Songs of Experience - 1 Year Later

[Gonna Run 2 U]

I think a few others have made this point but loud guitars for u2 can mean Acrobat or it can mean Stand Up Comedy. I doubt it’s ever going to be “hard” though.

It’s a coin toss - if I was making a best of u2 loud guitars, it looks alright:

1 - Vertigo
2 - The Fly
3 - HMTMKMKM
4 - Bullet the Blue Sky
5 - Raised By Wolves
6 - Wire
7 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
8 - The Blackout
9 - Exit
10 - Breathe
11 - Acrobat

A worst of is surprisingly a bit shorter:

Love and Peace or Else
Stand Up Comedy
Get On Your Boots
The Miracle
American Soul

You can also add to all of those:

Elevation
Is that All?
All Because of You

All the bad ones are 2000s. Even split of era does the good ones.

The miracle has really grown on me actually

 

[gvox]

I made a I&E playlist recently for a casual fan who said she had barely heard anything from them from the past decade.

Love Is All We Have Left
Lights of Home
Raised By Wolves
The Crystal Ballroom - 12"
Every Breaking Wave
Iris
Song For Someone
Red Flag Day
Sleep Like A Baby Tonight
The Troubles
Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way
Landlady
The Little Things That Give You Away
13 (There Is a Light)


Might do with a bit of order swapping, but the general idea is there. Not alot of loud noisey guitars

(and of course I love the old loud noisy guitars.. of which there are PLENTY of gems for sure)

 

[lazarus]

The miracle has really grown on me actually

It's a miracle that could grow on anyone.

 

[lazarus]

I made a I&E playlist recently for a casual fan who said she had barely heard anything from them from the past decade.

Love Is All We Have Left
Lights of Home
Raised By Wolves
The Crystal Ballroom - 12"
Every Breaking Wave
Iris
Song For Someone
Red Flag Day
Sleep Like A Baby Tonight
The Troubles
Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way
Landlady
The Little Things That Give You Away
13 (There Is a Light)


Might do with a bit of order swapping, but the general idea is there. Not alot of loud noisey guitars

(and of course I love the old loud noisy guitars.. of which there are PLENTY of gems for sure)

I find your lack of This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now disturbing.

 

[MrPryck2U]

I find your lack of This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now disturbing.

Bam.

 

[BEAL]

I’m not into “loud guitars” with this band. I think that will make them look older than they are. Although I guess RBW and Cedarwood Road are good. And live Acrobat.

Mellow, “Stateless” U2 is where I think they shine best at this point in time — MOS, Troubles, Landlady, Little Things.

This is where I’m at. Would i love another UTEOTW….sure, but it isn’t realistic.

More meditative, blue, slower paced seems to fit this band really well. Edge and Adam can still come up with great riffs, Stateless, Velvet Dress…

That seems to be where I’d guess SOA to live. Assume it ever gets made and released

 

[gvox]

I find your lack of This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now disturbing.

I hear ya, but it hasn’t aged well for me.. barely ever get back to it

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

SoE is 5 years old today. Wow.

I want to say this leaked Black Friday? Someone live streamed it? I remember listening to it, kinda low quality, feeling meh about it until landlady played.

 

[dan_smee]

I want to say this leaked Black Friday? Someone live streamed it? I remember listening to it, kinda low quality, feeling meh about it until landlady played.

Old mate got a vinyl copy delivered early and live streamed it a few times. Audio of his livestream was captured and shared by…. Someone… he had a melt down over the sharing because he was contacted my universal to cease and desist.

 

[Gonna Run 2 U]

Yes I remember someone freaking out about stop sharing!

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I hear ya, but it hasn’t aged well for me.. barely ever get back to it

Agreed

 

[MrPryck2U]

I want to say this leaked Black Friday? Someone live streamed it? I remember listening to it, kinda low quality, feeling meh about it until landlady played.

I honestly don't remember if it leaked. I don't even remember where I bought the CD and it was only 5 years ago. It was either Best Buy or Target. I don't even think those stores sell CD's or very few CD's.

I did enjoy the album. Landlady is somewhere in the middle for me. There are tracks that I like more and less than Landlady. Little Things is my favorite track from SOE.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

The final tribute of the evening went to Irish band U2 which, with members Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., has won 22 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Sacha Baron Cohen, playing his alter ego character Borat, quipped on stage that he was looking for former President Donald Trump and made reference to anti-Semitic behavior by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West.

Vedder performed "Elevation" and "One," while Ukrainian singer Jamala joined Carlile and others to perform "Walk On."

"At a moment when there’s too much hate, too much anger, too much division here in America and, quite frankly, around the world, we have to remember today, as their song goes, 'We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other,'” Biden said at the White House, referencing a U2 lyric.

Please god get me a copy of Eddie Vedder performing One.

Looks like "others" included Hozier

 

[gweeps]

I think SoE is their most diverse sounding album since AtyClB.

