Shuttlecock XIX - send $40 now for your opportunity to not get a presale code

[david]

I love the dark moments of this album. There’s this odd balance of joy and sadness. The last track is just somber AF.

 

[HeartlandGirl]

Three things:

1. This conversation just reminds me how goddam utterly fantastic Zooropa is. Miles away my favorite thing by this band to this day, and realistically the only one I still listen to with great regularity. Lemon is a best-ever song contender.

It's the only album I still have on cassette. It's my favorite by the band, and I just can't bring myself to get rid of it. When they played Zooropa in Anaheim several years back, I lost my mind.

ETA: I still haven't listened to the album because I've been at work all day. The 8th graders asked to listen to it but were respectful of the idea that I want my initial listen to be at home with my nice headphones. Some of them are planning to hear it this weekend too, and then we can play it in class next week. Yay for the youth of America.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's takes. Happy release weekend, everyone.

 

[namkcuR]

I wish Lights of Home did not follow Love is All We Have Left. I am not sure I can think of a more unfortunate opening sequence in a U2 album. You get a nice, atmospheric track like we have not had in years, and that whole mood is gone after all of two seconds of Lights of Home. Ugh.

It flows much better after LIAWHL if you use the String version. It's so much better, more cinematic, more evocative, than the album version.

 

[u2popmofo]

This is my favorite review so far.

Thank ye, kind miss.

 

[joyfulgirl]

Haven’t listened yet but the positives people are mentioning make me glad I scored a GA to the second DC show in the presale.

 

[mikal]

I played around with tracks 2-5 and actually think the album flows better this way only changing the order of those tracks:

Get Out Of Your Own Way
American Soul
You’re The Beat Thing About Me
Lights Of Home

Everything else stays the same.

 

[intedomine]

My other idea for the Showman video involves Bono riding his bike through Central Park throwing free albums at people... hitting them in the head, doing their coffees and shit

Yes! This'd be a laugh.

I've had a second listen to that middle stretch of songs 6-9 - still a lovely sequence of songs.

 

[Wide Awake n AZ]

The only thing that pisses me off about this thread is you all keep talking about Zooropa and so I threw it on and I am really, really sad that this is not the production, Bono voice, and Edge on this new album.

For the record, I love the new album. Shit, most albums give you maybe 4 songs worth while, and this has 6 or 7. But they all are going to be so much better live and for the life of me, I cannot understand why that is not the thought making an album. But I am not a rock star.

Zooropa...RefuJesus Christ....

 

[HeartlandGirl]

My other idea for the Showman video involves Bono riding his bike through Central Park throwing free albums at people... hitting them in the head, doing their coffees and shit

What if he's also dressed as MacPhisto?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

What if he's also dressed as MacPhisto?

... no

 

[Axver]

1. I've seen multiple people say that they wish LIAWHL would've built to something more, and I don't really get that. Not everything needs to build to some big climax. It's ok for a quiet little song to just be a quiet little song. Especially when it's this pretty.

It's not that I want it to have a big climax or be another Little Things or whatever. It's just that I don't feel like it's complete - it should be longer, like many other tracks. It's a good idea that does not get the space to breathe and be realised fully.

But to build off what gump said, the biggest problem is having Lights of Home next. It's so abrupt and jarring, and makes no sense at all after All We Have Left. The transition need not be seamless but it should at least make some sort of sonic sense. This does not at all. All We Have Left is so short that you could think it's meant to be Lights of Home's intro, and of course it isn't that whatsoever.

 

[namkcuR]

It's not that I want it to have a big climax or be another Little Things or whatever. It's just that I don't feel like it's complete - it should be longer, like many other tracks. It's a good idea that does not get the space to breathe and be realised fully.

But to build off what gump said, the biggest problem is having Lights of Home next. It's so abrupt and jarring, and makes no sense at all after All We Have Left. The transition need not be seamless but it should at least make some sort of sonic sense. This does not at all. All We Have Left is so short that you could think it's meant to be Lights of Home's intro, and of course it isn't that whatsoever.

I think Love Is All ends where it should, if it were two minutes longer, it would get repetitive and you guys would be saying, 'this song should've been a minute shorter'.

Like I said to gump, the Strings version of Lights Of Home works much better after Love Is All. A much better flow than going into the album version. Try it if you care enough.

