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ONE love, blood, life
The "ATM Machine" debate started happening as soon as NLOTH leaked, if not that very night, then very soon after. I never cared that much or understood why people cared that much. It's not big deal. It's not a deal at all, imo.
As for the topic at hand:
I like NLOTH, and really love a handful of its songs, but like many have said before, it struggles from an identity crises. Regardless of what I think of any of the middle three songs, they just don't fit with the rest of the record(though I believe some of the Crazy remixes can fit with it).
No Line On The Horizon - I think this is arguably their best album opener since Discotheque. I love the guitar riff and Bono's vocal, especially the breakdown after the second chorus, and the part in the last verse where everything drops out for a second before coming back with Larry's drumbeat. But I think the thing that most struck me when I first heard this song was the openness of it. When I listen to the rockers from HTDAAB - Vertigo, ABOY, Crumbs - I don't necessarily dislike them, but they sound to me like they were recorded in an airtight space, like they have no room to really lift off and breathe and be ALIVE. NLOTH from the first note sounds like it's ALIVE, and that was a great thing to hear at the beginning of the record and sets the tone for the rest of it.
Magnificent - I like this song a lot, but I don't consider it a total classic like a lot of you do. The reason is simple. Musically, Edge, Adam, and Larry lift the song off right from the get-go, from Adam and Larry's buildup to the huge, soaring, entrance of Edge's guitar. It's classic U2. And then Bono starts singing. I just feel that Bono's vocals were too subdued in comparison to what the band is doing. You have the huge intro and you're pumped and then Bono starts singing this slow, brooding vocal that kind of slows down the momentum. And then at the end of the verse, he gets higher, and Edge, Adam, and Larry take off again in the chorus, but once again, I feel like the vocal of the chorus doesn't match the energy in the instrumentation of it, and so it's almost a little - a little - anti-climactic. But these are just reasons why I describe it as 'really good' instead of 'great'. I love the instrumentation, the riff, the 'justified/till we die/you and I/will magnify' line that comes after the last two choruses, and the solo. I mean, I really like the whole song, I just feel that the energy of the vocal didn't match the energy of everything else in the song.
Moment Of Surrender - The opening organ in this song evoked the beginning of "Your Blue Room" to me, and for U2 to do anything that even remotely evokes that song on a record in 2009 was heartwarming for me. That's the beginning of a great song. I love Bono's vocal here, because it's naked. He's not trying to be anything here, he's just being himself, and I love that. This is a beautiful song, with a beautiful melody, especially in the chorus, and one of the best on NLOTH.
Unknown Caller - The "sunshine, sunshine" intro with the birds is good enough that it could have been the intro to the whole record, the guitar solo at the end is clearly Edge's best moment of the record, and it plus the horns and the organ almost sound like something you would've heard U2 do in the R&H/Lovetown days, like it would've fit in with "When Love Comes To Town" and "Angel Of Harlem"(not the whole of UC, just from the horns on). The chorus melody is just really euphoric and is good example of what I was talking about before with regards to the rock songs on this record being alive and taking off as opposed to those of HTDAAB. It is arguably the best rocker on the record. As far as the lyrics in the chorus...they doesn't bother me at all. I've always felt that if the music is good, it matters less whether the lyrics are or not. I love the art of a good lyric, and I appreciate great lyrics immensely, but in a song, if the music is good, if the melody is good, he can sing 'la la la la' and the music and the melody will still be good.
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - the chorus melody is actually a nice one, but that whole of the song was just a little too polished on the album. The remixes transform it into something that fits the album much better. At first, the "Fish Out Of Water" mix was my favorite, but now I think it maybe strays from the original a little too much, and I prefer the Kick The Darkness and Dirty South Mixes. I used the Dirty South radio edit in my current NLOTH tracklist. Still not one of the best songs on the record, but I can really groove to the remixes.