 

[womanfish]

Boy, this is a tough one.

SOI and SOE are really close to me. I rate them 8 and 9 respectively in their catalog.

I love: Love is All, Red Flag, Summer of Love, Landlady, and 13 (5)

I like: Lights, Best Thing, Blackout, Little Things and Love is Bigger (5)

I loathe: American Soul, The Showman, and Get Out (3)


SOI IMO is more consistent. I disagree that the highs on SOE are higher than on SOI. I think that The Troubles and Sleep Like a Baby are better than anything on SOE. I think Sleep is one of their best songs since POP.

So

I love: EBW, Sleep Like a Baby, The Troubles, Raised By Wolves (4)

I like: Iris, Cedarwood, Reach, Volcano, and California (5)

and here's the difference

I don't loathe any, I sorta am so-so on: Miracle, and Song for Someone (2)

In the end that's why I put SOI over SOE.

I will say this. I put a mix of my favorite SOI and SOE songs together, and I do really love the atmosphere of SOE. There's this sort of heavy, darker, more rounded edge feeling in the sound of the album. Where SOI has a brighter sharper sound to it. But just song to song, SOI wins out for me.

I weep at the potential of No Line.

I love: No Line, Magnificent, Fez, White As Snow, and Cedars (5)

I like: Breathe, MOS, and Unknown Caller (although at a much lesser level), and on some days Boots (3.5)

I loathe : Stand Up Comedy, Crazy and sometimes Boots (2.5)

I remember being busy with something else the night that SOE was leaked, and I had it playing and recording on my phone simultaneously in my bedroom while I was doing other stuff and then walked that dog and soaked in that first listen. I can't wait til I get to do that again with a new album.


So that's why these albums are so close to me in my rankings.

 

[lazarus]

SOI and SOE are really close to me. I rate them 8 and 9 respectively in their catalog.


In the end that's why I put SOI over SOE.

 

[womanfish]

Sorry,

Don't think All That, R&H, October, No Line (although its very close), or Bomb is better than those two albums. and if you do, then

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

 

[Rich79]

I'm a week late to the party, but 5 years on from SOE and:

The songs I initially thought were standouts, I still do:

Love is All...
Lights of Home (but I hardly touch the recycled Cedarwood/Haim riff version in favor of the vastly superior strings version)
Little Things
13
Book of your....oh wait, they didn't put this on the album.

The songs I thought were okay have fallen out of favor for me:

American Soul - good attempt at some fuzzed-out rock, but lyrically a wreck
Summer of Love - A song that could fit a lot of peoples' lives, until Aleppo is mentioned
Landlady - It was kind of magical, but the longer time goes on, the more I can't get over the complete lack of romance in calling your significant other a landlady.
The Blackout - Zack/Jack/Ned/Zed just grates on me to the point where the initial shine of the heavy rock riff is no longer enough for me to forgive it. It's lazy songwriting that just makes a serious song sound silly. Just take the names out and you've got a pretty good song.

The songs I didn't like never grew on me (save for one):

Best Thing - sounds like a cut/paste job that grasps at straws to be a hit single (unless you're talking about the Kygo remix; which was cool new ground for U2 to explore)
GOOYOW - A song that's just kind of...in the way. The "aaaah-ahhh" stuff just makes me cringe. It's Beautiful Day lite...very lite.
Red Flag Day - I don't get the love for this one. It's just kinda there. Sounds a little like their older stuff, but that doesn't automatically make for a good song in my book
The Showman - Whole lotta "Nope" for me. Bottom of the U2 barrel and I can only hope this is the only time they scrape it.

That leaves the only song that grew on me:

Love is Bigger - At first, I thought it was trying too hard to be a pop song territory; but it really does have an impactful melody and lyrics. Beautiful song; could have been a more impactful lead-off single, but we'll never know.

It bums me out that this is the only U2 album that didn't grow on me after a few listens and I frankly can't wait until we can stop referring to it as the "new" U2 album.

 

[lazarus]

…

 

[lazarus]

Sorry,

Don't think All That, R&H, October, No Line (although its very close), or Bomb is better than those two albums. and if you do, then

I misinterpreted, thought you were giving numerical scores to each album and not rankings, as you said “rate” and not “rank”. And then you seemed to reverse yourself later in the post.

 

[gweeps]

Just heard the burp in American Soul. Took me long enough.

 

[DeVaul]

Just heard the burp in American Soul. Took me long enough.

Isn’t that the entire song?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Isn’t that the entire song?

That's the fart

 

[DeVaul]

The original title used one of those parentheticals Bono loves so much:

“American Soul (from an Irish hole)”

 

[gweeps]

It's a sonic hodgepodge.

 

[DeVaul]

It's a sonic hodgepodge.

Sounds about right.

 

[Hewson]

 

[Irvine511]

That's the fart

Punk rock from Uranus.

 

[gweeps]

Punk rock from Uranus.

Don't you mean stunk rock?