Classic or Dud: U2

The drummer from Shed Seven isn't in agreement

Yes @U2's Bono is a top cunt, but fuck me, if you can't use the word "Girly" anymore to describe something as a bit sissy. In the name of.....

— Alan Leach Shed7 (@AlanShed) December 28, 2017

BONO PLEASE JUST GO THE FUCK AWAY

The most generous interpretation of the hip-hop line: "that's not good" meaning that hip-hop shouldn't be the only genre through which young men express anger. But I'm not feeling generous, and fuck Bono for "girly."

Is this the same Shed Seven drummer who said girls couldn't be drummers in the 90s?

It's also remarkably immature to be in your fifties and still be obsessed with expressing anger

The same Alan Leach who declared in one of the weeklies that ALL female drummers were inferior to him

Xp lol sorry

Boner, Stink, please just go retire together in Tampa

I think it's the same Alan Leach who claimed the band name stemmed from his losing his virginity to his own dad in a shed, aged 7

Good band, lots of good songs

Shed Seven is terrible

Better than U2 though, and I've never heard them.

I don't know what's so special about electrified guitars. If you're a male with male rage, playing drums is a much better outlet anyway.

buddy rich was pretty angry

of all the ways to describe the edges guitar, angry sounding is not one of them.

"Who moved the feckin' stage?"

http://tonedeaf.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/theedge.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91Va9naBeBL.jpg

Dud

what are the odds of the next U2 album being the best of their entire career

In the “sure, it’s a giant steaming turd, but look - there’s a flower growing out of one of the coils!” sense, sure, it could happen.

(What I’m saying here is that U2 are a bad band and all their albums are bad, but sure, the next one could be 1% less terrible than all its predecessors, why not?)

More like Ew2

U2 were a great band and let's face it, you're all massively jealous of Bono and the band in general.

https://m.popkey.co/431c39/ZmM5G.gif

But y'know, don't quit looking for reasons to get offended guys.

There are 3 or 4 U2 albums I regularly play and love in their entirety, so I can't dismiss the group. Likewise, I think Bono can come off a real tool but I also think he can be smart and funny. Even so, I don't expect this band to record anything I want to listen to ever again. I blame the Edge, who I am convinced decades down the line still doesn't know how to play guitar, which is pretty limiting for a guitarist. But as I've always said, if I formed a U2 cover band, the Edge would still be my first pick.

well i mean Edge can definitely play guitar but it's weird to me how they have consistently kicked off their recent string of albums with singles where they're trying to use him as a blunt, choppy instrument instead of the more recognizable sound of peak U2. i think within that sound he can do a lot, like I'd include The Fly or Breathe or Moment of Surrender in that. but not so much Get On Your Boots, American Soul, The Blackout, The Miracle of Joey Ramone, etc...

I don't think he can play guitar, though he can do cool things with guitars. And he does those things well, so he doesn't need to play guitar well. That It Might Get Loud doc settled it for me.

of all the tired zings about U2, edge can’t play is the most tired. one of the most influential players of his generation (hi dere worship players) but yeah, sure, he can’t play. good thing there are a million bar band guys who can hold down the blooz wank while we wait for guitar jesus.

Me I am somewhere in between Josh and omar. Like anyone of my age and class and temperament I have a long history of listening to these lads. I still like some songs. "Pride," "One." A few more if I cared enough to think about it but I don't.

Edge shouldn't be judged as a guitarist vs. other guitarists, because he has never had to play guitar like anyone but himself. Which is an admirable position to be in. I will fully confess that I envy him. In various documentaries (as Josh notes) he gives a lot of information about his method, which I think is interesting. More an architect of soundscapes than a shredder or technician, blah blah blah.

I've said this elsewhere but will say again: at their best they are a pretty good rock band, but to think about them as a rock band you have to ignore so much music-adjacent bullshit that it becomes a very difficult mental exercise. I mean, what do we talk about when we talk about U2? Can we ignore mullets? Checkered pants? The World Bank? It's possible, but difficult.

i can agree to an extent and refer to something he himself said once along the lines of him being more a technician than a musician, but i think at its peak his sound (if not his ability) has been more compelling than most major superstar guitar players.

