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The ridiculously forced falsetto? The compressed/overdriven vocals? Just to name a few things.
hey now, the right to hear ridiculous sounding vocals is something I hold dear
The ridiculously forced falsetto? The compressed/overdriven vocals? Just to name a few things.
no.
get on your boots didn't make it because it was strange, not because people thought it was vertigo part deux. it didn't make it with the casual listener because it made the casual listener go "huh? wtf was that?"
while i've grown to like get on your boots, it was the first time in my u2 fandom that i heard a new song for the first time and went "ummm... okay" instead of "woooo rawk :rock: fuck yea!!" the song is strange, not just in content, but in structure. it should have NEVER been a single. it should have been on the album, at which point i think it would have become a cult favorite among fans as they got used to the strangeness of it. but releasing it as a single was simply a bad move.
and while i agree that moment of surrender would have done better than boots, i still don't know how a 7 1/2 minute song would have faired.
one of the poppier songs on the album would have been the best choice for a first single. i still say breathe would have done the job, but the absolute best single, as far as getting the "casual listener" involved, would have been I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight; the album version, not whatever the fuck they played live.
No.
I know a lot of people who thought GOYB sounded like Vertigo part II. You may be the first person I've heard express the thought that the song was challenging!
No.
I know a lot of people who thought GOYB sounded like Vertigo part II. You may be the first person I've heard express the thought that the song was challenging!
apparently you were in a coma when the song came out then.
and i didn't say challenging... i said strange. which it was.
I think Boots is pretty strange as a lead single because it doesn't have a catchy chorus and because it sounds like a few different songs thrown together in 3 and a half minutes. Vertigo has a big riff and a big hook. Boots only has the former. At first listen I also didn't really like Boots. I only started liking it after a fair few listens and that's not the purpose of a lead single.
I would've done this:
5 - Radio: FEZ/Being Born
i really don't understand why people think Fez BB could have been a radio single. Its a good song, but not single material. If people were scratching their heads going "wtf" at GOYB, what do you think would have been the reaction to Fez BB?
FEZ-BB is one of the best tracks on the album, but would NOT have been a good choice for single.
I am disappointed that they didn't play it live though...
Not sure if this has been posted anywhere on here yet...
from an article on Independent.ie
"There's a moment in the recent BBC4 documentary on Brian Eno where he shows broadcaster Paul Morley his laptop with backing tracks he's composed for the new U2 and Coldplay albums.
It's a bit dangerous, he admits, having both files on the same computer because he fears he'll end up sending the wrong files to the wrong band. Not that anyone will be able to tell the difference, he adds mischievously."
full article at
The studio genius, U2 and the apollo moon landing... - Music, Entertainment - Independent.ie
What are the boys up to? Eno still working on further U2 recordings at the moment? How many pots do they have on the stove.
(didnt want to create a new thread, so I figured I'd post here since Eno and Lanois are the same person ... have you ever seen them together? No? I told you!)
It is possible, as long as they don't keep playing by the rules that worked in 2000 and 2004.
I don’t think they will. I clearly don't think they will. I think reading between the (Bono) lines, and looking at who they’ve got producing, it’s pretty clear that they’ve taken a calculated look at what actually has worked over the past decade, and figured that they could probably elbow their way back into relevance and onto the radio via having another look at something in the electro-dance-pop-rock hybrid realm. Possibly via a fairly dramatic new sound or feel, in both cases.
Obviously, both a Danger Mouse produced album, and something they are calling a ‘club’ album produced by three slick, shiny dance-pop producers both would or could have a really, really wide range, in terms of potential sounds and even categorisation. I mean, the DM album could literally be anything. It could be a fairly straightforward U2 album that is simply well produced ‘with a twist’, or it could be a really very dramatic departure for them. But looking into a crystal ball at what a ‘single’ from this might sound like, I think the best you can do is perhaps look on the one hand (as I said in another thread) at how Bono has namechecked MGMT more than once, always in a highly positive way. I doubt he really thinks that they were some kind of musical revelation, and more likely just sees that they were, to him, creatively clever, and appealing, in a crossover way that he/they might see as a way ‘in’ for them too. And U2 being U2, while I’m sure some of the DM material has been ‘new’ new, created from scratch within those sessions, you can also bet a lot of it has been carried over and reworked from older sessions.
So, looking into the crystal ball, I’d say a good guess would be looking at a 'known' thing like Every Breaking Wave - which I would say is a very good bet for being on whatever is next. The original Every Breaking Wave was described as being a heavily electro builder, but that would have probably been a fairly distinctive ‘Eno’ electro. It’s not that hard to picture though, right? The kind of pulsing, atmospheric, building synths and sounds Eno would likely deploy. No doubt the song has been reworked in many structural ways since, but maybe not in that basic way – still a builder on an electro bed. Just via Danger Mouse, very different sounds, or as Bono might say, different colours. Now have a listen to something like Hercules by the Good, the Bad and the Queen. Those darker, more stormy ‘colours’ of Danger Mouse. Imagine that sort of thing swirling and building behind Every Breaking Wave. Different sound, different place. I imagine, if they have gone ‘all in’ with DM, that at one end you’ll have something like that, and at the other, the more lively end, it would be quite snappy, quite crisp. Listen to DM with Beck, for example. Obviously U2 wouldn’t be as snappy and chippy as that, but take not-too-different songwriting from U2, in terms of their poppy stuff of the past decade, shave away the clunkiness, the ‘heavy’ feeling of some of their efforts, and give it some lightness and bounce.
For the club album... over an album it could drift well into ‘oonts oonts’ I suppose, but I doubt any single from it would drift too far toward that, only err on the side of it. I think, here again, it’s a calculated look at what has worked over the past decade, and in this case dance-rock singles have done quite (very) well. But given the producers, it would be dance-rock erring on the side of dance. A rock single that needs no remixing to be played in a club. Meet the remix halfway from the beginning. While it would sound nothing like this example, in terms of the percentage split I’m talking about, something like An Honest Mistake by the Bravery, perhaps. I think that kind of area is where they figure they’ll get their next Vertigo. They bring an energetic, rifftastic ‘new Vertigo’ to the studio, and one of these three brings it to the dancefloor, but it’s still more band than DJ.
Bono wants 'eternal songs' and 'slamming 45s' (or whatever he said.) They'll try and get their next With or Without You (i.e. timeless, ‘eternal songs’ classic) from electro-pop via Danger Mouse, and their next Vertigo (hit single) from dance-rock via these other three.
Now have a listen to something like Hercules by the Good, the Bad and the Queen. Those darker, more stormy ‘colours’ of Danger Mouse. Imagine that sort of thing swirling and building behind Every Breaking Wave.
i really don't understand why people think Fez BB could have been a radio single. Its a good song, but not single material. If people were scratching their heads going "wtf" at GOYB, what do you think would have been the reaction to Fez BB?
If they had kept the song title as "sexy boots" it would have fared better in the mass media but U2 would have lost all credibility.
Lanois confirms he and U2 "have done enough for a while" in this interview
Daniel Lanois: The man who wanted to marry a mermaid - The Globe and Mail
This is during the production of Nloth and vlv.
that was my first thought too, however, this is an interview conducted to promote his new album "Small Craft on A Milk Sea" , if you read the article, the context/time seems very recent.