New U2 Album "Songs of Innocence"* (Part 2)

Since we've brought up Rattle and Hum in a thread about Songs of Innocence, I'm posting this link:

The Reel Thing: U2's 12 Greatest Soundtrack Songs
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/u2-12-best-soundtrack-songs-20141023/your-blue-room-20141022

Brushing up on some deep cuts tonight!

 

I guess that settles it, I should return this sucker for another copy. But I had to drive an hour out of way and to another state to buy it! (I wanted to check out that store anyway.)

 

NLOTH is a very, very nice pressing. i just expected they'd continue the tradition. but these are pressed at United. oh well.

 

Were they pressed at GZ?

 

Agreed on NLOTH, which is miles better than my Atomic Bomb. I still have a sealed ATYCLB and Best of 1990-2000, but U2 pressings are a crapshoot and they're worth more sealed.

 

And sell a deluxe paper version 2 month later with additional glossy photos

 

IMO, R&H is the last good album they did.. ......

 

So you're saying that from Achtung Baby onwards all their albums have been great to amazing? I can go quite far with that.

 

I'd take just about any song from Achtung Baby till the present over "Hawkmoon 269," New Voices of Freedom and "Love Rescue Me."

 

The Rolling Stone article is a good read. I got it in the mail today. Among the highlights include:

A song title and some lyrics are dropped for a song that will appear on the next album, Songs of Experience. The song title is The Morning After Innocence (which was one of the song titles floating around online that most U2 fans know as Lead Me In The Way I Should Go)

Bono was unaware that the album would automatically download to most people's phones so there was an oversight on Apple's part I guess.

Larry Mullen didn't want the band to go out with their last album being No Line On The Horizon. He is very much happy about the new album.

Dangermouse pushed for the band to rekindle thee experimentation they had during Achtung Baby and POP and the song from the new album "Sleep Like A Baby Tonight" is the sole survivor of those sessions.

They did a club album with producer RedOne and then shelved it. I kind of wonder if The Crystal Ballroom came from those sessions?

There are still unreleased songs from the Rick Rubin sessions. Rick Rubin's influence on them shows on the new album by having songs they feel comfortable playing with only a acoustic guitar and piano.

 

I love Hawkmoon 269. I'm not wild about Love Rescue Me, either.

 

Radiohead's pay-what-you-want album didn't affect anything. This won't, either. If anything, it freed up music budgets to buy something else.

 

First live performance of full band California:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=755787177791929

A bit rough but Bono sounds fantastic. Can't wait to see them on tour.

 

Or more like Bono is just as clueless about how his phone works as most fifty-somethings are.

I think that's how Peter Buck felt after Around the Sun.

 

What if that was Bono's favorite REM album AND he figured out how to get it downloaded to his phone? I know I would be impressed...

 

Good interview with Bono and Edge on RTE (Late Late show)? I think they do EBW and The Miracle as well:

 

Love Rescue Me and Angel of Harlem are probably my favorite u2 songs, probably because they are dylan influenced.

 

Achtung Baby didnt do anything for me but, leave me with a cold feeling. I don't like it.

 

Tubridy ain't no Gaybo !

 

Still, one of the better interviews thus far.

 

I think where U2 lost me over the years - and I've been a fan since 1983 - is the point in time when the band decided to be *of its time* and compete with contemporary acts rather than trying to be either timeless or retro. The personal irony for me is the fact that having stated that, one of my top three U2 albums - Achtung Baby - is probably the most of its time recording in their catalog. But the U2 that I truly love is the timeless U2 - The Unforgettable Fire - and the retro U2 - The Joshua Tree. In the timeless stuff, U2 is working with Eno/Lanois and being spacey and out there and leaving structure and form behind in favor of mood and atmospherics. TUF sounds like a bonafide demo. I'm sure I'm not the first person to cite that. S Sort of Homecoming on the album sounds like it's the first time they've run through it. And it's that unfinished quality that makes it sound fresh 30 years later. And U2 trying to sound retro - leaning on Dylan, Cash, Orbison, the blues - comes out sounding like nothing else out there and everything out there at the same time. It's a shame The Joshua Tree didn't inspire more covers. I can imagine The Mavericks covering In God's Country, maybe even Dwight Yoakem. Same goes with Trip Through Your Wires. Move on to Desire. Acoustic guitars, a bit of country and western and roots rock influence played by four guys from Dublin.

I listen to this new album, and it seems like the last four or five of their albums for that matter, and I hear a band trying to sound like Coldplay or the latest top 40 single on the chart. Look at the list of producers and engineers. It comes across as desperately trying to be hip - when being hip and cool should really be effortless or it's not, well, hip or cool. Maybe that's it. Maybe U2 is trying too hard. Mabe that's what this new album is, and what their last four or five albums are. The sound of a band trying too hard.

The Troubles is the top track. That sounds new and fresh to me and capable of being both a contemporary hit and a classic. So there you go.

Love,
Billy

P.S. Ok, I love Every Breaking Wave, too. both the one on the album and the piano driven one they did on Jools. oxox

 

I finally got the white EU vinyl yesterday in the post. Nice quiet pressing, stunning sound! Huge soundstage.

 

So a band can just decide to be timeless? Good to know. Amazed that every band doesn't decide to do that.

 

I think the fact people think they sound like Coldplay and I've said it myself comes from that god awful band pretty much stealing their sound wholesale, the difference is that U2 have soul and don't have a singer with a voice as dull as dishwater and a personality to match.

Not even getting into them courting Eno as a producer or Fix You sounding like an utter rip off Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own.

Listening to The Jools Holland performance they sound like a band reinvigorated, that acoustic performance of Every Breaking Wave was incredible and Bono exudes emotion in a way that very little other vocalist can alive today.

SOI has no throwaway songs on it, no Elevation or Vertigo and of Course no Get On Your Boots. SOI is a serious album and not in a bad way, the lyrics are some of the best and consistent of Bono's in years, the album flows and I can definitely tell the difference between this album and their last 3, yes the production is slick but it all gels and nothing jars, Dangermouse seems to have done wonders with them. They don't sound to me like they are trying to sound contemporary for the sake of it to fit in, they sound like they making music they want to with no concessions, not the album I at all expected but by god I'm truly digging it and thank the band for delivering what I think is their most solid and consistent offering since POP.

Can't wait to see them play these songs live, yes I love U2 once again.

 

Are you kidding? Elevation and Vertigo are no throwaway songs - these are killer live songs. I also don't understand all the hate for Atomic Bomb here in this forum. If you ever saw them live on tour you know how good City of Blinding Lights, All Because Of You or Miracle Drug sounded live in the stadium.