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

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Wasn't The Ground Beneath Her Feet previously released on The Million Dollar Hotel Soundtrack?

I think of these bonus tracks as non-album singles, they're strong enough.

Speaking of singles, it's a shame these unearthed HTDAAB tracks were never used as B-sides back in the day. Would have been nice to have new material instead of remixes and live tracks. And why isn't the Brooklyn Bridge show included in the set?
 
david said:
I wonder if I still have the original deluxe book edition of Bomb on CD that was filled with Larry’s weird paintings and I think Bono sketches. Might have included a DVD too.
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Oh yeah, I remember Bono’s “art”
 
monkeyskin said:
Wasn't The Ground Beneath Her Feet previously released on The Million Dollar Hotel Soundtrack?

I think of these bonus tracks as non-album singles, they're strong enough.

Speaking of singles, it's a shame these unearthed HTDAAB tracks were never used as B-sides back in the day. Would have been nice to have new material instead of remixes and live tracks. And why isn't the Brooklyn Bridge show included in the set?
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That would have been cool. Or a show from Leg 2 or 3, which were phenomenal shows.
 
Would have loved a leg 3 or leg 5 show. No matter people’s opinions on them, live versions of the saints are coming and window in the skies would have been nice.
 
Just to bring this back to the “is mercy god-like or shithouse” conversation again - I think the one thing that is unarguable is that there is an authenticity to the emotional tone of the song that is largely absent in the last 20 years. And for some people their tolerance to lyrics, preference for sounds etc etc will sway them one way or tother, but there has to be something close to universal acknowledgement that the emotional release that builds and explodes throughout that song has a sense of genuineness and realness. In terms of songs since with the same qualities, Little Things is the only one that immediately springs to mind, and it’s no coincidence that it was born from the buds of Mercy.

Earnest Bono is oftentimes, and quite confusingly, both the most endearing and the most cringeworthy Bono. The earnestness of this song is a large part of why it’s so polarising. I think the thing that tips it towards the good for me is that his earnestness isn’t just about WHAT he says, its felt so much in HOW he says it.
 
There's bits of Country Mile I like, there's some nice catchy melodies in it, but as a whole it's nothing special by their standards. Which I guess is exactly what you'd expect from a song which was rejected at some point in the process as not being good enough and perhaps cannibalised for other things. Still interesting to hear it though.

I listened to Mercy for the first time in ages at the weekend. I still really like it for what it is and I'm in the camp of preferring the original to the version they ended up playing on the 360 tour.

Like @dan_smee says, it's U2 being their most U2-y and I like it for that. I also buy Bono's deliver of the sentiment and given how over-produced their last couple of albums are, its quite refreshing to listen to the leaked version again.
 
It’s partly why I’m not holding out a lot of hope for this version with newly recorded bits. It seems like attempts to make it better strip away some of the things that make the original a bit magical. The little things demo was a great example where they had popified it on 360, and it was coming back to the right tone, but it took them removing the artifice and catchiness to get something that recaptured the magic on SOE. The one thing that gives me some hope is that after the 360 changes they have put a lot of the lyrics back the way they were and “finished” those rather than persisted with the direction it was going.
 
dan_smee said:
Just to bring this back to the “is mercy god-like or shithouse” conversation again - I think the one thing that is unarguable is that there is an authenticity to the emotional tone of the song that is largely absent in the last 20 years. And for some people their tolerance to lyrics, preference for sounds etc etc will sway them one way or tother, but there has to be something close to universal acknowledgement that the emotional release that builds and explodes throughout that song has a sense of genuineness and realness. In terms of songs since with the same qualities, Little Things is the only one that immediately springs to mind, and it’s no coincidence that it was born from the buds of Mercy.

Earnest Bono is oftentimes, and quite confusingly, both the most endearing and the most cringeworthy Bono. The earnestness of this song is a large part of why it’s so polarising. I think the thing that tips it towards the good for me is that his earnestness isn’t just about WHAT he says, its felt so much in HOW he says it.
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Completely agree with this, and I feel like I finally know what people mean when they describe Mercy as 'unabashedly-u2', it feels so free from inhibitions and overthinking, and not afraid to wear it's heart on its sleeve, for better or for worse.

