Other U2s play SoI

[jeevey]

In trying to evaluate this album, I like to try to imagine the U2 of other eras playing these songs and how they would stand up to others of the time. If Troubles were played in Sydney? If Song for Someone were played at Slane?

 

[Bad Exit]

In trying to evaluate this album, I like to try to imagine the U2 of other eras playing these songs and how they would stand up to others of the time. If Troubles were played in Sydney? If Song for Someone were played at Slane?

This is a very interesting exercise...

 

[ndmaxfield]

I'd like to hear AB-era U2 play California and Cedarwood Road live. I also wouldn't mind hearing AB-era U2 play Gone live. All would undoubtedly soar.

 

[Sr. Poop]

In trying to evaluate this album, I like to try to imagine the U2 of other eras playing these songs and how they would stand up to others of the time. If Troubles were played in Sydney? If Song for Someone were played at Slane?

Thats a good way to try and eliminate inherent bias that we may have to older/classic U2 for today. I try to do the same thing at times.

 

[jeevey]

It's almost confusing, isn't it, to try and imagine it? If we heard SLABT at the end of Zoo, it would be amazing.

 

[ImNotSleeping]

It's almost confusing, isn't it, to try and imagine it? If we heard SLABT at the end of Zoo, it would be amazing.

Or Pop. It fits in either tour/set seamlessly.

 

[Rhiannon64]

It's almost confusing, isn't it, to try and imagine it? If we heard SLABT at the end of Zoo, it would be amazing.

I can absolutely see MacPhisto slinking across the stage singing SLABT!

 

[Bad Exit]

In the end, the less flexible U2 is U2 War era...

I could see something like Acrobat in Live at The Red Rocks drool but not much more from the 90's onwards.
(Cedarwood Road? yep, Cedarwood Road would work I guess.)

 

[jeevey]

Yes, but TIWYCRMN would stand right alongside NYD if played in 1983. As a song, it's equally good.

 

[CosmoKramer]

I get an early 80s feel from Volcano, Iris, Raised by Wolves and Reach.

I get a late 80s feel from Ceaderwood Road.

I get a mid to late 90s feel from Sleep Like a Baby and TCB.

Early 2000s from Song for Someone, California and Every Breaking Wave

Mid to late 2000s from The Miracle.

Troubles and Invisible I guess are the only ones I feel are unique to SOI.




Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[VintagePunk]

I get an early 80s feel from Volcano, Iris, Raised by Wolves and Reach.

I get a late 80s feel from Ceaderwood Road.

I get a mid to late 90s feel from Sleep Like a Baby and TCB.

Early 2000s from Song for Someone, California and Every Breaking Wave

Mid to late 2000s from The Miracle.

Troubles and Invisible I guess are the only ones I feel are unique to SOI.




Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

I pretty much agree with all of this. If pressed, I would probably add Troubles to the late 90s, because of the vibe and moodiness, and Invisible to the mid 00's. The song I'm most unsure about where it fits is Iris.

They have taken all of those eras and styles and told a story with them that resulted in an incredibly cohesive album, despite the varying styles. Nearly 4 months later, and I'm still very impressed. I keep finding new things to appreciate, and I don't think I've felt that way about a U2 album since the 90s. Not a diss on the albums from the 2000s, but for me, there wasn't that prolonged period of discovery with them.

 

[jeevey]

I've been listening to disc 2 on steady rotation and ending up singing to myself songs I didn't even like at first. (Do people at traffic lights hear me bellowing 'Soooooooonnnnng, sonnnnng for some one' to an empty car? Yes, they do.) If that song were on ATYCLB, it would not be in Grace/WILATW territory. The chorus is very strong.

RE Iris, it takes a lot of imagination to strip away the instrumentation and place the bones of the song in another arrangement. It's too complex to go pre-War. I find it easiest to put in an UF setting.

Iris standing in the hall
She tells me I can do it all
Iris wakes to my nightmares
Don't fear the world
It isn't thereIris playing on the Strand
She buries the boy beneath the sand
Iris says that I will be the death of her
It was not me


If you imagine Bono singing that 1984, how good a song do you hear?

​

 

[Musikwala]

Lucifer's Hands totally feels like an Achtung Baby b-side.

The Crystal Ballroom feels like it could be from the mid to late 90s.

The obvious ones: RBW and Reach Me Now feel like they were recorded in the early 80s.

The Troubles to me gives off a very strong Love Is Blindness vibe and so I can easily imagine it from the 90s. I have even mentally pictured a video for the Troubles where the band and Lykke Li are standing around in a church surrounded by candles everywhere.

Every Breaking Wave still reminds me of WOWY but I don't know if the song fits with the late 80s though.

SLABT is totally Zooropa or Pop or somewhere in between.

Contrary to other people's thoughts on this, I don't actually place Volcano in the early 80s. Rather, it reminds me of late 80s or early 90s INXS.

 

[digitize]

Yes, but TIWYCRMN would stand right alongside NYD if played in 1983. As a song, it's equally good.

I very, very, very, very, very strongly disagree.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

I picture unforgettable fire era bono singing Iris whenever I listen to it. Volcano I can imagine being played at red rocks.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[Earnie Shavers]

To me The Troubles sits a bit beyond Pop, probably comfortable (if not really 'the same') alongside Ground Beneath/Stateless. That to me is the sound of an alternate universe U2, a comfortable and mature natural progression forward from everything before, if U2 weren't !!!!!U2!!!!! and all the pressure and whatnot that comes with that, both external and internal. Still being really really great (maybe - probably? - even reaching another true creative peak), but just not immense, and totally ok with that. But that's just not the band we follow - whether that's a good or bad thought for you (I think plenty of fans need U2 to be as huge as U2 seem to think they need to be).

The rest... Sleep and Reach are the other two that I guess I could at a stretch imagine happening elsewhere, but the others I think are all way too anchored to 00s U2. An 80s/90s U2 echo does not maketh an 80s/90s U2 song.

 

[Yahweh]

Cedarwood Road actually sounds very early U2 influenced to me, Boy, October, but better.

 

[Sr. Poop]

Yes, but TIWYCRMN would stand right alongside NYD if played in 1983. As a song, it's equally good.

No way


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

 

[popacrobat]

I'm a huge fan of Reach Me Now, but to say it's just as good as NYD is a bit much. NYD is maybe one of their top 3 songs.

 

[jeevey]

Okay, but I'll ask you to support that with the structure of the song, as opposed to the arrangement, cultural moment, memory, influence and so on. Imagine them both just as a song- a piece of sheet music, or played by hacks at an open mic.