Thanks Frenchie!
Love to get to hear your background.
So weird that we have a lot of similar favorites from U2’s past work, but are completely opposite on SOI.
Other than loving EBW and Crystal Ballroom
Under two weeks people!
To be clear I think SOI is a bland and unremarkable record. But in a live setting I loved most of the songs (except The Miracle and Raised by dogs which I will unfortunately never enjoy). Iris and Song for someone are terrific live for example. Listen to the red nose day version, an absolutely lovely version). So the songs are not bad but just don't work for me on the album.
Talking about U2's past work in my youth I was the nerd who bought the hugely overpriced live bootleg cassettes and cd's behind the counter of record stores and who went to the international record convention to score the crazy rare items. I traded in my Rattle and Hum video cassette three times because I didn't like the sound of Edge's guitar on Streets and blamed it on the video cassette. I was only finally happy when I bought a cd with 6 live songs from the movie that was only intented for film distributors. Kick ass sound from Bad on that one. Probably my favorite live version of that song.
Absolutely love the Achtung Baby jam sessions with an unbelievable Edge playing Wake up death man (the one with in the verse the words "Sugarcane"). That Edge solo in demo version of Acrobat is magic, the demo of the fly is godlike and I could go on. I remember being shocked that Bono called those recordings goboldegoog or something by the way.
But absolutely delighted we are getting a new record in a couple of weeks. Love the stripped down and clean structure of GOOYOW and layers of sound in American Soul. Fun thing is they sound the best if you listen to them like being one song connected with Kendrick spoken word. And the best is yet to come so very excited.