one thing i wanted to ask....is the negativity REALLY that bad? Most of the reviews from big publications have been overall positive, the ones like Pitchfork we expected.
On this forum...well, people always complain.
It seems to me that the common threads in bad reviews have had these arguments in common:
- Bono is a wanker
- They are too old
- Boots was not a good choice of single
- Bono is a wanker who loves himself
- The album does not have ANY catchy singles [!!!]
- Like their last two albums they are trying too hard to sound like themselves [again!!!!]
- It sounds too much like U2 / it doesn't sound enough like U2 [sometimes both views whinged in the same review... LOL]
- Bono thinks he is God... and is a wanker
- [insert song] is terrible so the whole album sucks
- They are "irrelevant" [whatever that weasel word actually means]
Also, I seem to get the impression from a lot of the relatively few bad reviews, that sometimes the reviewer does not appear to know much about music. Wrong song titles, guitar solos attributed to the wrong song etc. Oh yes, and a lot of "God accross the road", "Napoleon in high heels", "Right to be ridiculous..." references. Oh, and that Bono is a wanker.
The good reviews, along with an apparently strong knowlegde of music, seem to have these themes in common:
- Bono is a lovable roguish wanker
- U2's best album since Achtung
- Wonderful, inventive, non-linear collection of songs
- Much better than their last two records
- The Edge on fire, writing some of his best riffs
- Eno and Lanois pushing the band much further towards new sounds
- Layered music
- [insert song name] is not a great song but the overall album rocks
- Adam and Larry at the peak of their powers
- Bono's voice in good shape
- A return to new ideas, what U2 is really meant to be about
- Amazing that 48-49 year olds can write a record this good which is "relevant" to the youth of today
- And outpourings of love for various songs, eg. Magnificent, Moment of Surrender, Unknown Caller, No Line On The Horizon, Breathe, Fez-Being Born, Cedars of Lebanon
- and Bono is a wanker, but we knew that anyway and he knows it too, so who cares.
So, there we have it. My random assessment is that the negative articles have all been written with personal attacks on Bono in mind, and age-ist criticisms that somehow when you reach a certain number which indicates when you were born, it is like a stop clock and indicates that you can lo longer make good music, period, even if you still make good music!
The negative reviewers in the press are all clearly going into their pieces of journalism ready and locked and loaded with their anti-U2 opinions, salivating at the prospect of writing a review of a band they generally hate.
The positive reviews are more of a balance between the hard-core U2 fans, casual U2 fans and true afficionados and appreciators of music, people who have listened to the album with open ears, hearts and minds.
Hence, I personally believe that most of the negative reviews should be ignored. Album sales over these next few weeks won't mean much in the end, it's the next couple of years and the tour which will push the sales of NLOTH to astronomical levels. Mark - my -words....
Lastly, the first ever 5-star review of their career from Rolling Stone, fills me with optimism and is a good indication of where this record sits in the grand scheme of things...