Get On Your Boots - This was my favorite of the beach clips, because I just loved the chorus. I couldn't get enough of it. I thought it just a gorgeous melody and harmony. I still do. The problem is the rest of the song doesn't match it. The verses have very little melody and the lyrics are insubstantial. The "Let me in the sound" breakdown is interesting and kind of cool and more more and it feels like it maybe belonged in a different song. I just think this is a great, great chorus in search of a better song. I take issue with calling it "Vertigo pt. 2" though because I think that chorus is better than the entirety of Vertigo.
Stand Up Comedy - I never hated this song as much as some of you. In fact, when all we had was 30-second clips, it was one of my favorites, one of the ones I was looking forward to the most. And truth be told, I do like it. It's a little too busy, too many things going on at once, the arrangement of the verses and chrouses and bridges is kind of clunky, and like Boots, it doesn't really fit the rest of the record. I don't include it in my NLOTH tracklist anymore, and I haven't listened to it in a long time, but I think there are some good parts within it even if the whole doesn't quite add up - some catchy melodies, some interesting guitar sounds, etc. It's probably one of the two worst songs on the record, but it's ok.
Fez-Being Born - This is very arguably the single best track they've put on record since Pop, imo(other candidates for me are The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Stateless). When we had the 30-second clips, all we had of it was the intro, and that was very, very intriguing because U2 hadn't done anything that sounded remotely like that since Pop, but we didn't really know what to expect from it. When I first listened to the record the night it leaked, this was my favorite track from the beginning, and it still is. This is the anti-Vertigo. The unbelievable atmosphere the band creates, Bono's slow, brooding, passionate vocal, the lyrics - "lights flash past/like memories/a speeding head, a speeding heart/I'm being born, a bleeding start/the engine roars/blood-curdling wail/head first, then foot/then heart sets sail" - my god, that has to be the most evocative, abstract, beautiful lyric Bono has written in a decade. This song means a lot to me because when I listen to it, it's like, this sounds like the band that made The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and Zooropa, Passengers and Pop. That band is still there. They can still make music like this if they want to. That is the enduring thing to take away from this whole record, imo. That band is still there. They just have to want to be it.
White As Snow - This is a beautiful song, but musically, it's not entirely original. It's based on the hymn "Veni, veni Emmanuel". The made a new arrangement of it and Bono wrote new lyrics, but it's still based on a hymn that already existed. So, as much as I love the melody and Bono's vocal performance, and the bare, stripped-down, naked feel of the song, because it's not entirely musically original, I feel it might have been great to use as a B-Side, with the Linear version of Winter taking its place on the record. I really love it though, so as long as it's on the album, it's a positive.
Breathe - I like this song a lot. It's not transcendant, but it's very good. My favorite parts are the drum into, the guitar throughout, the vocal harmonies in the bridge and chorus, and the swagger Bono sings the verses with - there's a confidence, a youthful agression in his vocal delivery in those verses that almost reminds me the way he sang everything on the first few records. I can't call the song brilliant, but it's really good, and fun to sing along to. Also, before the 360 show I went to, I thought Breathe, on paper, was a poor choice to be an opener, but after going to that show, I get it. It's a fine opener. It's not Streets or Zoo Station or Mofo, but it's still a good choice for an opener, with the drums building up to the explosion of the guitar riff.
Cedars Of Lebanon - It is more a testament to U2's great history of record closers - from "40" to MLK to Mothers Of The Disappeared to All I Want Is You to Love Is Blindness to Wake Up Dead Man - than it is a slight to Cedars when I say that Cedars is not in the top of half of U2 record closers. It is really enjoyable though, a really mellow, almost intoxicating way to end the record. The verses don't have much of a melody, but in a more Lou Reed kind of way than a Vertigo/Boots kind of way, and it works for those particular lyrics, which are among the best on the record. The chorus melody is beautiful, and that little bass riff at the end is probably my favorite Adam moment of the record.
