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

adam knows

Aside... have to mention "The Three Sunrises" as another great Lost Track. I gave it a vote.

Confessions of a teenaged U2 fan part 1...
I don't want to sound like a "the music of my youth was so much better MAAAAANNN" guy, but holy shit there were a lot of great records released in October 1980: Remain In Light, Black Market Clash, In The Flat Field, Telekon, Organization, More Specials, Kilmanjaro, The River, Dirty Mind (though I wouldn't know about that for a couple years), Making Movies, I Just Can't Stop It, The Black Album, Zenyatta Mondatta (confessions of a teenaged Police fan will have to wait). I remember hearing "I Will Follow" somewhere in the middle of all that. I kinda liked the song but it never made a big impact on me. I kept thinking that it sounded like Joy Division with a couple pots of coffee - all furious drums and bass with just enough guitar to glue it together but man did Bono's "YOUUURRRRRR EYYEEESSS" yelping bug me*. At the time I never would have believed that they would go on to be one of the biggest bands ever. Really? Those guys? You would have an easier time convincing me that Ride would huge on the sole basis of "Chelsea Girl." I never did get around to picking up Boy as the stereo I had so carefully pieced together from garage sale finds over the summer was sidelined* so U2 was, with apologies to Douglas Adams, "just this band you know."

I remember reading a Robert Hilburn column around then and... ah forget it, fuck him and fuck everything he's written as he's done more to make me a disillusioned U2 fan than U2 themselves.

*I was 15 years old - just old enough to demand authenticity from my rock stars. Mad scientist new wavers and punks were, of course, exempt.

**I had just put on side two of Who Are You when Jim D. barged into my dorm room and shouted "it's fucking 'Trick Of A Light' you have to crank it LOUD!" and maxed out the volume as far as it could go. The speakers didn't just blow out, they smoked - frying the speaker transducers to slag. Motherfucker just said "oops, sorry" and never offered to replace them. I just realized that I'm still sore about this.

I eventually liked "I Will Follow" but it'll have to wait until the next part.

Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono

^^ next-level trolling itt

its weird how stirring i found bono's bellowing on Pride (In the Name of Love) at one point, and how thoroughly that song bores me now - maybe its just radio overexposure

I think 'city of blinding lights' probably the best late-period U2 song

otherwise:
a man & a woman
beautiful day OK for the arpeggios
peace on earth, I like the melody
NEW YORK a big lost track
Miracle Drug
sometimes you can't make it? - maybe

I quite like the opening 2 cuts on NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
and maybe the best song on that is 'I'll go crazy if ...'

I bought that on double vinyl, if I played it now it might make me nostalgic for ... that heady, distant summer of ... 2009.

lol

@davidjriley98 Don't get me wrong, I like the band U2. and I give them more credit than Disturbed, since this is originally their Song, not saying their version or the band itself is bad, I just happen to like Disturbed's version a bit better.

RyanKenny59 9 hours ago

When U2 played in Glasgow a couple of years ago Bono stood on stage snapping his fingers and said, every time I snap my fangers astarving child somewhere in the world dies. Someone in the crowd shouted, Well stop snapping your fingers then you sick bastard.

alecahauf 1 month ago 14

:-D

That joke has appeared on every single internet comment thread about Bono since Live8 in 2005. It is to Bono threads what "dancing about architecture" is to threads about music criticism.

no... (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻ NO

have enjoyed reading this thread a lot

Will prob still go ahead and vote for last.fm most played tho.

U2 are dublin-irish, maybe middle-class irish, they're irish but they're afraid-to-milk-a-cow irish.

Would add Protestant to Dublin and middle-class (except maybe Larry?).

They don't wrap themselves in the flag nearly as much as these days - there's already somewhat of a backlash due to their tax-exile status so I think that may have some bearing on their reining it in. back in the 80s I remember them being held up as a source of national pride, I'm sure a lot of people still feel that way about them.

one aspect of their success that probably doesn't have much impact outside Ireland is the continuing influence of the coterie that came up with them. people like Gavin Friday, Guggi, and many of the Hot Press crew.

Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Thursday, August 4, 2011 2:09 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ next-level trolling itt

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.),

oh plz

oh man, that clique, hot press, just no.

Yeah, i think protestant is definitely in there too. None of it diminishes their irishness, just to be clear, but they're very much a specific type- i suppose that's true for anyone anywhere tbf.

FWIW i don't ever feel like they milked it or anything, yeah the tricolour but i mean cmon, yeah we wore them like a badge in the 80's but what else had we in the 80's, until ray houghton anyway. I was six when the joshua tree came out and i can still clearly recall how big a deal it was to have bonofied proper worldwide superstars back then. It's not like that's still not a novelty either.

