defend the indefensible: RATTLE AND HUM by U2

it's a much more pleasant listen without the hectoring, i think the closest any tune gets to it is god pt 2.

This album is like listening to Joe Lieberman speak.

look Vision the problem is accusing everyone of being conformist mouthbreathers does not advance debate - it cuts it off. Rather than presenting an opposing viewpoint and encouraging a deeper engagement with the material in question, it merely impugns the motives of those who disagree with you. People here have listed a number of things they dislike about this album, cited specific problems, etc. You can either attempt to expose those arguments as being innacurate or wrong or misguided or what have you, or you can spell out why you think the album is actually good - but just saying "waaah you guys are all ganging up on it for no reason I'm taking my ball and going home" is childish.

Personally fwiw I haven't listened to this album in 20 years and have no real inclination to refresh my memory - what I do remember of it is prety cringeworthy. jeezus the album cover alone.

I like "Hawkmoon 269" (wtf the title though) and "Heartland" just fine, and in the right mood "All I Want Is You". The record was a heartbreaking disappointment to me at the time, but that's probably for the best, otherwise I'd have been a thirteen-year-old listening to Melissa Etheridge and T-Bone Burnett records.

yeah I never noticed the Moorcock ref before - don't remember the song at all!

Neil Tennant's tetchy, impromptu review still the best:

Rock critics liked RAH because they want a return to the traditional rock values. What they basically want is for it to be like 1969 again. It's this thing where British -- or in U2's case Irish -- groups discover the roots of American music. U2 have discovered this and they're just doing pastiches (his voice rises) and it's reviewed as a serious thing because `Dylan plays organ' on some song and B.B. King plays on some throwaway pop song `When Love Comes To Town' that could have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It could be in `Starlight Express' if you ask me.

The fact is that the PSB stand against all of this, so it's quite right that people like that should slag us off. Because we hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's stultifying, it says nothing, it is big and pompous and ugly. We hate it for exactly the same reasons Johnny Rotten said he hated dinosaur groups in 1976.

Neil Tennant is big and pompous and ugly.

haha you know I don't own a single PSB release but I love Neil Tennant and always dug their singles and that review is hilarious

omar little and small cat, those four sources above are, at the very least, as valid as this one.

http://darklondon.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/wisdom.jpg

ps Vision WAHT CAMILE THNIK OF RATTLS N HUN?

i say this as one of ilx's few other u2 apologists btw

There's nothing wrong with being retro. "Rattle & Hum" failed because the songs were generally too bluesy and not diatonic enough.

Recently I realized I didn't have "Heartland" on my iPod and dug it up and put it on there. I found out it wasn't really as good as I remembered.

really like the singles on this. rest of album mostly bleh. bb king song is lame. "ok edge, play the blues" is still funny 20 years later.

FWIW, I really like U2 a lot; just not this album.

it says nothing

i thought pop folk are cool with that
funny also that he rips U2 as being pompous as tennant comes across as being super pompous in any interview i've ever read
this album does stink tho

i wrote a mocking review of the movie for my college paper and got a phone call from an angry kid who informed me that his dorm wall was covered -- covered! -- with u2 posters and i didn't know what i was talking about.

So what else did Mr. Flowers have to say.

Wow, back it up a few years, Tipsy Mothra, and it would have been ME arguing about U2 with a bunch of posters of them on my wall!...only...U2 would not have yet made such a shitty movie as this one...so um...

Right...early b-sides anyone?

really like the singles on this. rest of album mostly bleh. bb king song is lame. "ok edge, play the blues" is still funny 20 years later.

"When Love Comes To Town" was a single......

And I don't like the singles at all. Some of the non-singles were OK - "Van Diemen's Land" was great. But mostly too American and too bluesy. U2's worst album!

Agreed. Sadly, also the first proper album on CD I ever owned.

this album sucks! i kinda like it.

on the other hand, Joshua Tree is pretty awesome, and i kinda hate it!

I still love this record, or both these records, as it's a double LP.

And Neil Tennant is still an ugly, pompous, droning whiner. Most of his records are not nice to listen to. When they come on last.fm from someone else's library I have to shuffle it on. I will take no lessons from him.

Neil Tennant is still an ugly, pompous, droning whiner

OMG this is so OTM it's scary.