With the announcement of the HTDAAB re-release, I ended up going back to listen to 00's era U2 - songs like 'Mercy', 'SYCMIOYO', but also 'Kite', and 'Walk On'. Back at the time, I viewed these songs as sappy and cheesy, and tended to overlook them in favour of the band's edgier 90s work, but right now I feel like I'm really connecting with how emotionally open, honest and vulnerable a lot of the 00's material was.

And I've thought the same thing as you - in spite of such powerful and personal subject matter on SoI and SoE, there's nothing on those albums for me which comes close to the music on ATYCLB or HTDAAB, or even 'Windows in the Skies', in terms of raw emotional power, resonance, and earnestness. I can't put my finger on what it is, but even the tracks that are going for the same thing, like 'Song for Someone' or 'Landlady' don't resonate with me the way 'Kite' or 'Sometimes' do. The only exception I can think of is the latter half of 'Little Things', and as you say, I don't think it's a coincidence that that it evolved from 'Mercy', i.e. music from the 00's era.

I'd love to see more of this side of U2, but just as I wanted the darker, ironic U2 of the 90s to return back in 2004, it may just be that the band isn't in that heartfelt headspace of the 00's anymore, here in 2024. Their focus nowadays seems to be on the 'craft' of songwriting, and - others have put this better than I can - making music in a more 'cerebral', rather than heartfelt fashion.

Whatever they do next, I just hope there's a little less strategy and calculation behind it. There's something about Ryan Tedder's influence on their music, regardless of quality or my personal opinion on the music itself, that feels almost like the band 'outsourced' the choruses and hooks to a modern, successful, younger songwriter, to try and achieve radio success. The band themselves, and the messy, but magical alchemy that made them who they were, seemed to be absent in favour of whatever hooks and choruses Ryan Tedder wrote with/for them (and it does feel like he did a lot - 'Summer of Love' and One republic's 'West Coast' have near-identical choruses, and even the lead guitar riff was taken from that band). At its worst, their 2010's output doesn't sound like U2's music, it sounds like U2 collaborating with another, younger band who they're trying to emulate, and in doing so, failing to express who they themselves are. And to add insult to injury, they didn't even get a big hit out of any of it.
 
For those that haven’t heard it (though on this forum I’m not sure how that’s true) here’s the 2015 version of Little Things. You can still hear Mercy guitar riffs in it, and the popiness of the 2010 version is still alive, but it’s heading back to the place it landed.



I don’t want to just trash their recent work. Theres lots I like in the last two albums, but it can’t be denied that their habits re over producing and chasing perfection or whatever they do when they second and third guess themselves often strangle the heart out of a song.
 
I've never understood the fondness for Little Things. It is the antithesis of Mercy. It is a song that is trying so fucking hard to be heartfelt, classic U2 that it comes off strained and hollow. I think it's one of the better tracks of the past 15 years, but I haven't listened to it in years, have no desire to ever again and would prefer dozens of other songs over it live. I think they lost that ability. There's little snippets here and there from NLOTH onwards that show they can still make great music - I hold up Fez, Cedars and The Troubles as the best examples - but it's not in their classic style. It's in this beautiful, restrained style that plays within their limits as old men, that the magic still seeps out. But because they're obsessed with being U2, they consider these great songs, which aren't overthought and overproduced and overdone to within an inch of their lives, to be little curios to chuck late on albums and never think about again. And instead we get fucking dross like Song Saved My Life and Ordinary Love and all the other terribly uninspiring songs they've released over the past 15 years instead.
 
I think I might actually prefer that 2015 'Little Things' demo to the version we eventually got.

It's clearly a work in progress, but I absolutely love the intro sounds/guitar work, and that e-bow guitar that comes in halfway through the choruses is absolutely beautiful. Even the acoustic guitar at the end is great. The song feels epic and heartfelt. I really want to hear more of this kind of stuff from the band.

It does, however, feel like the lyrics were pre-written, and prioritised over how well the vocals do or don't fit with the music (especially given they largely survived to the final cut). Kind of like Bono reciting a poem along to music, two elements created independently, rather than from the same spring.