 

[Axver]

We don't make that complaint about past downtempo experimental numbers. Have you ever seen me slag UF or Zooropa or Passengers in that way? I know you don't mean it in this snarky way, but it does irk me when people on this forum say "but if the band had done what you suggest, you'd still say it sucks".

Like, imagine if ASOH was just the first two minutes, and in the more spare style of the opening of the live version. It'd still be fucking brilliant but it wouldn't be the best song the band's ever recorded.

 

[namkcuR]

We don't make that complaint about past downtempo experimental numbers. Have you ever seen me slag UF or Zooropa or Passengers in that way? I know you don't mean it in this snarky way, but it does irk me when people on this forum say "but if the band had done what you suggest, you'd still say it sucks".

Like, imagine if ASOH was just the first two minutes, and in the more spare style of the opening of the live version. It'd still be fucking brilliant but it wouldn't be the best song the band's ever recorded.

I get that, but all the songs you mentioned are all more complex and with more moving parts than Love Is All. LIAWHL is just a very simple ambient piece, and I'm not sure where else it could go for another minute or two or whatever. The only thing I might agree with is that instead of the hard stop, it could've used a 10-15 second fade-out.

 

[LemonMelon]

Love Is All does need some kind of climax, same with Summer of Love. These songs feel content to wrap themselves up before they become something special. In Radiohead terms, imagine Exit Music (For a Film) with just the acoustic part, or Present Tense without the second half key change ("in you I'm lost"). It's all well and good to not get boring, but you have to risk something to get something. Even a bridge would help.

Re: 13, I fall on the side of it being surprisingly successful, but not especially necessary to this album. It's a neat lyrical concept, I'll say that much.

 

[namkcuR]

Love Is All does need some kind of climax, same with Summer of Love. These songs feel content to wrap themselves up before they become something special. In Radiohead terms, imagine Exit Music (For a Film) with just the acoustic part, or Present Tense without the second half key change ("in you I'm lost"). It's all well and good to not get boring, but you have to risk something to get something. Even a bridge would help.

Re: 13, I fall on the side of it being surprisingly successful, but not especially necessary to this album. It's a neat lyrical concept, I'll say that much.

Exit Music is all buildup until it explodes. That song would feel incomplete if it ended earlier. It's a bad comparison though, because Summer Of Love does not feel like buildup, it just feels like a great groove. It's the best song on the record for me atm.

 

[Axver]

I get that, but all the songs you mentioned are all more complex and with more moving parts than Love Is All. LIAWHL is just a very simple ambient piece, and I'm not sure where else it could go for another minute or two or whatever. The only thing I might agree with is that instead of the hard stop, it could've used a 10-15 second fade-out.

More complex and more moving parts? The First Time is hardly more complex. The Wanderer builds lyrically but not musically. Half of Passengers is way more ambient.

But the best comparison is maybe one from UF: Promenade, another little mood piece - but that fade-out is just perfect. So I suppose pair that with your last sentence and we're not on entirely dissimilar pages.

 

[Axver]

Also, it says something about the mindset of the Other Place that most of the threads for the new songs are "appreciation threads" rather than what they used to be, "discussion threads".

 

[DaveC]

In Radiohead terms, imagine Exit Music (For a Film) with just the acoustic part, or Present Tense without the second half key change ("in you I'm lost"). It's all well and good to not get boring, but you have to risk something to get something. Even a bridge would help.

Re: 13, I fall on the side of it being surprisingly successful, but not especially necessary to this album. It's a neat lyrical concept, I'll say that much.

i get this - i think of kendrick lamar's these walls - without the tempo change and final verse and it would still be a killer track, but it would still be a far cry from what it actually turned out to be. but i agree with ruckman too that those two particular tracks don't really feel like they have much further to go arranged as they are. they'd both need to switch into something entirely different (DNA or maad city style) to get much longer without getting too repetitive.

edit: promenade is a great example of how it could have ended nicely. i gave that one a 10 in LN7's survey. that album actually got 4 10s from me.

 

[namkcuR]

More complex and more moving parts? The First Time is hardly more complex. The Wanderer builds lyrically but not musically. Half of Passengers is way more ambient.

But the best comparison is maybe one from UF: Promenade, another little mood piece - but that fade-out is just perfect. So I suppose pair that with your last sentence and we're not on entirely dissimilar pages.