Winter - It wasn't on the album, but it was on Linear, which was packaged with the deluxe versions of the album, and Brian Eno went on public record as saying that he thought the band was nuts to leave it off the record, which a lot of us tend to agree with, so I'll give my thoughts on it too. Apart from the 'butter on toast' lyric, there's not much to dislike here, imo. Bono's vocal is passionate in its delivery of a compelling lyric('summer sings in me no more' would be one of my favorite lyrics on the record if it had been on the record), the melody is catchy and warm and melancholy and bittersweet all at the same time, and the outro vocals are just beautiful, haunting. I'm talking about the Linear version here - there was a point in time at which I preferred the Brothers version, because it was more 'finished', more polished, but I now prefer the Linear version for it's more 'wide open', 'alive' atmosphere, the same reason I think the non-middle-three rockers on this record work very well. It's just a beautiful song, and I feel it would have worked wonderfully in WAS's place between Fez and Breathe if the rest of the tracklist wasn't changed at all.
So overall, like I said in the beginning, it's a very, very interesting record with some really great songs, but the whole isn't as great as it could've been.
Here is the running order I've been using recently, which uses a remix of Crazy, cuts Boots and SUC out completely, and replaces WAS with Winter(only because they're kind of redundant and Winter is musically 100% original):
Fez-Being Born
No Line On The Horizon
Magnificent
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight(Dirty South Radio Edit)
Moment Of Surrender
Unknown Caller
Winter(Linear)
Breathe
No Line On The Horizon II
Cedars Of Lebanon
The electronica of the Dirty South mix of Crazy actually makes more a decent transition into the beginning of MOS. I think is a really balanced running order that works well as both a whole and as two five-song sides, with the two NLOTHs bookending the inner eight tracks, with the other-worldly Fez-BB and Cedars on the outside of the whole thing, and with MOS closing side one and UC opening side two. I also think Winter works really well between UC and Breathe. The organ at the end of UC goes into the beginning of Winter, and the outro vocals of Winter segue into the quiet beginning of the drum buildup of Breathe very, very well, imo. Maybe my favorite running order I've made up for NLOTH.
And one of Zooropa or Pop is the best since AB for me. Not sure which.
As for the topic at hand:
I like NLOTH, and really love a handful of its songs, but like many have said before, it struggles from an identity crises. Regardless of what I think of any of the middle three songs, they just don't fit with the rest of the record(though I believe some of the Crazy remixes can fit with it).
No Line On The Horizon - I think this is arguably their best album opener since Discotheque. I love the guitar riff and Bono's vocal, especially the breakdown after the second chorus, and the part in the last verse where everything drops out for a second before coming back with Larry's drumbeat. But I think the thing that most struck me when I first heard this song was the openness of it. When I listen to the rockers from HTDAAB - Vertigo, ABOY, Crumbs - I don't necessarily dislike them, but they sound to me like they were recorded in an airtight space, like they have no room to really lift off and breathe and be ALIVE. NLOTH from the first note sounds like it's ALIVE, and that was a great thing to hear at the beginning of the record and sets the tone for the rest of it.
Magnificent - I like this song a lot, but I don't consider it a total classic like a lot of you do. The reason is simple. Musically, Edge, Adam, and Larry lift the song off right from the get-go, from Adam and Larry's buildup to the huge, soaring, entrance of Edge's guitar. It's classic U2. And then Bono starts singing. I just feel that Bono's vocals were too subdued in comparison to what the band is doing. You have the huge intro and you're pumped and then Bono starts singing this slow, brooding vocal that kind of slows down the momentum. And then at the end of the verse, he gets higher, and Edge, Adam, and Larry take off again in the chorus, but once again, I feel like the vocal of the chorus doesn't match the energy in the instrumentation of it, and so it's almost a little - a little - anti-climactic. But these are just reasons why I describe it as 'really good' instead of 'great'. I love the instrumentation, the riff, the 'justified/till we die/you and I/will magnify' line that comes after the last two choruses, and the solo. I mean, I really like the whole song, I just feel that the energy of the vocal didn't match the energy of everything else in the song.