Whenever I've listened to the Little Things, it's only the second half that really does anything for me - I do think it's cool that the song has this massive build up, and that it develops quite radically in arrangement from start to finish, but for me it happens at the cost of all the good stuff. I could totally imagine a more focused version of the 2015 demo having been the opening track for an alternate-universe version of SoE, but they evidently weren't happy with the song in that form
 
dan_smee said:
Just to bring this back to the “is mercy god-like or shithouse” conversation again - I think the one thing that is unarguable is that there is an authenticity to the emotional tone of the song that is largely absent in the last 20 years. And for some people their tolerance to lyrics, preference for sounds etc etc will sway them one way or tother, but there has to be something close to universal acknowledgement that the emotional release that builds and explodes throughout that song has a sense of genuineness and realness. In terms of songs since with the same qualities, Little Things is the only one that immediately springs to mind, and it’s no coincidence that it was born from the buds of Mercy.

Earnest Bono is oftentimes, and quite confusingly, both the most endearing and the most cringeworthy Bono. The earnestness of this song is a large part of why it’s so polarising. I think the thing that tips it towards the good for me is that his earnestness isn’t just about WHAT he says, its felt so much in HOW he says it.
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Yep! This song for me represented everything that was missing from the post 2005 era. I still think it was such a huge miss leaving it off the album. Wouldn’t have been a big single, but a strong anchor track, similar to “Bad” amd “UTEOTW”. Huge miss and now all we can do is hope that there is just a subtle lyric change, not anything more.
 
Some of you wouldn't be happy unless U2 came to your house every day to play Mercy live for you. Which is only an extra million dollars for that special edition version box set plus band.

(Just kidding, you guys would totally find an issue with the live version too! )
 
i heard if you play Mercy backwards your favorite band becomes Nickelback.
 
mikal said:
Yep! This song for me represented everything that was missing from the post 2005 era. I still think it was such a huge miss leaving it off the album. Wouldn’t have been a big single, but a strong anchor track, similar to “Bad” amd “UTEOTW”. Huge miss and now all we can do is hope that there is just a subtle lyric change, not anything more.
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I think from the trailer the vocal is going to miss the magic. It’s only a few words, but the rawness and strain just don’t feel the same
 
dan_smee said:
I think from the trailer the vocal is going to miss the magic. It’s only a few words, but the rawness and strain just don’t feel the same
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From the clip I heard, I actually like it. I think we'll have to retrain the brain a bit because it's different.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
The clip in the trailer is 8 seconds long
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Yeah for sure - not jumping off a cliff or anything, but given it’s from the chorus which is the bit where you really feel that emotion and strain and it sounds quite produced and restrained. I dunno, just a feeling. I’m more anticipating the ire of interference than complaining about myself
 
dan_smee said:
Yeah for sure - not jumping off a cliff or anything, but given it’s from the chorus which is the bit where you really feel that emotion and strain and it sounds quite produced and restrained. I dunno, just a feeling. I’m more anticipating the ire of interference than complaining about myself
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If there's a lot of complaining, I'm going to say "Again?"

"and again and again and again..."

"Again"
 
I think Laz is right to be apprehensive about the ending being somewhat shortened.

Re the lyrics, majority of the refinements in the verses are minor and probably better. Not sure how “the sand inside the pearl” fits.
 
dan_smee said:
Just to bring this back to the “is mercy god-like or shithouse” conversation again - I think the one thing that is unarguable is that there is an authenticity to the emotional tone of the song that is largely absent in the last 20 years. And for some people their tolerance to lyrics, preference for sounds etc etc will sway them one way or tother, but there has to be something close to universal acknowledgement that the emotional release that builds and explodes throughout that song has a sense of genuineness and realness. In terms of songs since with the same qualities, Little Things is the only one that immediately springs to mind, and it’s no coincidence that it was born from the buds of Mercy.

Earnest Bono is oftentimes, and quite confusingly, both the most endearing and the most cringeworthy Bono. The earnestness of this song is a large part of why it’s so polarising. I think the thing that tips it towards the good for me is that his earnestness isn’t just about WHAT he says, its felt so much in HOW he says it.
Click to expand...
Completely agree. Empty platitudes maybe, but it's the delivery that's important - might as well be bongolese for all I care. The fear with the new lyrics for me is mainly that we'll have a worse vocal take, and that the cadence will be clunky and not allow for that kind of passion. Hopefully that won't end up being the case.
 
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