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

[DomCobb]

There’s an image of the vinyl inner sleeve on some shop sites, you can see the full lyrics for the song

 

[DomCobb]

Some definite changes but hopefully nothing major (worried about the end a bit, hopefully it’s still musically the same).

 

[PookaMacP]

That was my first thought—how the hell would they know?

Also, "additional production by Duncan Stewart" makes me wonder if they did another present-day re-record. Was he involved in the original album?

Duncan Stewart is the new Declan Gaffney

 

[lazarus]

Some definite changes but hopefully nothing major (worried about the end a bit, hopefully it’s still musically the same).

Good find,.

Most of it does appear to be intact. And yes, a major concern is that the added part at the end would interfere with that great guitar work after the "feel nothing/whoo-hoo" section. One of the best things about the leaked Mercy is that guitar sound.

 

[lazarus]

I listened to that sample video again and I'm like 90% convinced that's a new Bono vocal on several of those tracks, including Luckiest Man.

Same shit, different reissue.

When is he gonna learn he's way too past his peak to be doing this?

 

[dan_smee]

I don’t really have a problem with it. I’m pretty sure Country Mile is mostly new as well. It’s interesting to hear these tunes and maybe the things they thought were musically interesting enough to share just weren’t working lyrically or vocally.

 

[dan_smee]

No one responded/was interested that the last song in the trailer was Pull the Trigger from Spider-Man? That song always had the best music of the musical. The solo is sick.

Makes me wonder with all these titles and abandoned projects whether we actually have heard most of them just not where we expected.

 

[mikal]

No one responded/was interested that the last song in the trailer was Pull the Trigger from Spider-Man? That song always had the best music of the musical. The solo is sick.

Makes me wonder with all these titles and abandoned projects whether we actually have heard most of them just not where we expected.

I think I was so annoyed by that Spiderman project that I never actually listened to it. Other than Boy Falls From The Sky and Rise Above.

 

[mikal]

For Mercy, I actually don’t mind the new lyrics since it’s such a minor change that doesn’t involve 20 new syllables in one line. Like Laz, hope the last minute isn’t tweaked too much.

 

[dan_smee]

I think I was so annoyed by that Spiderman project that I never actually listened to it. Other than Boy Falls From The Sky and Rise Above.

Pull the Trigger lyrically is just a mess of exposition and context that doesn’t work as a standalone thing, but the music is solid. I reckon it will be the big surprise of the release.

 

[super fly guy]

 

[The John Tree]

I'm pretty sure there are more than a few new vocals here too. Xanax and Wine has backing vocals that weren't there in their original incarnation.

With regards to Mercy, it's encouraging that so many of the lyrics seem intact, but again - "you were the luckiest man in the world...you didn't want to be," is still a mouthful. It's just clunky. Also "you love me too much," was a lot better than "but why you always love me without trust?" Lastly, I'm sad that the "love is the end of history, the enemy of misery, love is justice, not charity, love brings with it a clarity..." section is gone, replaced with the same chorus as the first two.

Still, I'm hoping that the brief instrumental section after "fear nothing, ooooh" remains rather than smashing right into the chorus.

Also, according to U2songs, both Happiness and Smile feature lyrics from Mercy?

With regards to "In the desert/Pull The Trigger," it doesn't really do anything for me. That kind of stompy riff rock isn't my favorite lane of U2. Add in any kind of gang vocal shouting with any of the Pull The Trigger melodies and I'm pretty much out. That said, the solo is pretty cool on the Spider-Man version.

 

[phanan]

Encouraged by seeing most of the lyrics to Mercy intact. I hope they didn’t fuck it up too much.

 

[DeVaul]

“And if it’s raining you should’ve thought of that, of course you should’ve thought of that” is hilarious and they could use more of that light touch. Still think the song is a great bed of music in need of a different set of lyrics.

 

[super fly guy]

Never been a huge mercy fan,the lyrics are mostly platitudes. A thing that Bono is slagged for nowadays,will be interesting to hear luckiest man. And as I'm not going in tied to the original,I will.judge it on its own merits.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Never been a huge mercy fan,the lyrics are mostly platitudes. A thing that Bono is slagged for nowadays,will be interesting to hear luckiest man. And as I'm not going in tied to the original,I will.judge it on its own merits.

Indeed.

It is kind of hilarious that the number one complaint about Bono's modern lyrics is, more or less, the entirety of the Mercy lyric that gets so much love.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Treason has always been on my list of songs i'd love to hear - but discovering that it came from the same session as American Prayer may have knocked that down a peg.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Treason has always been on my list of songs i'd love to hear - but discovering that it came from the same session as American Prayer may have knocked that down a peg.

and apparently it looks like Dr. Dre didn't produce Treason - it was just recorded in his studio.

this is another example as to why you should always take everything not from official sources with a gigantic grain of salt. Treason as a Dr. Dre produced track was the going line for years - almost 20, to be exact. actuality was that it was only his studio that was used. hearsay is a hell of a drug.