Moment Of Surrender - The opening organ in this song evoked the beginning of "Your Blue Room" to me, and for U2 to do anything that even remotely evokes that song on a record in 2009 was heartwarming for me. That's the beginning of a great song. I love Bono's vocal here, because it's naked. He's not trying to be anything here, he's just being himself, and I love that. This is a beautiful song, with a beautiful melody, especially in the chorus, and one of the best on NLOTH.
Unknown Caller - The "sunshine, sunshine" intro with the birds is good enough that it could have been the intro to the whole record, the guitar solo at the end is clearly Edge's best moment of the record, and it plus the horns and the organ almost sound like something you would've heard U2 do in the R&H/Lovetown days, like it would've fit in with "When Love Comes To Town" and "Angel Of Harlem"(not the whole of UC, just from the horns on). The chorus melody is just really euphoric and is good example of what I was talking about before with regards to the rock songs on this record being alive and taking off as opposed to those of HTDAAB. It is arguably the best rocker on the record. As far as the lyrics in the chorus...they doesn't bother me at all. I've always felt that if the music is good, it matters less whether the lyrics are or not. I love the art of a good lyric, and I appreciate great lyrics immensely, but in a song, if the music is good, if the melody is good, he can sing 'la la la la' and the music and the melody will still be good.
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight - the chorus melody is actually a nice one, but that whole of the song was just a little too polished on the album. The remixes transform it into something that fits the album much better. At first, the "Fish Out Of Water" mix was my favorite, but now I think it maybe strays from the original a little too much, and I prefer the Kick The Darkness and Dirty South Mixes. I used the Dirty South radio edit in my current NLOTH tracklist. Still not one of the best songs on the record, but I can really groove to the remixes.
Get On Your Boots - This was my favorite of the beach clips, because I just loved the chorus. I couldn't get enough of it. I thought it just a gorgeous melody and harmony. I still do. The problem is the rest of the song doesn't match it. The verses have very little melody and the lyrics are insubstantial. The "Let me in the sound" breakdown is interesting and kind of cool and more more and it feels like it maybe belonged in a different song. I just think this is a great, great chorus in search of a better song. I take issue with calling it "Vertigo pt. 2" though because I think that chorus is better than the entirety of Vertigo.
Stand Up Comedy - I never hated this song as much as some of you. In fact, when all we had was 30-second clips, it was one of my favorites, one of the ones I was looking forward to the most. And truth be told, I do like it. It's a little too busy, too many things going on at once, the arrangement of the verses and chrouses and bridges is kind of clunky, and like Boots, it doesn't really fit the rest of the record. I don't include it in my NLOTH tracklist anymore, and I haven't listened to it in a long time, but I think there are some good parts within it even if the whole doesn't quite add up - some catchy melodies, some interesting guitar sounds, etc. It's probably one of the two worst songs on the record, but it's ok.
Fez-Being Born - This is very arguably the single best track they've put on record since Pop, imo(other candidates for me are The Ground Beneath Her Feet and Stateless). When we had the 30-second clips, all we had of it was the intro, and that was very, very intriguing because U2 hadn't done anything that sounded remotely like that since Pop, but we didn't really know what to expect from it. When I first listened to the record the night it leaked, this was my favorite track from the beginning, and it still is. This is the anti-Vertigo. The unbelievable atmosphere the band creates, Bono's slow, brooding, passionate vocal, the lyrics - "lights flash past/like memories/a speeding head, a speeding heart/I'm being born, a bleeding start/the engine roars/blood-curdling wail/head first, then foot/then heart sets sail" - my god, that has to be the most evocative, abstract, beautiful lyric Bono has written in a decade. This song means a lot to me because when I listen to it, it's like, this sounds like the band that made The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and Zooropa, Passengers and Pop. That band is still there. They can still make music like this if they want to. That is the enduring thing to take away from this whole record, imo. That band is still there. They just have to want to be it.