I am not doubting his influence at all! I like his playing, he's a cool guitarist with a lot of good ideas, and that's all you need, not technical prowess or anything. Like, he knows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOhWSGbhxAo

He's the absolutely right guitarist for U2. But I do think he's pretty limited and limiting.

i think him being a player who has experimented w/his sound to overcome his occasionally self admitted limitations has made him vv interesting and he was either crafty or lucky or both to hit upon a sound early on that really worked.

I totally agree. It's key that he has never had to be anyone but himself. But I was just saying that the incentive to change when you're in such an enviable position is low. Change the Edge, you totally change U2.

The other argument of course is that simple works, which is one reason he's still playing stadiums and Andy Summers, John McGeoch, Will Sergeant or Stuart Adamson (RIP) aren't.

Or, you know, Michael Brook or even Daniel Lanois or any of the other guitarists who influenced him or who work in a similar sonic realm.

like marv levy used to say, it’s simple but it ain’t easy. really nail the riff from “Bad” and get back to me.

complexity isn’t why andy summers stopped filling stadiums lol. I agree we’d be all be better off if more players listened to daniel lanois.

Right!

And that clip JiC linked (where he plays the same thing clean) is EXACTLY what I think of when I think of him nowadays.

I will never call myself a U2 fanboi. But would still vastly rather see them than yr Bonnamasturbatur/Satriwanki/Malmsteen thingy or Phish/Rush/Yes/Tool/whatever.

And though I am not a global superstar (and never will be) I follow more of an Edgian ethos in my own music. Play exactly like yourself, and put yourself in situations where that makes sense.

For sure, doing even the simplest stuff he does while running around on stage in a stadium I imagine is really hard! Edge is the best Edge we will ever get.

I want to say achtung baby and zooropa was the last time he did anything that caught my attention. A song like Until the End of the World, he's moving around a lot more than usual, even has a guitar solo!

Ok. I think there's at least an equally interesting debate about whether Adam Clayton can play bass or not.

Consensus in my youth was that Adam could not, in fact, play bass particularly well.

Consensus in their mid-career period was, who cares?

I don't know the current consensus. Still stuck on "don't care."

my relationship with U2 ends abruptly around Zooropa/Passengers so it’s possible my perspective is tainted.

I think adam is okay - he doesn’t have jazz chops or anything but you can catch him bringing something to the song.

as an aside, it’s probably a different thread really but I can’t understand bonamassa at all. he’s like a walking museum of ancient licks and he will influence no one.

rogermexico, as an aside, there are actually two good bonamassa threads

thread for discussion of guitarists i have only heard of because i read guitar magazines in the late 90s

OFFICAL ILX JOE BONAMASSA CELEBRATION THREAD

Adam iirc couldn't even play bass when he joined up, they just thought he was a cool-looking dude and he happened to have a bass or something. i could be misremembering my U2 history. he's good, i think. he's had a lot of good bass lines in his career, memorable ones.

Larry is probably the best musician in the bunch.

Bono has been both great and terrible in terms of both singing and lyrics.

Larry is p much unimpeachable, agreed

thanking u mad puffin

For sure, doing even the simplest stuff he does while running around on stage in a stadium I imagine is really hard!

I prefer when he falls off stages in stadium, tbh, if only he'd do more of that I've have more respect for him. Seriously though I think he's always been the only interesting musician in U2 and still is.

my challenging opinion is that, in any creative field, if you don't think you're at least hypothetically capable of producing your very best work in the near future, you should just stop.

I'm sure they think they are but hasn't the Edge got some ridiculous clifftop mansion to maintain?

...And my counterchallop is that as long as someone wants to hear what you're doing now and where you're going next, you may as well continue exploring/experimenting.

No, most people don't go to see the Rolling Stones with a burning desire to hear them say "here's one from our new album."

But on the other hand, making Tom Rush or Bob Dylan slog around with the same ten songs they wrote when they were 20 seems cruel in a different way.

Oh right, he hasn't built it yet - well, as of May 2016 that is, an update would be appreciated...

http://static.latimes.com/the-edge/