U2 - Songs of Innocence POLL

i had a long break between my effort to finish the complete U2 album poll threads.

correctly clowned for its release, but unlike the followup it winds up a solid, fairly middle-of-the-pack U2 album with no major classic anthem but also no 'get on your boots'. 'joey ramone' is not a great opener or first single, but the rest of the LP is a good one. its legacy is forever ruined by the initial rollout of course, and i can't argue against that.

"fun" fact: three parenthetically titled songs, they'd only done four of those up to this point.

Songs of Innocence appeared on critics' end-of-year rankings of the best albums of 2014. Rolling Stone ranked it as the best album of 2014, calling it "the emotionally raw rock album of the year, at any price", while suggesting that "In its range of sounds, there may be no more complete U2 album."[149] The selection proved controversial; according to a 2017 biography on Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner entitled Sticky Fingers, Wenner allegedly dictated the ranking due to his friendship with Bono, saying: "My dictate. By fiat, buddy. That's that."

"Every Breaking Wave" easy. I wish it had been No Line on the Horizon - it would've done more good there, replacing awful shit like "Get On Your Boots." They did preview it on that tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HwoCTlMeWc

the last few songs are the strongest (aside from EBW), more in that subtle lower key style which is their sweet spot these days for the most part. the songs would have benefited from a lighter production touch, as it is (and this is even more an issue on the followup) they sound overworked and compressed.

i'd probably vote EBW as well, though 'the troubles' (w/lykke li) and 'this is where you can reach me now' are both strong and less overproduced.

The first U2 album I'm not bothered about (I'm not too hot on R&H either but the highs are very high). Some nice songs though, like Volcano and especially Sleep Like a Baby Tonight, latter of which would fit nicely onto NLOTH (which I mostly like).

I've never had iTunes so the controversy meant little to me, though it's interesting to mention U2 to some people and something that happened about 35 years into their discography (on the other side of their lengthy run of hits) is one of the first things they mention.

Even for a less polarizing band than U2, that roll out of putting it into every iTunes app wouldn't be a good idea regardless. IIRC there was also the issue of further devaluing music, which I thought was a valid point and more damaging.

I don’t understand why they didn’t simply offer it as a free album download to iPhone users vs it being immediately added to the phones. Not that the album would have necessarily been more successful but certainly that move wouldn’t have had much if any backlash. But they rarely make the best decision as far as strategy or understanding their own legacy. They overthink both.

At the same time I think that the vitriol accompanying the move was a solid 80% due to the fact that it was U2. Not that it wasn’t an astonishingly tone-deaf idea.

A lot of it was definitely because it was U2 - I remember my social media feeds being mostly "I don't want f-ing U2 on my phone" etc.

On the other hand, it arguably would've been the same for a lot of artists, possibly any artist. Every band is going to have people who don't want their records even if you gave it to them for free.

Yeah I mean if for example foo fighters showed up on my phone I’d throw it away probably.

No, you have to thoroughly incinerate the phone so as to ensure the data can never be revived.

nuke it from orbit, iirc

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I controlled 50% of the vote, wheeeeee

I kinda remember a couple tracks from the following album but I can't remember a damn thing about this album despite listening to it twice, hence no vote

"delete from library" would've seen numbers

iirc, not actually a function at the time of release

Didn't they have to create some kind of update to the app in order to permanently erase it (rather than just hide it or save it under "purchased music")?

Anyway, I have a vague recollection that when iTunes first launched, it came pre-loaded with a sampler of music from various artists. ("Monday" by Wilco and "Busload of Faith" by Lou Reed.) It was easy to cleanly delete anything - would've been more sensible and less controversial to release U2's album that way, but I guess at the time, digital music was mainly mp3 files on your drive, not anything cloud-based, and with Apple's habit of torching their bridges to old technology, saving it in everyone's cloud space was the only thing they ever considered.

I forgot to vote in this but I guess I would’ve thrown a vote to “this is where you can reach me now”

Actually would vigorously defend this album as a solid listening experience and maybe over time its rep in their discography will settle in comfortably into the upper part of the lower tier but again can’t defend that shockingly awful release plan.

Straight into the Top 10 of least popular polls ever!

"delete from library" would've seen numbers

― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, December 29, 2022 10:35 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think I listened to this maybe … twice before deleting it from my phone, and remember nothing about the experience except shrugging.

Straight into the Top 10 of least popular polls ever!

This cannot be definitively answered without another poll. POLLception.

Never understood why 3 songs (use parentheses)

Not a good song, but they should've at least dropped it from "The Miracle of Joey Ramone." If it's going to be a tribute to Joey, even if it's a cheesy one, own it and be firm about it, not like "THE MIRACLE.....of joey ramone..."

I've gone back to this CD. Mixed, but not a very good balance.

First track somehow about Joey Ramone: very poor, surely the worst U2 opening track ever to that point.

Every Breaking Wave: actually OK, sort of subtle and moody backing, melodic movement, some OK words. I like how Bono refers to what 'every dog on the street knows', a phrase I have only ever encountered from Irish people.

California: very workaday rush which seems to aim for raw production but ends on a note of bathos with most of the instruments already finished.

Song for Someone: better, but let down by the fact that 'there is a light / don't let it go out' suggests an image that already has such resonance in pop history, so this seems derivative at best.

Iris: comes closest (on the LP?) to actually doing something great. The swirl of high vocal at the start, the mysterious flavour, is a little like good moments on OCTOBER, say, and times when The Edge mysteriously seemed to be tapping an Irish tone. His fast rhythm guitar on the 'hold me close' breakdown works well. So does the move to the minor chord in the chorus. The late section on 'Iris playing on the Strand' etc is a good buildup of pace. On the other hand, the bridge section about 'something in your eyes' is so musically banal it wrecks the movement of the song, and the late 'free yourself to be yourself' is also a bad coda. Yet I'm not sure that the LP gets better than the best points of this track.