Axver said:
Hahaha, dmesq, you make me laugh and you clearly haven't been at this forum long enough to know anything about me.
1. I HATE Ultra Violet. I think it's the worst song U2 have ever made, including Red Light.
2. I am hardly generic or mainstream when it comes to this forum. Generic and mainstream is bowing down at the altar of nineties U2. I prefer eighties U2 and almost predominantly listen to bootlegs from that era. My views often clash with the majority of U2 fans, especially because I do not rank Achtung Baby as a masterpiece. I doubt anyone's going to make a top six like I just did. Maybe a top two, but you'd be mad not to have those two songs somewhere in your top five.
3. I haven't eaten at McDonald's for seven years, I don't read the newspapers, and I've been to the movie theatre four times in the last twelve months. Your assumptions about me are completely wrong.
4. You clearly have no fucking clue about The Unforgettable Fire. Go see an ear specialist. There's something wrong with your hearing.
5. Nineties U2 does a good job of pushing the envelope, but I love the atmosphere, honesty, and passion of the eighties.
I live more outside the box than you could possibly imagine in your narrow-minded, deranged brain. Do yourself a favour and pull your head out of your arse. Thanks.
Dear Axver,
1. "Generic and mainstream is bowing down at the altar of 90's U2" - uh, whatever. I guess that's why Zooropa is U2's most hated album amongst the die-hard fans (even more than the blandly rockish Pop), and why it won the Best Alternative Album Grammy for 1993. That's why barely anyone on this site ever mentions their Passengers album when they talk about some of U2's very best and MOST EXPERIMENTAL AND INNOVATIVE music. (For more on this, see #5 below.)
2. "You'd be mad not to have those top two songs in your top five"...not that Rolling Stone is the almighty arbiter of what's good/bad, but they didn't have 'em in their latest poll of the top 500 songs of all time. And quite frankly, while they're both great songs, I don't have them in my top five (or top ten) for that matter either. Guess it's time for me to check into the local asylum.
3. I sincerely apologize if my ribbing you got under your skin; but maybe what I was implying with that jokery was more telling than you'd care to admit. You certainly seem to have responded to it on a totally straightforward basis.
4. Boy oh boy, that's good. What a retort! Whoa! Geez, I bet you won the First Place Prize in your local district back on your high school speech/debate team w. shockingly insightful & eloquent observations like that!
5. Of course I'll agree with you about the atmosphere and passion of '80's U2, but honesty? Here's one of the main debates between U2 fans - does honesty necessarily equal earnestness and a total lack of irony, or does honesty mean using irony to deflate myths, coming clean about the oftentimes hurting state of the human heart, and embracing new forms of music (dance, ambient, techno, industrial, etc.) to express these themes? Wasn't there something completely honest about Bono's saying around Achtung Baby's release, "we tried to be everyone's heroes in the 80's, and we got kicked in the ass - so, now we're getting out"?
I've mocked most of your observations thus far because they so blandly represent a majority of U2 fans out there who prefer 80's U2 and wish the band would bleed out the adventurous 90's from their system, which the band has now done for their most recent two albums (ATYCLB & HTDAAB). (So look at it this way: YOU'VE WON, you've got back the U2 you've always wanted. I hope you're totally, completely happy with their latest incarnation, and that you're eating every word out of Bono's mouth with absolute acceptance and devotion and not questioning a single syllable or a single musical note. As for me, I like a lot of their latest stuff, but I also find so much of it mediocre and it always leaves me wanting more.)
But to me your opinions are totally unexciting and typical and almost completely non-unique. It's like you're a programmer for a classic hard-rock station and have absolutely no adventurousness in your thinking. You want to know something, I honestly think the 6:56 'Lemon' is a better song than 'Bad'; I don't think 'Bad' is a bad song, I think it's a great song, but I actually prefer the full 'Lemon,' which I think in its own way is one of U2's most underrated epic songs. How's that for a unique and untypical opinion? And you want to talk "honesty," I think some of the most honest lyrics Bono ever wrote are:
And I feel like I'm slowly slowly slowly slipping under
And I feel like I'm hanging onto nothing
And these are the days when our work has come asunder
And these are the days when we look for something other
Which expresses U2's entire mission (up until the half-assed execution of the Pop album) throughout the 90's. U2 endeavored to explode their myth in the 90's, and it resulted in some of their (and anyone's) most amazing, unique, idiosyncratic, eccentric, original, creative and visionary music.
Whereas when it comes to earlier 80's U2, ala the song The Unforgettable Fire, or recent U2 like Miracle Drug or City of Blinding Lights, the more supposedly 'earnest' Bono tries to come off as, the more often I think he's full of shit.
Axver, you make me laugh (and it's a depressed, resigned laugh, like the laugh I gave when the results were in and Bush had won the last U.S. election). You're like a die-hard, unswervable Beatles fan who think their ABSOLUTELY GREATEST work was during "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help," and can't stop talking about how unbelievably amazing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Love Me Do" is, and how it's SO much better than anything off "Sgt. Pepper" or "The White Album" or "Abbey Road." Please. The only thing more depressing to me than Bono's supposed almighty & sacred "honesty" in the 80's is your (and so many other U2 fans') totally blind, unyielding devotion and unquestioning acceptance of every little ass-scratching lyric and turn-of-phrase he tossed out and then reheated like yesterday's leftovers way back when. Looks to me like YOU'RE the one who's joined the Almighty Unquestioning Cult of U2, muchacho. Hope you're having fun at your daily services as you bow three times towards Dublin on your knees like a good little devotee.