The Pinefox is miffed.

allmusic is exceptionally generous in their star ratings, christgau is notoriously rong much of the time, rolling stone lol, amazon lol

i say this as one of ilx's few u2 apologists btw

I'm in agreement here. I love a good bit of U2's catalog, pretty much everything from Boy to Pop... but this is not good at all. Their only big misstep before the last decade or so.

"When Love Comes To Town" was a single......

ok well the other singles. i like "desire," "angel of harlem" and "all i want is you."

And Neil Tennant is still an ugly, pompous, droning whiner. Most of his records are not nice to listen to.

The Pinefox is usually OTM but not in this case. I mean, I don't buy Neil Tennant's attack on U2 and what U2 used to stand for, or his entire pathetic "anti rockist" stance for that matter. But the guy has made a lot of really, really great music. Particularly after he struggled to dominate the charts, but got better than before at irony.

Hmmm.. I said I dislike all the singles there, which is not entirely true. "All I Want Is You" may be the greatest song on the entire album. "Desire", "Angel Of Harlem" and, most of all, "When Love Comes To Town" leave me very cold though.

XP to Ilxor: It was "Pop" that was their last misstep yet. The two albums after "Pop" have both been great. Particularly the first of the two.

i can take or leave the PSB and neil tennant, but his review of rattle and hum is pretty OTM esp. given what i remember was the mindset of some rock stars/critics circa 1988. in a way, rattle and hum is sort of the tales of topographic oceans of the 80s -- in the hubris of the creators of said records in making the damn things in the first place, that the creators themselves ended up none-too-pleased with the results, and that while the records themselves are FAR from the best things that the bands ever created there are still some good moments on both.

what i mean is, that neil tennant is skewering the attitudes of certain late 80s rock stars/critics in his criticism of rattle and hum -- and is on target as far as that goes.

wow! Geir is surprisingly otm regarding the album's singles. go go Geir Hongro!

Geir, you're crazy, Pop was great if a bit inconsistent. The next album was the first time U2 took a step back and retraced their previous sound, instead of doing something new within their style.

Then again, you don't care for Purple Rain, either, so I don't know why I'm even trying to argue my point here.

I think the best thing on POP might be 'Mofo'.

Is there a thread about POP, the U2 LP?

Doing something new is rarely a good thing. Plus U2's two 00s albums are different from their 80s in that they rely less on Bono's voice and The Edge's guitar playing and more on melodies and anthemic singalong choruses. The U2 of the 80s were never even remotely as melodically strong as they were on those albums. The influence from Britpop had a huge positive influence on U2 in that it taught them to rely more on writing strong tunes and less on the backing track and performance.

Then again, you don't care for Purple Rain, either

Not the song, no, but the album is ace.

And "Mofo" was the worst track on "Pop" and the best example of what was wrong about that album.

Doing something new is rarely a good thing.

As The Beatles demonstrated all through their career.

I'll agree that "Mofo" was the worst song on Pop, no contest there. But "Elevation" is much, much worse.

Doing something new is rarely a good thing.

I'll take doing something new and failing over treading water on the same sound almost every time. What U2 were doing in the '90s was infinitely more interesting than their '00s work. And I won't deny there are a few strong songs on their last two albums, but there is no exploration to be had, no risks to be taken, no height from which to fall. The songs may be structurally well written and catchy, but they reveal themselves almost entirely on the first listen and are not interesting beyond that in the least.

The best songs on Pop, for the record, are clearly "Do You Feel Loved," "Staring at the Sun" and "Please," all fucking great and among my favorite U2 songs, especially the latter two.

The Beatles were great not because they were doing new stuff but because they had the best melodies this side of Mozart.

I'll agree that "Mofo" was the worst best song on Pop

I want to see Geir and Vision talk at each other here.

I guess doing something new is maybe good if you're already doing something bad, and bad if you're already doing something good.

I don't think Britpop had any influence on U2.

Doing something new is good if you're doing something good already, but can do something new better.

I guess doing something new is maybe good if you're already doing something bad, and bad if you're already doing something good.

OTM

I don't think Britpop had any influence on U2.

Bono said himself in interviews around "Pop" that Britpop was an influence. Obviously it didn't influence tracks such as "Discoteque" or "Mofo" much, but the Britpop influence shines through in tracks such as "Staring At The Sun" and "If God Will Send His Angels" (the good songs on "Pop" that is)

hay guyz i took out all the live tracks and other shit and added in a b-side and reordered it. side 1 is more "country" or whatever, side 2 is the more rock stuff. no bono speechifying histrionics.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yj2tmiwzamx