I have not heard the song yet but unless Bono lets out a massive audible fart while singing "refu-Jesus", it's not going to be worse than the "little old lady" lyric.
"Refu-Jesus" as a portmanteau is pretty much a massive audible fart.
I have not heard the song yet but unless Bono lets out a massive audible fart while singing "refu-Jesus", it's not going to be worse than the "little old lady" lyric.
This album seems entirely mastered for headphones so far. It seems very flat and dull through speakers, but there are a lot of subtle details and the sound somehow richer on headphones. Maybe I’m crazy - anyone else hear it this way?
Oh and the Coldplay comparisons... Come up with something better.
GOOYOW - I don't hate it or mind the Beautiful Day-coatings in places. But I can't stop humming the chorus to The Best Thing over it since it's basically the same progression. I didn't mind the reliance on I–V–vi–IV with SOI too much since the songs were pretty good, but here, it just seems a bit odd to have two songs playing the same thing.
Alright.
So is Get Out Of Your Own Way the most inspired pieces of songwriting in the world? No.
But it's good. It's not as much Tedder bullshit as I feared when I started seeing the reviews come in, and if you don't like most of post 2000 U2 then yea, you're going to think this sucks. And I get that.
And those who are like "ehhhrmagad this is the greatest song ever I'm dying" are pretty dumb. coughcoughSilCoughcough
But it's pretty good. I think it's better than Best Thing. It's definitely a push in the All That You Can't Leave Behind direction.
Haven't given American Soul a whirl yet.
I do have hopes that this is going to be a very good album. Not ground breaking, experimental, or on par with Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby... but filled with good, listenable songs.
For some that's a disaster, and I get that. But honestly I'd rather have good songs that aren't necessarily the most ground breaking thing in the world than have a quasi-experimental bull crap like what No Line was.
The above are numbers 3 & 4 in the track listing.
Okay, I’m just going to be honest: these aren’t very good songs, are they? Like, I guess I’m happy to have a new U2 album, but, like, this is the band that made Bad. Or even BD/COBL/MOS. And now... this? Like, the songs aren’t awful, but they’re just so many tiers removed from what I know U2 are capable of.
Okay, I’m just going to be honest: these aren’t very good songs, are they? Like, I guess I’m happy to have a new U2 album, but, like, this is the band that made Bad. Or even BD/COBL/MOS. And now... this? Like, the songs aren’t awful, but they’re just so many tiers removed from what I know U2 are capable of.
Yep.
What also gets me is how this music blends in sonically with what other prominent mainstream rock bands are producing. One of the things that set U2 apart at the peak of their abilities was how different they were. Nothing on radio in 1987 sounded like WOWY. Plenty of post-punk bands were evolving in new directions in 1984 but none went quite as impressionistic or abstract as UF. Achtung and Zooropa were absolutely not grunge.
Pop was perceived as a bit of trendhopping, but my god, these four songs just disappear into the same sonic space as today's dime-a-dozen radio rock bands. It's more the production than the songs themselves, though the devolution of Bono's lyrics into bland platitudes doesn't help.
Yep.
What also gets me is how this music blends in sonically with what other prominent mainstream rock bands are producing. One of the things that set U2 apart at the peak of their abilities was how different they were. Nothing on radio in 1987 sounded like WOWY. Plenty of post-punk bands were evolving in new directions in 1984 but none went quite as impressionistic or abstract as UF. Achtung and Zooropa were absolutely not grunge.
Pop was perceived as a bit of trendhopping, but my god, these four songs just disappear into the same sonic space as today's dime-a-dozen radio rock bands. It's more the production than the songs themselves, though the devolution of Bono's lyrics into bland platitudes doesn't help.
Yep.
What also gets me is how this music blends in sonically with what other prominent mainstream rock bands are producing. One of the things that set U2 apart at the peak of their abilities was how different they were. Nothing on radio in 1987 sounded like WOWY. Plenty of post-punk bands were evolving in new directions in 1984 but none went quite as impressionistic or abstract as UF. Achtung and Zooropa were absolutely not grunge.