Bono's always had his eye higher than winning over just ireland, so i don't think they ever really overdid that aspect.

The tax stuff, the fakery, the middle aged success merchants dressing badly and wooing the world, the desperation for currency (either way you like it tbh) and the cod-yet-not-cod religion- 100% irish, the boys done good.

lol well said DM, been waiting for your response since the question was posed tbh!

now if we can get sonofstan and localgarda to weigh in...

I've mentioned it before, but I found the most illuminating aspect of the Bill Flanagan book the financial stuff, the implication that U2 really didn't rake in the dough the way people thought they did. Hence the emergence of nu-U2, "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and beyond, where the band has been overtly aiming for hits and mega tours that fill the coffers several times over.

xp Pretty sure Bono is working-class - he certainly self-identifies as such. Not sure about Edge. Adam is disarmingly, unapologetically posh.

I voted for four "Rattle and Hum" tracks (all were in my top 12) -- I'm one of the only people on the board who defends that album so I figured I needed to back up my words. I also gave a high placing to "Numb", which I've always felt was their most underrated single.

i coudn't imagine bono is working-class tbh, but i mean in ireland there are so many social factors that rival or outright beat that for importance

Stoney Batter

His dad was a postal worker - not sure where postal workers fit into the Irish class system but middle-class sounds like a stretch.

i believe that was a full review of the chippy up by landsdowne rd

postal worker, pension, public sector

I think it might be a stretch, but a small one tbh.

not sure where postal workers fit into the Irish class system

Either second class or parcel post, depending on weight iirc.

The other thing you learn in that book is that, appearances aside, Bono is apparently very smart.

Bono has talked some nonsense on stage and all that, but he's clearly intelligent. His sheer eloquence reminds me of Seamus Heaney's. Both have done whole books made of interviews, and I daresay neither needed a lot of rewriting to smarten up the sentences. They are phenomenal characters in this respect.

Adam is disarmingly, unapologetically posh.

Favorite moment in the American-football "Stuck in a Moment" video is him reading the Irish Times sports section through the game.

that's not posh, that's knowing good sports writing

and say what you like in other regards about bono, i don't think his intelligence is much in question.

hey, i was only referring to his unfortunate styling when asked if he was "attractive". i totally believe that he's smart! that's a relief and a disappointment at the same time, really.

in ireland there are so many social factors that rival or outright beat (class) for importance

so otm. nonetheless, Bono's definitely middle-class imo.

not sure why Stoneybatter got a mention there? none of them are from around here iirc.

xp Eno was once asked about being seen as "the only intellectual in pop" and asked to name some others and he said "Bono, believe it or not." Bono loves having theories about things and some of them are nonsense but some of them are astute and you can always sense a sharp brain whirring away. He just has a bad filtering system and a fatal weakness for florid hyperbole.

^^^ the terrific thing about Bill Flanagan's book is how Flanagan collects enough of Bono's theories for the reader to judge how many of them are ridiculous.

U2 were my first real live Irish people whose names I knew. Before I listened to U2, I wasn't really sure what Ireland was like beyond the fact that it was very lush and green. I was a middle school kid in the Rust Belt and we had really only received formal instruction about one group of Europeans, The Explorers. Well, Explorers and Pilgrims. Maybe curriculum has changed since I was a kid, but we learned about the world in Geography class, not History class. The two intersected woefully rarely.

(I'm not proud of this or anything, just wanted to give some perspective re: Irishness from someone who knew literally nothing about Irishness before U2.)

Dunphy's UNFORGETTABLE FIRE says that Bono grew up in Stoney Batter.

oh right... i thought he was from Glasnevin

My mistake, I haven't read that book in over 2 decades:

he mentions Stoney Batter but says B's parents lived in Stillorgan then Ballymun, 'only a few minutes' drive from Stoneybatter'. I think he went to school in Glasnevin.

Bono grew up at 10 Cedarwood Road: Ballymun to the east, Glasnevin further south it appears.

'running to stand still' was supposed to be about a Ballymun estate I always thought.

It's all further out of Dublin than I imagined.

The father took early retirement and moved to Howth - funded by rock music I suppose.

anglo shares, cushy pension, sure they were all doing it matt

oh plz

Well it's true I refuse to bother with U2 post Passengers, but dude would have to have fallen off a lot. Taylor Swift outside a studio is like, anti-singing.

Hi all. I'd cleared the decks for a single-day countdown tomorrow but that's just been scuppered. Am now working tomorrow, at least the morning, so things will be slightly delayed. There was a bit of scepticism about the single-day thing anyway.

On the plus side we're now past 40 ballots, so how long / to count down these songs?

Still got 2 hours plus to vote no? Am on it.

Single-day countdowns are no fun. Spread it out a bit if you have time.