Discotheque inspired by Stone Roses?

[Hollow Island]

Edge was the one going through an industrial phase.

 

[ascender_RS]

Edge was the one going through an industrial phase.

Ahhh. Must be getting old then and forgetting stuff!

That issue of Propaganda with stuff about the recording of AB was brilliant.

 

[Melon50]

It was Bono and Edge who wanted to go down that route, Larry and Daniel Lanois wanted to stick with what they knew and Adam was somewhere in the middle.

I guess that's the 'popular' story. I think in reality Larry was on board, but (obviously) had the toughest challenge of drumming/competing with sampled/machine beats.

As for U2 "stealing" from others.. Read some stuff about it and it seems they had 2 routes in the 90's. Either crediting (and paying) the original artist or have Larry 'recreate' a certain beat. Lot of songs on AB/Pop have Larry playing over his own samples as well. Songs like SO Cruel and DYFL have like 3-4 layers of drums stacked..

If Begging You isn't credited they had Larry recreate that beat I guess or he played along to it. The 2 drum tracks are identical in tempo, but not 100% the same. In the mix I tried Larry's playing with Reni for the first 25 seconds and fades out. The rest of it is U2 (sans) Larry with the Stone Roses

 

[Hollow Island]

I guess that's the 'popular' story. I think in reality Larry was on board, but (obviously) had the toughest challenge of drumming/competing with sampled/machine beats.

It's not a story, it's reality. It's detailed in U2 at the End of the World.

 

[Melon50]

It's not a story, it's reality. It's detailed in U2 at the End of the World.

I know, I read that book till it fell apart It's just that U2 themselves (I think) dramatized the narrative a bit with the Story Of One / FTSD documentaries. I'm sure they had a tough time adapting their sound but personally don't believe the "band nearly broke up" line to be actually true.

There's this Lanois interview from 2012 where he sort of debunks the "National Enquirer part of the story" as he calls it. He calls AB not any easier or harder than any other album they made together. Interesting watch, it's on YT

 

[An Cat Gav]

It's not a story, it's reality. It's detailed in U2 at the End of the World.

Definitely. Pretty sure it's mentioned in the U2 film, "From The Sky Down" and several other U2 sanctioned publications as well.

 

[Melon50]

They sanctioned it because it's a (imo over-dramatized) story they like to sell.. In that same Sky Down movie we can see that 'One' arrived at the 10th of October. They landed on the 3rd, had to do the video for Night & Day first so I'm sure they had a tough 5 days of demo-ing

Lanois (in 2013 I think) called it the 'National Enquirer' part of the story and said it wasn't easier/more difficult to make than any other album they did together.

I think they had way thougher albums to make, Achtung Baby took 10 months altogether, similar to The Joshua Tree

 

[ndmaxfield]

Oh, and here's Fools Gold with Mysterious Ways which was just a fun idea I had after reading about AB's influences. I don't think there's any direct influence on this one though (MW is a semitone down and made faster to match FG):

To my ear, Fools Gold sounds a lot closer to Do You Feel Loved?

 

[tommycharles]

I think they had way thougher albums to make, Achtung Baby took 10 months altogether, similar to The Joshua Tree

I suspect NLOTH and SOI both had uglier births than AB did.

...then for SOE they took the useful step of not writing much of the music, so it came together more easily.

 

[Hollow Island]

HTAAB was probably more difficult than Achtung, too. Ditching a producer after doing a load of work, starting over with Lillywhite...i wouldn't be surprised if he was the only person they could all agree on.