Pop was perceived as a bit of trendhopping, but my god, these four songs just disappear into the same sonic space as today's dime-a-dozen radio rock bands. It's more the production than the songs themselves, though the devolution of Bono's lyrics into bland platitudes doesn't help.
I don’t disagree, but how far do you have to go back to get to what you are talking about? Pop? I just think that, regardless of how you feel about the songs themselves, they fit into the post-2000 era U2 sound just about as well as anything else we’ve heard from them in the last 17 years. Essentially, it’s nothing new.
And I say this as someone who is generally enjoying the new material.
Yep. Basically the band was at it's creative peak from 1980-1995 and since then they've been trying to be their commercial peak. I basically consider U2 from Pop to now a different band than U2 from Boy to Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me.
I enjoy both U2s. One is a nice fun band and the other is one of the best bands of all time. The trick is to mentally separate them. In my opinion.
What was Bono thinking, and how did the band and the entire city of producers and engineers around them let it through?
Haha yes! Although I'd listen to a bunch of their songs, I sure as hell wouldn't be on a U2 fan site.See, if U2 began their career in 2000, there's not a chance in hell I'd be a fan of them.
Lucky they were so fucking good before then.
How is Bono allowed out with those round sunglasses on? !
Okay, I’m just going to be honest: these aren’t very good songs, are they? Like, I guess I’m happy to have a new U2 album, but, like, this is the band that made Bad. Or even BD/COBL/MOS. And now... this? Like, the songs aren’t awful, but they’re just so many tiers removed from what I know U2 are capable of.
Yep. Basically the band was at it's creative peak from 1980-1995 and since then they've been trying to be their commercial peak. I basically consider U2 from Pop to now a different band than U2 from Boy to Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me.
I enjoy both U2s. One is a nice fun band and the other is one of the best bands of all time. The trick is to mentally separate them. In my opinion.
The album that produced 'Moment of Surrender' also produced 'Stand Up Comedy' and 'Get on Your Boots' (as the lead single, no less). The album that produced 'Beautiful Day' also produced 'Peace On Earth', 'Grace' and 'Elevation' (unless you consider a mole digging in a hole to be something revelatory). The album that produced 'City of Blinding Lights' also produced lyrics about intellectual tortoises, mused about highrises on backs, and even pondered over the "mysterious distance" between a man and a woman (while simultaneously trying to rhyme said distance with "romance"). Just saying...
I’ve only done one listen through, and I’ve avoided American Soul because I hate Volcano, but it’s pretty good. I think it’s a little unfair to compare these songs to Bad and, say, Streets, because those songs have 30 years of magnitude behind them, and, really, no one else has written better songs either. Plus they have the advantage of a lifetime of live performances, which always make the album versions better (really, on TUF, Bad is kind of a nebulous mess, it’s only the order imposed by the superlative live version that makes the album version make sense).
That said.
GOOwhatever sounds better than my initial expensive children’s birthday party band fears, but it’s not my favorite. It has no ache, there’s no hurt, which a good U2 song needs. I feel no stakes. None. It’s just sort of pretty.
TBT is highly enjoyable, I’m still a fan. It also has a tension GOO lacks.
Blackout seems the winner here, definitely the most interesting and nimble.
I do miss the magic. It just doesn’t happen through crappy earbuds. (My good ones are at work).
It also doesn't happen in a perfectly crafted 3 minute pop song. They've become so compressed to a formula that they've lost what makes them great, which is also what makes them maddening, the noodling around in the studio. A single riff can span 5 different ideas
And them playing around trying to figure out how it becomes a U2 song, versus how do we make this the perfect Pop song?
A song like UTEOTW was built around a riff, in fact the riff IS the chorus of the song. I'd hate to see what U2 would do with a song like that today.