New Album Discussion 1 - Songs of..... - Unreasonable guitar album

[monkeyskin]

360 opening on Breathe - No Line - Boots - Magnificent was pretty cool. Boots was really fun in that setting.

A lot of it falls frustratingly flat on the record. The title track always promises me a lot, but it's not until it gets to the final third with Fez, White as Snow and Cedars of Lebanon that I'm drawn back in.

Never been one to listen to Beach / Fez clips, but that video Earnie Shavers posted on the last page has what I'd want to hear instead of what we got.

 

[AndrewCowley]

Unknown Caller from U22 is indeed spectacular. The lyrics are a tad naff, but I love how it sounds. It sounds big and expansive. And that guitar solo, whilst breaking no new ground, is a ripper.

It is exactly what is missing from the Songs Of era.

 

[DeVaul]

Restart and

HIRING A RECOVERY COMPANY TO GET LOST CRYPTOS, FUNDS, AND BITCOIN WALLETS BACK​

yourself

 

[Rich79]

Look, I know the surprise album strategy has epically backfired on them before, but hear me out:

A surprise drop of new single on streaming and album announcement with preorders on 1/1/26 with the tag-line "All is not quiet on New Year's Day"

...alas, tis but a daydream, but I think it'd be a fun strategy for them.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

surprise wasn't the issue. free wasn't an issue.

automatic inclusion in your library was the issue.

alas - i think U2 should stay clear of big honking surprise releases for a while.

a quiet dropping of a song with a limited marketing campaign around it, however, could get more buzz than a big ole honkin' U2 marketing campaign.

 

[wolbersu2]

I'd wish it would be a surprise release. So they wouldn't have to torture us with teasing us new bits of new material for a over year.

They could have done at least a low attention release from the vaults to keep the fans interested. Now they're kind of frustrating and irritating me they don't deliver just as their contemporary bands do. Just watching the fantastic M from Depeche Mode and next week there's the Bluray of a Cure show. Simple Minds, Duran Duran, Stones and even from the Beatles we get more.

Time to start a petition for the Heartland JT30 show!

 

[Registered Dude]

I can’t imagine they’ll go small with the promotion for the next release. They are too insecure for that.

they’ll open the olympics or the world cup or take over Jimmy Fallon for the summer or some sillliness

 

[DeVaul]

they’ll open the olympics or the world cup or take over Jimmy Fallon for the summer or some sillliness

 

[AndrewCowley]

Heck not another talk show residency. They go there, say these are some of the best songs we’ve ever written and nobody cares.

The Olympics? Last I checked they aren’t being held in Ireland.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

So you suggest they just not promote the album?

 

[Registered Dude]

So you suggest they just not promote the album?

a quiet dropping of a song with a limited marketing campaign around it, however, could get more buzz than a big ole honkin' U2 marketing campaign.

No they should do as you suggest

 

[MattD]

I can’t imagine they’ll go small with the promotion for the next release. They are too insecure for that.

they’ll open the olympics or the world cup or take over Jimmy Fallon for the summer or some sillliness

If Bono and U2 have any feckin sense (which is probably none at this stage), they'll steer well away from an inevitable PR disaster inadvertently/unintentionally promoting Trump and Infantino.

 

[Registered Dude]

To be clear - I am still very excited to hear new music from them.

 

[MattD]

Things could be bad for U2, but they could be a heck of a lot worse.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1p72uia/the_waterboys_using_shitty_ai_artwork_for_their/

I saw this a few weeks back when it popped up on my Spotify feed but their contemporaries from the '80s The Waterboys have released a new album with dreadful AI cover art. This isn't intended to be 'ironic' either. Shocking for a band who I assumed to be artistically conscious in all things.

 

[Rich79]

surprise wasn't the issue. free wasn't an issue.

automatic inclusion in your library was the issue.

Thanks for teaching me what I already knew. I wasn't claiming the surprise was the issue; which is why I suggested it's something they could proceed with in a different way.

 

[mikal]

surprise wasn't the issue. free wasn't an issue.

automatic inclusion in your library was the issue.

alas - i think U2 should stay clear of big honking surprise releases for a while.

a quiet dropping of a song with a limited marketing campaign around it, however, could get more buzz than a big ole honkin' U2 marketing campaign.

Yep, and I will bring this option to the grave that I believe the album was really really good and by far the best of the post HTDAAB albums.

 

[Rich79]

Best of the post-ATYCLB albums for me.

