New Album Discussion 1 - Songs of..... - Unreasonable guitar album
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Rick Rubin. It's all Rick Rubin's fault
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
Honestly - it kind of all starts with Rick Rubin. His involvement caused the biggest album delay until now, he told them they need to write songs and come with complete thoughts into recording and it’s killed their spontaneous magic. And the seem to try and prove him wrong all the time. By failing to do the thing he said. Weird. Also, Rick, your beloved RHCP hardly have the songwriting chops to be considered the apex of the art form.
Rubin and Spider-Man
The band, or believe it was Edge that credited the musical with their push into “pop song” realm. How to really go for the melody vs what has made U2 unique….their lack of technical skill….which is a skill
I really don’t want to hear anymore RAWK. I don’t see another UTEOTW in them. I think you lean into your age and produce more tracks like Stateless, Blue Room, Velvet Dress….lean into the blue, the dark and moody. I know Bono has been all about the joy lately, but yeah U2 at its best when Bono has wanderlust
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
I know I’ve said this before, but the blueprint is Nick Cave. His anger has evolved into a world-weary, atmospheric, aching, soulful flood of creative output that makes him an entirely different artist that is somehow still perfectly in sync with his core ethos from his gothic, heavier days.
Their experience on the Spidey musical left some (in this case positive) marks, too
mikal
Blue Crack Supplier
I think the over tweaking has some to do with it as well. UTEOTW is such a great example that was brought up earlier of a song that was created and allowed to let breathe instead of searching for the big chorus. LunchLady is also a great example of a song that can give us a little bit of hope if they fully embrace that mentality. Sure it had a structured chorus but it wasn't a song that was ever going to be a big single and they just let it breathe without overdoing it. Give us a handful of songs like that on the next release.
for all the critique about over tweaking and over cooking - which i think is fair...
they did the same thing on achtung baby. we've all heard the tapes. we know how far those songs came. we know the legend about how the sessions almost broke up the band.
taking forever, and having songs stitched together by producers from different parts - eventually leading to gold - is part of their story.
the main difference has been in the decision making, and who they've had with them to make those decisions.
and rick rubin. fück rick rubin.
they did the same thing on achtung baby. we've all heard the tapes. we know how far those songs came. we know the legend about how the sessions almost broke up the band.
taking forever, and having songs stitched together by producers from different parts - eventually leading to gold - is part of their story.
the main difference has been in the decision making, and who they've had with them to make those decisions.
and rick rubin. fück rick rubin.
mikal
Blue Crack Supplier
Yep because the crazy thing is, as much as they tweakes AB, they actually got the album out relatively quickly compared to the album cycles from their last few albums. Imagine if they were making AB in 2015. Yikes! They would have stayed in the studio for 2 more years, changed producers, etc.
phanan
Blue Crack Addict
WTF is LunchLady?
jphelmet
Refugee
Reading through the last 2 pages, this was my exact thought. Even Bono's kick of being about Joy, which Cave has run towards on his last album, and did it perfectly. He still has the edge of darkness even when he is writing a song about joy, and somehow makes it feel effortless.
Hewson
Blue Crack Supplier
ascender_RS
Refugee
The Rick Rubin thing is still strange to me because if there's one band who love to see where a jam goes, its the Chili Peppers, so I find it hard to believe that they would be turning up with fully formed songs or a cohesive album.
Even with Rubin, why didn't they just see it through? Try something different. Unless they literally hated the sight of each other and couldn't work together, I can't believe the band didn't have enough proper demos of songs they could have worked up into something.
He may be a bare-footed hipster doofus, but I think the songwriting dynamics of the band were changing before he got involved and we've seen enough bad decision-making since then when it comes to producers that I still believe many of the mis-steps and refusal to change their approach to recording and releasing music is down the band and no-one else.
What year did Paul McGuinness retire?
Even with Rubin, why didn't they just see it through? Try something different. Unless they literally hated the sight of each other and couldn't work together, I can't believe the band didn't have enough proper demos of songs they could have worked up into something.
He may be a bare-footed hipster doofus, but I think the songwriting dynamics of the band were changing before he got involved and we've seen enough bad decision-making since then when it comes to producers that I still believe many of the mis-steps and refusal to change their approach to recording and releasing music is down the band and no-one else.
What year did Paul McGuinness retire?
