“20” – U2 TRACKS POLL (voting closes midday, Thursday 4 August)

'night and day' was a good thing, in 1990 or so. I don't think they exactly played all the chords, though they played more than usual.

I liked their 'xmas baby please come home' but haven't heard it in many years.

I was always mystified that 'one''s chorus used the same words and melody as 'one love' - this seemed too much. I don't think I ever warmed to the song as much as others did. I quite like the guitar textures but religious language means very little to me. But maybe there is still some good material in the lyric.

I think they made more videos for 'one' than for anything else -- I have an old Achtung VHS tape which was absolutely magnificent but won't seem to play on my machine now, and I recall it having about 5 'one' videos, including one where they're all in drag.

I wish I had voted for 'stay', a good 90s U2 song.

iirc there were 3 "One" videos and the drag one was the first -- each one got a lot of play on MTV until the next one premiered

I thought for most people that the Pet Shop Boys cover made the original "Where The Streets..." redundant.

for most people

Nice bubble, Alfred.

The foyer is di-vine.

I thought it was a nice gesture at Glastonbury when Bono sang a bit of Andy Williams over Streets. I'd rather he hadn't but nice gesture nonetheless.

I dunno whether anyone else rates this one but I'm gonna throw a decently high vote to "Heartland". It was originally written during The Unforgettable Fire sessions, & it sounds like it, but the lyric is less clumsy than say "Elvis Presley and America", & Bono's singing is more forthright (this can be a plus & a minus but here it's a big plus). I don't really know if it ~says~ anything, but it's been a favorite for years.

Yeah, Heartland was one of my last cuts before I sent in my ballot.

Yeah, I love it and gave it a few. I guess finding an earnest Bono vocal is no big surprise, but when he hits the spot, y'know, what's better?

I love that song!

BTW, I would like to submit a ballot and all that, but I don't really have the time to do this before the deadline. I don't even really understand what I'm supposed to do. I was an ardent preteen U2 fan, sorta liked them on and off (mostly off) post Achtung Baby, but when I loved U2, I LOVED U2. So I guess I have opinions, but no energy to assign numerical value to them. Also my media is all spread out -- I have most U2 albums on cassette or vinyl, but some on CD...making an educated list would be more complicated than anything I have time for atm.

aw, just write down the first songs that come to your mind, don't think that much about it if you don't have time, and put, say, "Heartland" at the top of your list !

Educated, comprehensive - forget all that stuff. Just jot down your favourite twenty RIGHT NOW and send to ismaelklata at gmail dot com. It'll make me happy.

oh ok

i'll do it. don't expect any surprises though. i was a pretty garden variety no nukes preteen U2 fan.

C'mon, knock out a 20-minute ballot. That's how I did my Prince ballot, and I haven't been chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob (yet).
xp

"Heartland" is a good one.

haha you could multiply amanda's vote by two and then it would be like i'd voted, too.

type and email it yourself and you're on

C'mon, knock out a 20-minute ballot. That's how I did my Prince ballot, and I haven't been chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob (yet).
xp

― time to put it in hi geir (WmC), Monday, August 1, 2011 5:23 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

if you voted for "Alphabet St." and not "Adore" i'lkl let the mob know where to find you

Ok, I did it.

uh oh

it took me almost exactly 20 min!

Heartland will totally be in my top 10 tbh

Still working on my ballot. This U2 poll is messing me up in all sorts of ways ~ in a forcing you to face your past way. No other band I have loved and loathed so completely in my life. First band I completely loved, visited fanclub meetings of, traded cassette boots etc ... around 'Pop' both U2 and I, in my life, went completely separate ways. Fortunately, in the end, the verdict meter didn't swing to just one side. I still hate all U2 from Pop on, but still love what I loved from before that.

I must have hated pop so much that I forgot that it existed. I'm in the same boat, just voted w/ my <3

^^ Only way to go! :)

I loved Zooropa from the start, but Pop felt like it was released too late, like, were they still doing the ironic thing four years later (& six years after Achtung Baby)? So I never bought it & only barely knew the singles even. I can listen to it now that the time has passed & hear it more clearly now: "Mofo" is a beast, for instance.

Hah! Zooropa is their best, most coherent, most exciting, on the edge album for me.

U2 and I just took separate turns after that. But boy do I love Zooropa.

^^^^ otm

Yeah, it's their best album.

I can't separate it from my discovering Low in the summer of '93.

If the band had followed the example of "Mofo" and "If You Feel Loved" (which is an unexpectedly sexy song), I'd have more appreciation for the results, not to mention intentions.

I can't separate it from my discovering Low in the summer of '93.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 2, 2011 12:43 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

OMG!

Had the exact same! Same summer! (and what a summer it was) If you are referring to Bowie's Low that is. 'Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car' just seemed such a logical progression from Low and 'Always Crashing In The Same Car' to me. It was pure chance that this happened, yet made such huge sense to me at the time.

Of course!