 

[Airseven]

Country Mile is pretty terrible.

 

[lazarus]

I don’t really have a problem with it. I’m pretty sure Country Mile is mostly new as well. It’s interesting to hear these tunes and maybe the things they thought were musically interesting enough to share just weren’t working lyrically or vocally.

Except we have the proof they were working on those levels, at least when it comes to Mercy. They just have terrible retroactive judgement.

Let’s be clear that as far as the band’s own 2004 statements go, Mercy was only cut for purposes of album length, and Bono was bragging about how good it was. The leak verified this for many fans. So why have they failed to release that version, but we’ve been given Xanax and Wine, Native Son, etc. to show early versions of those tracks? What’s the motivation in hiding this version that was both praised and leaked?

View attachment 23602

 

[lazarus]

Indeed.

It is kind of hilarious that the number one complaint about Bono's modern lyrics is, more or less, the entirety of the Mercy lyric that gets so much love.

Yeah, that’s not what I’m seeing on Mercy. I don’t see a major issue with syllable-cramming, and it’s another one of his “list” songs that I like in general. There are some platitudes, sure, but you can also find those on One, to name a popular example. Not many post-2000 songs have great lines like the “binary code/you got Nero” couplet.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

You're weed killer, honey

 

[DeVaul]

You're weed killer, honey

Better than being called heavy as a truck

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

 

[DeVaul]

They just have terrible retroactive judgement.

 

[lazarus]

 

[DeVaul]

 

[dan_smee]

Treason isn’t a common Bono word - it does show up in the lyrics for Rise Above 1, and I reckon Spider-Man saw a lot of the HTDAAB leftovers now.

 

[The John Tree]

Rise Above is one of the few songs from that project that I think deserved the full U2 treatment, so I’d be happy if that was Treason.

 

[dan_smee]

So, Monday - 9/23/24 - was the 20th anniversary of the day Vertigo was released to radio, i.e. the first day most of us ever heard it, i.e. the beginning of the HTDAAB cycle.

This, and these releases today, and the upcoming 20th anniversary of the actual album release, have me reflecting on the record and its place in U2's catalogue and career.

My own feelings on Bomb have fluctuated over time. I loved it when it first came out. By the later stages of the tour I had soured on the album and only wanted to listen to live versions of the songs, and felt the record was overproduced. Then I went through a long period of having it at or near the bottom of my album rankings and trying a bunch of different ways to 'fix' it involving Mercy and all of the Bomb outtakes/alternate versions. In hindsight, I was fixated on what the album wasn't(as atmospheric or sonically adventurous as most of their work from the mid 80s into the 90s) and not allowing myself to appreciate it for what it was(U2 just unabashedly being U2). I have, in more recent years, come back around on Bomb.

It occurs to me that multiple people in this thread have been suggesting that the band should cool it with all the new producers and just lean in to being U2, and that's kind of exactly what they did on Bomb. If you can get over some of the overcooked production, the album is full of the anthemic earnestness and arena-ready choruses the band is known for, as well as some of the most Edge-sounding guitar tones ever. And the thing is, people ate it up at the time.

With bands that have been around for a long time and are perceived as being past their prime, it is common to ask what their last great album was. That is a very subjective question, and frankly I'm not sure if many people would have Bomb as their answer. But what we can say more objectively is that Bomb was the last U2 album that mattered culturally, or to anyone outside the hardcore fanbase, in any real way. That is ultimately, perhaps, it's place in U2's history.

NLOTH, on the heels of poor single choice, was DOA, and the band gave up on it midway through its tour in a way they never have for any other album before or since, and it's been all but erased from their live repertoire ever since.

SOI, obviously, made headlines for all the wrong reasons. And in the shadow of that, SOE was barely a blip.

But Bomb was hugely successful from the start. The band was riding high after the ATYCLB/Elevation cycle, their triumphant Superbowl appearance still fresh in memory, and were looking to keep it going.

The rollout couldn't have gone any better.

Vertigo was a huge hit, buoyed by its presence in an iPod commercial as the iPod hit the peak of its popularity in the mid-00s. The first edition of the red and black U2 iPod was released at the end of October, with a $50 off coupon for the upcoming "The Complete U2" on iTunes. Needless to say, their first partnership with Apple was infinitely more successful than the latter one.

I'll never forget the weekend leading up to the album release. Saturday night, they were on SNL, for probably the greatest of their four appearances there. They played Vertigo and Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, but it is remembered most for their surprise performance of I Will Follow during the goodbyes, in which the cast(featuring Amy Poehler, young Seth Meyers, etc) were all right there and could be seen totally into it.

On Monday, they rode a flatbed truck through NYC filming the All Because Of You video, and then that night, they did the Brooklyn Bridge gig, which was hyped and weeks later aired on MTV(at the tail end of MTV having any relevance as a music channel). If you haven't listened to that gig in a while, I suggest you do - not just the EP or the MTV telecast, but a crowd bootleg. The crowd energy in the bootleg is palpable, and it was mostly new songs. People really gave a crap about this release. And the success grew from there.