White As Snow - This is a beautiful song, but musically, it's not entirely original. It's based on the hymn "Veni, veni Emmanuel". The made a new arrangement of it and Bono wrote new lyrics, but it's still based on a hymn that already existed. So, as much as I love the melody and Bono's vocal performance, and the bare, stripped-down, naked feel of the song, because it's not entirely musically original, I feel it might have been great to use as a B-Side, with the Linear version of Winter taking its place on the record. I really love it though, so as long as it's on the album, it's a positive.
Breathe - I like this song a lot. It's not transcendant, but it's very good. My favorite parts are the drum into, the guitar throughout, the vocal harmonies in the bridge and chorus, and the swagger Bono sings the verses with - there's a confidence, a youthful agression in his vocal delivery in those verses that almost reminds me the way he sang everything on the first few records. I can't call the song brilliant, but it's really good, and fun to sing along to. Also, before the 360 show I went to, I thought Breathe, on paper, was a poor choice to be an opener, but after going to that show, I get it. It's a fine opener. It's not Streets or Zoo Station or Mofo, but it's still a good choice for an opener, with the drums building up to the explosion of the guitar riff.
Cedars Of Lebanon - It is more a testament to U2's great history of record closers - from "40" to MLK to Mothers Of The Disappeared to All I Want Is You to Love Is Blindness to Wake Up Dead Man - than it is a slight to Cedars when I say that Cedars is not in the top of half of U2 record closers. It is really enjoyable though, a really mellow, almost intoxicating way to end the record. The verses don't have much of a melody, but in a more Lou Reed kind of way than a Vertigo/Boots kind of way, and it works for those particular lyrics, which are among the best on the record. The chorus melody is beautiful, and that little bass riff at the end is probably my favorite Adam moment of the record.
Winter - It wasn't on the album, but it was on Linear, which was packaged with the deluxe versions of the album, and Brian Eno went on public record as saying that he thought the band was nuts to leave it off the record, which a lot of us tend to agree with, so I'll give my thoughts on it too. Apart from the 'butter on toast' lyric, there's not much to dislike here, imo. Bono's vocal is passionate in its delivery of a compelling lyric('summer sings in me no more' would be one of my favorite lyrics on the record if it had been on the record), the melody is catchy and warm and melancholy and bittersweet all at the same time, and the outro vocals are just beautiful, haunting. I'm talking about the Linear version here - there was a point in time at which I preferred the Brothers version, because it was more 'finished', more polished, but I now prefer the Linear version for it's more 'wide open', 'alive' atmosphere, the same reason I think the non-middle-three rockers on this record work very well. It's just a beautiful song, and I feel it would have worked wonderfully in WAS's place between Fez and Breathe if the rest of the tracklist wasn't changed at all.
So overall, like I said in the beginning, it's a very, very interesting record with some really great songs, but the whole isn't as great as it could've been.
Here is the running order I've been using recently, which uses a remix of Crazy, cuts Boots and SUC out completely, and replaces WAS with Winter(only because they're kind of redundant and Winter is musically 100% original):
Fez-Being Born
No Line On The Horizon
Magnificent
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight(Dirty South Radio Edit)
Moment Of Surrender
Unknown Caller
Winter(Linear)
Breathe
No Line On The Horizon II
Cedars Of Lebanon
The electronica of the Dirty South mix of Crazy actually makes more a decent transition into the beginning of MOS. I think is a really balanced running order that works well as both a whole and as two five-song sides, with the two NLOTHs bookending the inner eight tracks, with the other-worldly Fez-BB and Cedars on the outside of the whole thing, and with MOS closing side one and UC opening side two. I also think Winter works really well between UC and Breathe. The organ at the end of UC goes into the beginning of Winter, and the outro vocals of Winter segue into the quiet beginning of the drum buildup of Breathe very, very well, imo. Maybe my favorite running order I've made up for NLOTH.
And one of Zooropa or Pop is the best since AB for me. Not sure which.
Oh god that would've been truly awful!