Registered Dude
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
cant wait for Lunchlady live
Neither can Bono…
Irvine511
Blue Crack Supplier
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dan_smee
ONE love, blood, life
Everything you read about his philosophy and style (raw, direct, focus on songwriting, reduce the instruments and effects, bring complete songs) is so anti what made U2 great, and also about 80% of that drives the rhetoric from Bono about their output from their involvement with Rubin onwards.
So if they didn’t enjoy the sessions, and didn’t jive philosophically, then why on earth has Bono been publicly trying to ALIGN with that approach ever since? It makes no sense at all, unless he was offended and is trying to prove a point.
So if they didn’t enjoy the sessions, and didn’t jive philosophically, then why on earth has Bono been publicly trying to ALIGN with that approach ever since? It makes no sense at all, unless he was offended and is trying to prove a point.
PookaMacP
War Child
My take is that Rubin surfaced an insecurity that has always been at the heart of the band. Once it was out in the open, it disrupted everything because it simply could not be buried again.
Imagine being told you weren't very good at the very thing that should be your legacy: ie writing songs. Then, for your next project, you lean even more heavily in the opposite direction - into the formula that has brought you most success (ie co-writing with Eno and Lanois on NLOTH) - and that doesn't work either. Meanwhile, your big ego project - Spiderman - has also been a disaster...
I suspect a lot of their subsequent decisions are the result of this challenge to Bono's, but particularly Edge's, sense of self worth. SOS; the fact it's only Bono & Edge who appear in the Letterman documentary; the appearances on Tiny Desk, etc, as "Bono & Edge"; even the decision to go ahead with the Sphere without Larry - all suggest a striving for recognition from the core songwriters.
Meanwhile, the insecurities surfaced in their choice of producers and constant chopping and changing in the songwriting process: embracing Danger Mouse (who is listed as co-writer on Ordinary Love) then ditching him; taking the riff from Haim for Lights of Home; leaning on Tedder (to wrote the chorus on EBW, for example); not crediting Brent Kutzle with songwriting on Summer of Love; trying desperately to get some of Paul Epworth's magic to rub off on them.
They'd probably been doing a lot of these things before - Desire was a Bo Diddley riff, for example, while the contributions made by Lanois and Eno went uncredited as songwriting for years - but Rubin gave voice to their concerns about them. Especially when things didn't work out as their egoes might have supposed they would. And it was all compounded by the fact that Paul McGuinness was gone and there was no one around with the authority to keep the group dynamic in check.
Imagine being told you weren't very good at the very thing that should be your legacy: ie writing songs. Then, for your next project, you lean even more heavily in the opposite direction - into the formula that has brought you most success (ie co-writing with Eno and Lanois on NLOTH) - and that doesn't work either. Meanwhile, your big ego project - Spiderman - has also been a disaster...
I suspect a lot of their subsequent decisions are the result of this challenge to Bono's, but particularly Edge's, sense of self worth. SOS; the fact it's only Bono & Edge who appear in the Letterman documentary; the appearances on Tiny Desk, etc, as "Bono & Edge"; even the decision to go ahead with the Sphere without Larry - all suggest a striving for recognition from the core songwriters.
Meanwhile, the insecurities surfaced in their choice of producers and constant chopping and changing in the songwriting process: embracing Danger Mouse (who is listed as co-writer on Ordinary Love) then ditching him; taking the riff from Haim for Lights of Home; leaning on Tedder (to wrote the chorus on EBW, for example); not crediting Brent Kutzle with songwriting on Summer of Love; trying desperately to get some of Paul Epworth's magic to rub off on them.
They'd probably been doing a lot of these things before - Desire was a Bo Diddley riff, for example, while the contributions made by Lanois and Eno went uncredited as songwriting for years - but Rubin gave voice to their concerns about them. Especially when things didn't work out as their egoes might have supposed they would. And it was all compounded by the fact that Paul McGuinness was gone and there was no one around with the authority to keep the group dynamic in check.
AndrewCowley
Refugee
Because first he feels like they failed and second he feels their way back to credibility is to succeed at this.
TinKnight
Refugee
maybe they should just be a little more punk rock and not give a ****.
Registered Dude
Rock n' Roll Doggie VIP PASS
I think they were motivated by the challenge. And, for better or worse, this is a band driven by motivation/ambition to push themselves.