The album sold 10M copies worldwide, which according to Wiki, is the sixth highest such number of their career(after JT, AB, R&H, ATYCLB, and War). It's not exactly a fair comparison because no one buys albums anymore and they gave SOI away for free, but the three LPs after Bomb have sold a combined <7M total.

Reviews were largely positive.

It won(as Laz alluded to above) eight grammy awards spread across the album and three different singles(In 2005, Vertigo won "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal" and "Best Short Form Music Video"; in 2006, the album won "Album Of The Year" and "Best Rock Album" while Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own won "Song Of The Year" and "Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals" and City Of Blinding Lights won "Best Rock Song").

The videos for Vertigo and Original Of The Species were nominated for VMAs in 2005 and 2006(though neither won any).

Vertigo and City Of Blinding Lights have more or less permanent places in the band's live repretiore, and All Because Of You made an extended comeback on the E+I tour too.

The live Chicago version of Original Of The Species was used in commercials for the 5th Gen iPod w/Video in the Fall of 2005.

City Of Blinding Lights also got a whole second life as President Obama's virtual theme song(he still came out to it just last month when he spoke at the DNC).

The album mattered. Maybe not as much as JT or AB or even ATYCLB, but it mattered, and I guess I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for a time when a new U2 album mattered. It's been twenty years since then, and it will probably never happen again, so that's kind of what I'm feeling about it right now.

It wasn't just the big singles that were good, either.

Love And Peace Or Else imo doesn't get appreciated enough. It's a dark, brooding rocker, and because Eno and Lanois produced it, it's one of the most atmospheric tracks on the record as well. It opened a handful of shows early in the first leg of the tour, and it was very effective in that role. It doesn't always hit the mark lyrically, but musically it's good. As a rocker, it's certainly leagues ahead of something like American Soul, imo.

A Man And A Woman is a for-diehards-only deep cut, but it is a GREAT song. One of the most mature, adult sounding things they've ever done. Great lyric, great vocal layers and performance, great instrumentation.

One Step Closer sounds like it could've been on Zooropa with its lyrical reflection and musical understatedness. Eno/Lanois produced it and you can hear especially Eno's influence all over it.

Original Of The Species was a song the band was clearly super high on during the cycle, but it never got big the way they wanted it to. For me, I always thought there was a strong melody there but that it was perhaps the most overproduced song on the record. They did a keyboard-only version during the HTDAAB promo and first leg of the tour, and that was always my preferred version. I recently discovered a stripped down studio version from 2012 that essentially mimics those early live versions - it's what I imagine the song would've sounded like if it had been on SOS:



Fast Cars was a bonus track on the deluxe version of the album at the time, but I think it's been grandfathered in as part of the proper album. I say this because there's only one version of the album on Spotify and Fast Cars is on it. It's a great, really unique sounding song. It's fresh, it's energetic, it's lyrically strong. It probably could've been a single if they'd wanted it to be. I've gone back and forth, but I think I prefer this to Xanax. Just more unique, more singular.

I'll leave you with some lyrical highlights for me - the album as a whole is not Bono's greatest moment lyrically, but he has his moments:

"Still gotta let you know/a house doesn't make a home/don't leave me here alone"
"Sometimes you can't make it/best you can do is to fake it/sometimes you can't make it/on your own"

"As you enter this life/I pray you depart/with a wrinkled face/and a brand new heart"

"Time/won't leave me as I am/but time/won't take the boy out of this man"

"For love and sex and faith and fear/and all the things that keep us here/in the mysterious distance/between a man and a woman"

"I'm round the corner from anything that's real/I'm across the road from hope/I'm under a bridge in a riptide that's taken/everything I call my own"
"I'm at an island at a busy intersection/I can't go forward, I can't turn back/Can't see the future/it's getting away from me/I just watch the taillights glowing"

"Take this soul/stranded in some skin and bones/take this soul/and make it sing, sing"

"You should worry bout the day/that the pain it goes away/you know I miss mine sometimes"
"I want the lot of what you've got/if what you've got can make this stop"

And I actually think Vertigo is a deceptively good lyric about the struggle to save the soul from the corruption of fame and money in the whirlwind of the music business.

I don't know, I'm sure it's nostalgia-fueled, but I'm feeling fonder of this, the last U2 album that mattered(to anyone but us), now than I have probably since it was new, twenty years ago in the Fall of 04.

I hope they realise with NLOTH that over time it feels like an art project that was overcooked and destroyed. If they had treated it as an art project and learnt into being arty, we’d feel very differently about it 15 years down the road. It’s be that interesting detour they took that spawned some great moments of late career inspiration even if they didn’t play stuff live. Kind of like the Killers Pressure Machine.