Since we're bringing things to the grave, I'll bring to the grave that I believe it was a smart move on paper, but the technology wasn't set up to land the execution properly (the auto-sync that nobody should have been trusting enough to have switched on in the first place) and of course the band took most of the heat for it, because "How dare they?!'

 

[2861U2]

I have no doubt that for many people, it wasn't about being an invasion of privacy. It was because it was an artist they didn't like. If Taylor or Beyonce had done the exact same thing, the people complaining about U2 would have been fawning all over it and praising what a genius move it was. But because it was an old rock band, they pretended to care about their privacy.

And yes, SOI is by far the best of their three most recent albums. It grows on me every time I listen to it. I don't care for Volcano, and Reach Me is pretty overrated I think, but 9 of the 11 I consider very good to great. Can't say that about many other albums.

 

[phanan]

There are plenty of people who don't like any major artist. If anyone else had done the same thing they would have received just as much blowback.

All they had to do was let people know it was available for free and let those of us who wanted it go get it.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

There are plenty of people who don't like any major artist. If anyone else had done the same thing they would have received just as much blowback.

All they had to do was let people know it was available for free and let those of us who wanted it go get it.

I don't know why it's hard for people to admit this was a huge mistake on the band's part.

They won't take away your U2.com Fan Club member card by saying it was a bad idea.

 

[david]

11 years on and a majority of the population won’t forgive them for that. But yeah, it was a dumb idea.

Also, leaving Crystal Ballroom off the album proper was dumb too.

 

[TinKnight]

I blame Larry (evergreen)

 

[2861U2]

To clarify, it was certainly a bad idea. I'm just saying some outrage from younger folks was because of who it was.

I'm remembering that the whole debacle didn't affect me because at the time I was pretty much the only person I knew who didn't have a smartphone yet.

 

[mikal]

Another thing that is consistently left out of this whole story is that Apple's software is so stupid. If they didn't rely on iOS updates for their core apps, they could have literally released an update to delete the album the minute people started complaining. But Apple always gets in their own way.

 

[Salome]

I remember back in the day it took me about 5 minutes to find the album, as I am not dumb enough to give Apple free reign over my iPhone. Don't know why anyone would. U2 provided a service to the IT and privacy illiterate, as far as I'm concerned. No offense.

 

[Irvine511]

I can see why it made sense on paper. It was going to command a ton of attention, which is the only currency that matters. It was big and bold and embraced technology. It was a huge opportunity for an aging rock band to put themselves back into the conversation. It also aligned perfectly with their lifelong goal to reach as wide an audience as possible. What band wouldn’t want that?

Turns out, maybe only U2.

The miscalculation was of course it being in your library without your permission, but it also was, in retrospect, an action that aligned exactly with what people dislike about U2, the assumption that really you do love them, that what they do is important. It was presumptuous and pretentious. And deeply annoying. Which is what people don’t like about Bono in particular. He’s annoying.

It was a deeply uncool move, in a world where coolness is measured in how little you appear to give a **** about what other people think (although most “cool” people quietly, deeply give a **** what others think). And U2 were only ever truly cool once. Maybe twice. It’s their fatal flaw, their blind spot.

I’m sure they wouldn’t do it again.

 

[mikal]

I can see why it made sense on paper. It was going to command a ton of attention, which is the only currency that matters. It was big and bold and embraced technology. It was a huge opportunity for an aging rock band to put themselves back into the conversation. It also aligned perfectly with their lifelong goal to reach as wide an audience as possible. What band wouldn’t want that?

Turns out, maybe only U2.

The miscalculation was of course it being in your library without your permission, but it also was, in retrospect, an action that aligned exactly with what people dislike about U2, the assumption that really you do love them, that what they do is important. It was presumptuous and pretentious. And deeply annoying. Which is what people don’t like about Bono in particular. He’s annoying.

It was a deeply uncool move, in a world where coolness is measured in how little you appear to give a **** about what other people think (although most “cool” people quietly, deeply give a **** what others think). And U2 were only ever truly cool once. Maybe twice. It’s their fatal flaw, their blind spot.

I’m sure they wouldn’t do it again, even if they

Yeah and the fact that people couldn't delete it. And that I put 100% on Apple. They had the ability to fix that after the backlash and just sat on it because they're Apple. If U2 had made this deal with Spotify or Samsung, it never would have blown up like it did.

 

[david]

Lily Allen is releasing her new album on “butt plug-shaped” USBs……

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

is she automatically adding it to everyone's... uh... libraries?

 

[Hewson]

Lily Allen is releasing her new album on “butt plug-shaped” USBs……

Unlike U2, she has her fan base pegged.