying yea... :shrug: :|

Zootlesque makes excellent points too. I agree 100% with:

1. Best of 90s is an absolute mess. That decade (IMO U2's most brilliant) didn't deserve such a crappy tribute.

2. I won't ever believe that a band like U2 released an "unfinished" album or something ever slightly different from what they had envisioned for Pop in 1997. Sorry Bono but I don't buy that one. What may have happened is that in hindsight (1999/2000 perhaps?) they may have felt, in view of sales figures or the plans they had for the band, that it had been a mistake to release an album like Pop - but that's a different story altogether.

And partially with

HTDAAB is indeed overproduced IMO. I don't know about Bono...I don't see him more postured than in the past. Perhaps it may seem he's overdoing it since he apparently is being himself now as opposed to playing characters like MacPhisto et al.

Yes.

I can't recall when U2 didn't make songs...

HTTT seems to be underrated on this forum. I have to be in the right mood but when I am it is an unequivocally :drool:-worthy record.