popshopper
Acrobat
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2002
- Messages
- 459
Stand Up Comedy is way better than Mercy, which is utterly horrible. It's a b-side for a reason. Stand Up Comedy will be a single.
I'd go so far to stand Stand Up Comedy is the most mundane, inane and obvious song I've ever from U2. Terrible lyrics, uninspired production and so-so playing. It's like a bad U2 cover band covering a Led Zepplin track written by Noel Gallagher. It sucks the soul out of the album when partnered with it's prettier throwaway sisters Crazy (which is a nice enough track but feels like an HTDAAB b-side, which Mercy actually isn't as it's still unreleased and could end up anything) and Boots (which actually works somewhat in context, but its effect is muted by being surrounded by SUC and Crazy)
Mercy isn't that great in it's 2004 form, but was interesting enough to see what Eno and Lanois could have done with the guitar part.
U2 chickened out, you could can practically hear the thought-processes of "this album needs another obvious rock track, so lets cram this junk in here" in the opening bars of SUC.