Oh, see, you said UF and Zooropa and I thought you were referring to the songs, not the albums, so I wasn't even thinking about The First Time. I was just talking about those two songs 'cause that's what I thought you meant. Simple misunderstanding.

Funny you should mention Promenade...I don't know if you read my pages-long review of SOE, but the song I mentioned reminding me of Promenade was Landlady. Go ahead, pelt me.

 

[namkcuR]

i get this - i think of kendrick lamar's these walls - without the tempo change and final verse and it would still be a killer track, but it would still be a far cry from what it actually turned out to be. but i agree with ruckman too that those two particular tracks don't really feel like they have much further to go arranged as they are. they'd both need to switch into something entirely different (DNA or maad city style) to get much longer without getting too repetitive.

edit: promenade is a great example of how it could have ended nicely. i gave that one a 10 in LN7's survey. that album actually got 4 10s from me.

I was just ranking UF this afternoon as well. There is no reason it shouldn't be regarded as highly as JT and AB. You could make the argument that the stretch from UF->Bad is the pinnacle of their career and I wouldn't laugh at you.

But my ranking on his survey are laughably high. Like, there's hardly anything below a 6. I'm handing out 10s and 9s like candy.

 

[DaveC]

i've been using a scale based solely on u2's music, so by definition it's forcing me to give low scores for songs i don't like as much. i've given out a few 2s and 3s so far and even a 1 (the refugee...echhh). not a single 10 until TUF, and then 4 on that album (only 1 on JT proper, haven't done the amazing JT b-sides yet). i can't see myself giving a single 10 to anything after zooropa.

this survey is really a lot of fun. it's getting me to pay attention and think critically about songs i love but haven't listened closely to in years, and i'm also finding some tunes i'd never heard before that i quite like.

You could make the argument that the stretch from UF->Bad is the pinnacle of their career and I wouldn't laugh at you.

a 9 and three 10s for me. add in wire and there's my four 10s from UF.

 

[Axver]

Oh, see, you said UF and Zooropa and I thought you were referring to the songs, not the albums, so I wasn't even thinking about The First Time. I was just talking about those two songs 'cause that's what I thought you meant. Simple misunderstanding.

Funny you should mention Promenade...I don't know if you read my pages-long review of SOE, but the song I mentioned reminding me of Promenade was Landlady. Go ahead, pelt me.

Ahh gotcha. And I'm... not seeing the Promenade/Landlady comparison, but I'll play them back to back and see how much of a resemblance I spot.

Incidentally, one petty thing about Landlady that bothers me: Bono describes the landlady as always being the one to pay the rent. But the landlady is the person to whom the rent is paid! The landlady could waive or defer the rent, but not pay it.

/pedant

You could make the argument that the stretch from ASOH->MLK is the pinnacle of their career and I wouldn't laugh at you.

Fixed that for you.

 

[david]

The only song I was kind of meh on was Love Is Bigger.. I dunno. It’s good. But I was a little underwhelmed by it. But to me this album is like the classic U2 albums that grew on me over time with repeated listens. So I’m sure that track will grow on me over time.

 

[david]

https://www.facebook.com/u2/posts/10156239760231686 what’s this about?

 

[dan_smee]

https://www.facebook.com/u2/posts/10156239760231686 what’s this about?

Nekminit- TBT acoustic

 

[david]

Apparently it was GOOYOW acoustic. Bono wandering the city street in a pirate coat staring at people in cars almost reminded me the Still Haven’t Found video kind of.

 

[gump]

Little Things is by far the best song in this album in my view. The buildup at the end is really good, and the way it flows reminds me of Mercy. The guitar part in the verses annoys me though - that’s basically the COBL guitar but without the riff.

 

[CosmoKramer]

Apparently it was GOOYOW acoustic. Bono wandering the city street in a pirate coat staring at people in cars almost reminded me the Still Haven’t Found video kind of.

I just watched the video and the person filming kept covering the mic on the phone with their hand or something. It sounded good but then every few seconds the volume would drop.

Larry needs to dial back that energy though.

 

[phanan]

Gave it my first listen on the way home from work today. A few things stood out, but mostly I came away with a feeling of indifference to it.

But I’m gonna give it a few more spins to see how/if it fleshes itself out.