Makes sense that on the heels of their work with Rubin (where maybe their lack of classic song writing chops were exposed), and the perceived failings of NLOTH, that Bono/Edge would embrace the Spiderman musical, and the SOI/SOE concept. They wanted to prove themselves as songwriters, on Broadway no less! (the ego on these guys... haha)
Interesting to note that this shift in approach to songwriting seems to align with Larry's comments about the band no longer functioning as a democracy and more a "benevolent dictatorship." Remember this interview?
“You only do this if you’re having the best time,” Mullen says. “And not everyone is going to make it because the price is so high. So I think the challenge is for more generosity. More openness to the process. I am autonomous and I value my autonomy. I don’t sing from the same hymn sheet. I don’t pray to the same version of God. So everyone has their limits. And you only do this if it is a great time you’re having, you know?”
To me, the implication is that B&E are steering the ship, and perhaps not affording the time and space for Larry and Adam to be active drivers/participants in the new music process.
For what it's worth, I understand/hear that they've shifted away from this approach, and that Larry has been an active participant & driving force behind some of the more recent studio sessions.
Makes sense that on the heels of their work with Rubin (where maybe their lack of classic song writing chops were exposed), and the perceived failings of NLOTH, that Bono/Edge would embrace the Spiderman musical, and the SOI/SOE concept. They wanted to prove themselves as songwriters, on Broadway no less! (the ego on these guys... haha)
Interesting to note that this shift in approach to songwriting seems to align with Larry's comments about the band no longer functioning as a democracy and more a "benevolent dictatorship." Remember this interview?
“You only do this if you’re having the best time,” Mullen says. “And not everyone is going to make it because the price is so high. So I think the challenge is for more generosity. More openness to the process. I am autonomous and I value my autonomy. I don’t sing from the same hymn sheet. I don’t pray to the same version of God. So everyone has their limits. And you only do this if it is a great time you’re having, you know?”
To me, the implication is that B&E are steering the ship, and perhaps not affording the time and space for Larry and Adam to be active drivers/participants in the new music process.
For what it's worth, I understand/hear that they've shifted away from this approach, and that Larry has been an active participant & driving force behind some of the more recent studio sessions.
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PookaMacP
War Child
That's the way I read it too. Fingers crossed; their track record suggests they make music better when they're all rowing together.
I've always felt the Rubin talk was overblown and really his influence was just a hiccup and they moved on, but you all almost have me convinced he was at the very least a catalyst for some unfavorable decisions.
I've read the dude's book and I like a lot of his philosophies; though some of it at times sounds like stating the obvious and passing it off as wisdom, but it at least got me thinking of different lenses to view creativity through. So, I'm not quite on-board with the guy being a class-A doofus.
If he has had the effect on U2 of getting too into their own heads (which ironically seems to be the opposite of his overall approach), then yeah, screw that guy!
I've read the dude's book and I like a lot of his philosophies; though some of it at times sounds like stating the obvious and passing it off as wisdom, but it at least got me thinking of different lenses to view creativity through. So, I'm not quite on-board with the guy being a class-A doofus.
If he has had the effect on U2 of getting too into their own heads (which ironically seems to be the opposite of his overall approach), then yeah, screw that guy!
don't get me wrong - as much as i say "it's rick rubin's fault"?
it's U2's fault.
they let whatever Rick told them get in their heads.
it's U2's fault.
they let whatever Rick told them get in their heads.
Rubin has his place. He very much wants the finished product ready to record in the studio, and some songwriters excel at that. Paul McCartney no less, and Noel Gallagher likewise who says he came very close to producing Oasis (which would have arguably benefitted a straight up band like them, placing much needed quality control on their latter albums).
But U2's creativity in the studio - no matter how painstaking - was the envy of all. Michael Jackson wanted to hire spies to see what they did in the late 80s/early 90s and various producers through the years held them up as examples of creating in the studio from improv/jamming (here's a case study in singers inspired by their process). I think that form of writing always gave a looseness to U2's music that set them apart from rigid mid-tempo rockers, that includes a good amount of No Line - the last album they wrote in this manner. It felt like the exploration of song complemented the exploration of meaning that they excelled at. That's what they were the best at - without it, they are just merely another band.
On the flip side, surely it must be an exhausting process to mould a song that way? To chase a song like that must take all hours and days, often without breaks so as not to interrupt creative flow. But they're all mid 60s now, do they have the energy?
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In the context of the discussion here, is this Larry quote referring to the creative process ?
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