I don't think they've ever attempted anything as playful-serious as "Babyface" and "Lemon." And "Stay (Faraway So Close!)" is their best "straight" ballad.

I know, I know... Zooropa remains the only album in U2's discography that was recorded in six weeks and of which they say it was just an "in between" thing. Yet look how brilliant that worked out. Without the great planning, years of recording in the Riviera or Morocco, no great marketing plan etc. They should try that more often.

Been thoroughly disappointed when after Zooropa, with every new album, Bono would pop up in the press and exclaim how he felt their album was going to be so cutting edge, "best album so far"-bollocks etc.

"love comes tumbling" is pretty great from that e.p. as well

Hell yeah it is. My favorite U2 mode is probably that sort of atmospheric "Edge doing most of the work while Bono behaves more workmanlike and less stridently"--they're so good at that. This song, "Heartland," lots of stuff on The Unforgettable Fire... Edge was the first guitarist I remember identifying as a kid as "a guitarist I like," and I still distinctly remember discovering things like the Comsat Angels, the Sound, Echo and the Bunnymen--you know, "atmospheric postpunk"--and being excited to hear things that reminded me of Edge! So in a very real way they were my gateway into postpunk and thus into a lot of my most cherished music.

"Love Comes Tumbling" is definitely gonna be on my ballot. The aspect of U2's work you're describing is one of my favorite things about them, and is well-represented on my ballot (lots of tracks from The Unforgettable Fire, e.g.). I'm also partial to their early 1990s work. I'm not sure how those two aspects are connected; I need to think more about that.

"Do You Feel Loved" and "Heartland" are a couple great Adam/Larry songs that I wish were better Bono/Edge songs. The bass line on "Do You Feel Loved" in particular is U2 minimalist perfection.

Zooropa made me fall in love with the band again after pretty much chucking Achtung Baby, but dismissing any of their albums now seems hasty--I disliked each of the last four at first and wound up changing my mind on all of them.

Zooropa remains the only album in U2's discography that was recorded in six weeks and of which they say it was just an "in between" thing. Yet look how brilliant that worked out. Without the great planning, years of recording in the Riviera or Morocco, no great marketing plan etc.

Yet the thing sounds like it cost $4.5 million and took months to record.

Imagine what all their albums afterwards that sound like it didn't cost as much yet actually cost them ten times as much!

I remember the story at the time being that it was just an EP.

what

xp

I think I rated Unforgettable Fire tracks too low on my ballot. I prefer Ironic Bono to Earnest Bono, but instrumentally, tUF is the band's high-water mark

The aspect of U2's work you're describing is one of my favorite things about them, and is well-represented on my ballot (lots of tracks from The Unforgettable Fire, e.g.). I'm also partial to their early 1990s work. I'm not sure how those two aspects are connected; I need to think more about that.

I'm with you there. I think the connection lies in the immersive qualities of both of those periods. Both are less alert, less sober, less chest-thumpingly self-actualizing versions of the band. The atmospheric stuff is blissed out, hazy, delicate, stately; the best stuff on Achtung Baby is maximalistic, layered, thick, intoxicating, humid. The key to the band's success in my mind is tempering Bono... He has an objectively fantastic voice that easily lends itself to becoming just too much, and in both of these versions of the band he's perfectly balanced with the rush and feel of the rest of the band.

I don't know if I said so upthread, but I adore the title track of "The Unforgettable Fire" despite the crap lyrics: those shifting synth textures. The 12" mix should have been a schlockier Trevor Horn-esque disco track.

That sounds right to me. I don't favor anthemic U2 anymore, though I can remember its appeal. "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "New Year's Day", the whole of Under A Blood Red Sky, those are good songs! But Bono is too self-aware, too keen a historian of rock, to ~really feel it~ every time, & I think this is the band's secret weapon over its more resolutely strident peers (yes, even Echo). This is why they were able to pull off their big switch at the turn of the 1990s.

xp to Clarke

yes! "The Unforgettable Fire" is high on my ballot.

certainly fascinated by 70s Bowie / 90s U2 connections but I also suspect that it may be a bit played up by the 'crashed car' title echo -- and the two crashed car songs don't even sound similar. but certainly U2's title must be a nod to Bowie's

also Bowie did a 70s 'stay', not sure on what LP

maybe arguable that general Eno textures provide a link.

thinking about 'zoo station' a great deal over the last couple of months, playing many different versions - after actually going there

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5779818835_b33cd0a8a6.jpg

i ended up going pretty light on the early albums -- nothing from the first two, 1 from War and 2 from The Unforgettable Fire

- 'versions' ie: LP version on vinyl, and otherwise live ones on old tapes, and youtube

still compelled by this song, still feel it represents heart of the Achtung turn, as it was meant to

but also struck by how un-experimental all this really is, by Enoish standards: if this was really like LOW, then 'zoo station' itself would go on for 12-15 minutes, hypnotizing you - instead it's compact, 4 minutes and out and on to 45 'real thing' - sense of this being really a streamlined rock LP

maybe that's obvious.