Joey788
Refugee
Five is tough. Off the top of my head:
No Line On The Horizon
Kite
Moment of Surrender
Cedarwood Road
The Troubles
No Line On The Horizon
Kite
Moment of Surrender
Cedarwood Road
The Troubles
I think it's amazing that an artist is putting out something that I even like a little bit when they've been putting stuff out for the better part of four decades. Not sure if there's any other artist like that for me.
Yep. It's such a great run. It's so weird when people refer to the whole album as a group of pop songs. The last 5 are U2 really pushing themselves.I'm surprised more people in this part of the forum don't agree with us. I don't think it's even close either.
Dylan and until he died Bowie, but we've said before it's easier for solo artists to maintain that level of quality.
Yep. It's such a great run. It's so weird when people refer to the whole album as a group of pop songs. The last 5 are U2 really pushing themselves.
You basically named over half the songs from each era.
No idea why some people find that second half of SOI as tepid as the first half(though I like the first half too), it's a different beast.
Awwwwi gotta say i really like how active the forum gets when u2 is about to release an album. less so for the influx of noobs, but because you guys all post a lot more often [emoji813]
Are you referring to The Other Place with this, because most of us over here have always liked the second half.
Agree with this.This is an unpopular opinion, but I really think It Might Get Loud was one of the worst influences imaginable on Edge's guitar playing. If you look at the timeline, what Edge was recording in 2008, hanging around with Jimmy Page and Jack White seemed to have an almost immediate impact on U2's music, giving us extremely simplistic, riff-oriented tracks like Stand Up Comedy, GOYB and Glastonbury within a short time span.
Certainly, dumb rock songs had featured prominently in U2's 00s repertoire prior to that (Elevation and Vertigo spring to mind), but Edge started churning out really chunky, blues-derived riffs for the first time since maybe R&H (but with a ton of gain thrown on a la Jack White), none of which suit his style that well. Cedarwood Road is a decent track and everything, but its riff is exactly what I'm talking about. And of course that presence is felt on Volcano and American Soul as well.
Using Edge's guitar work as a blunt force object worked well on Achtung Baby because it matched the album's dark thematic content (and even then the album is awash with gorgeous sonic noise), but in general I've always liked Edge more when he was painting with notes and coloring the backdrop rather than trying to write the next Black Dog. It's just a weird fit for him.
Are you referring to The Other Place with this, because most of us over here have always the second half.
El Mel and Cobbler have written off the whole thing, for starters, and rarely pick apart the finer points of the album or make a distinction between the halves.
Boots riff was written before Might Get Loud though. I think he plays it in the movie.This is an unpopular opinion, but I really think It Might Get Loud was one of the worst influences imaginable on Edge's guitar playing. If you look at the timeline, what Edge was recording in 2008, hanging around with Jimmy Page and Jack White seemed to have an almost immediate impact on U2's music, giving us extremely simplistic, riff-oriented tracks like Stand Up Comedy, GOYB and Glastonbury within a short time span.
Certainly, dumb rock songs had featured prominently in U2's 00s repertoire prior to that (Elevation and Vertigo spring to mind), but Edge started churning out really chunky, blues-derived riffs for the first time since maybe R&H (but with a ton of gain thrown on a la Jack White), none of which suit his style that well. Cedarwood Road is a decent track and everything, but its riff is exactly what I'm talking about. And of course that presence is felt on Volcano and American Soul as well.
Using Edge's guitar work as a blunt force object worked well on Achtung Baby because it matched the album's dark thematic content (and even then the album is awash with gorgeous sonic noise), but in general I've always liked Edge more when he was painting with notes and coloring the backdrop rather than trying to write the next Black Dog. It's just a weird fit for him.
El Mel and Cobbler have written off the whole thing, for starters, and rarely pick apart the finer points of the album or make a distinction between the halves.
There have been people here who don't think the back half is all that.
That's fair, but you completely ignore the variety of styles he was playing with on SOI. On Reach Around he starts off in a Gimme Shelter groove, then goes for this dirty, snaky post-punk approach on the verses. Some very minimalist coloring on Sleep with a great solo, and then of course more delicate work on The Troubles that is a totally other shade. Earlier you have the lacerating stuff on Wolves that's anything but cock rock. Volcano sounds more like his own stuff on War than anything from Page or White.
It may not have been a good influence to hang out with those guys, but if he's only pulling that shit on a couple songs on each album (Cedarwood and Miracle), I'm not going to be too bothered by it.
Yeah, I get that, but I think the majority agreed with you guys.
At least I know I did.
I didn't mean to suggest that he's only playing distortion pedal pentatonic blues riffs, it's just a side to his playing that's opened up over the last 10 years that I don't care for and happen to have a convenient milestone (a feature film) with which to point to for it. Raised By Wolves, Sleep Like a Baby and The Troubles all have great Edge guitar work.
I think Laz just likes reach aroundsI think Laz is the world's biggest fan of that particular song.