Classic or Dud: U2

Fez

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fes
is the fourth largest city in Morocco, after Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakech with a population of 946,815 (2004 census). It is the capital of the Fès-Boulemane Region.

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee305/azou7/TommyCooper-1.jpg

just like that

Just when I thought our cherished Martian comedy was gone for good, it's back. Incongruous painstaking revival of a U2 thread, with pasted information about North Africa? What next?

jesus this album sounds bad. trance blues....shudder.

tho haven't u2 always been influenced by trance?? or indeed influencing it? it's no coincidence that Paul Oakenfold used to play "Where The Streets Have No Name" or that that "Take Me To The Skies" above record used the bassline from "With Or Without You"

the new single gets premiered on alex zanes xfm show this monday apparently.

Once, when I was with my then girlfriend, U2 came on the radio, and I said

I loathe U2

and she said

You loathe me?

lol

There are bands I love more, but I don't think there's a band I love more that's hated more by people whose opinions I respect.

That said, it took me seeing them live after the last album (my first U2 concert) for me to become a full-on, high-school-era-level believer again.

(I.e. back when I wore a "U2 - Boy" t-shirt and my classmates would go "You, too, boy!")

So I humbly retract this review:

http://www.citypages.com/2005-01-05/music/sunday-boring-sunday/

I like people who are passionate about early U2. Cheers.

The U2 effect

http://www.boredrevolution.com/?p=34

Coldplay, however, released two beautiful records of everyday heartbreak and insecurities

No.

and they were both singles...

http://www.spotify.com/go/20090223-u2-excl-preview-guardian

Coldplay, however, released two beautiful records of everyday heartbreak and insecurities

Fixed!

recent sets: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/u2/2011/angel-stadium-anaheim-ca-63d31217.html
suggest Glastonbury is going to be amazing. they deserve it after so much bile's been aimed at them these last years. people randomly hating on U2's career just because Bono is up his own arse is just the worst criticism of music ever.

DL otm here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/19/u2-headline-glastonbury-debate

"Here's the world's most successful live band moving outside their comfort zone and needing to prove themselves to an audience that could go either way. However it goes down, that should be something to see."

i'm with DL as well.

wondering if this will give them a way to cut back on the excess of the recent glass spider tour, and declare a rediscovered love of back to basics gigs ..

[i mean, surely they are not bringing the spider contraption to G ? ]

i'm american, so glastonbury doesn't mean much to me, but DL OTM. few things more tiresome than knee-jerk U2 hate.

that said, i spent years hating them for the negativland "U2" business, so...

cant figure out the thread that the recent Achtung Bay docu has been given some love on, so dropping on this one.
tis fascinating to see the band so riddled with doubt during their rattle & hum era.
i would have thought by that stage they had their thing locked down.
and the fact they believed they believed that they didn't have enough material for a stadium (as opposed to arena) shows despite the fact they were several albums into their career.
other than that, its a great watch .. loved the section re the breakdown of bands ("bought out", "snuck out" etc)
so many good quotes ..

of course : bay = baby

October is by far the best Christian rock record ever made. In all seriousness, it's an incredibly overlooked record, both in their catalog and overall. (This was brought to light in a recent discussion with a self-professed "huge U2 fan" who had never even heard it.) The urgent, devastating, soaring guitar solo in "Tomorrow"? Edge's guitar work overall? Bono is his usual strident self, but there's a lot less chest-beating than on the overrated War, and the whole band is tighter, more singular, and more focused than on Boy. It's a strange and captivating record, and I wonder if any ILMers have visited it lately.

why do I have this thread bookmarked

HE'S WATCHING YOU, DAN.

http://www.john-lee-ministries.org/Bono-Macphisto.jpg

anyway OTM re: October

I think it's a terrific record. But it's their hardest to get a handle on - I think largely down to the flat-yet-echoey production, it's of-its-time in a way that the others aren't, because they all get scooped up into the U2 sound. So while I like it, I'm more likely to consider it in another context, like if I'm thinking about Echo & The Bunnymen rather than U2 (I almost never do this btw).

I don't know if this is why I also find it slightly impenetrable - I know that personally they were wrestling with Christianity, but whether (other than a couple of obvious examples) and how that feeds in lyrically I just don't know. Is it Christian Rock? Is Tomorrow? I'm wary of categorising it as such - for one thing, anything prior to Zooropa seems equally worthy of the term.

x-post

I don't think I'll ever fully understand the vitriol spewed at Bono by so many... I mean, I get it: he's pretty douchey, he's pretty self-righteous, fine. But the dude has an amazing voice, and he's not any more over-the-top than so, so, so many other famous vocalists, neither in personality nor in vocal style/presence. I guess I should say that, while I can comprehend the vitriol, I can't inhabit it. I just can't. But that's a blind spot I'm happy to have.

think of it this way; if Jane's Addiction had released a bazillion albums, Bono would have been supplanted by Perry Farrell a long time ago

x-post

Ismael, it somehow feels more Xtian to me than anything else by them, but I would never call it "Christian rock"... I mean, there's "Gloria", there's the chorus that goes "Je-RUUUUU-saaa-lem", there's "Rejoice"... I like the production quite a bit; there's a simplicity and dry-ness to it that you don't really hear on any of their other records. You can really hear the individual parts and hear the players interact. Edge's "gentle cascades of fireworks on the horizon" guitar shadings are more implied than so explicitly framed as on The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree. He sounds more like a very creative, very economical, very distinctive postpunk guitarist; the link between him and Steve Fellows of Comsat Angels is its most explicit on this record.

Best angle I have on the Bonophobia is that it's a mix of envy and embarrassment. Because when you're young Bono is the guy you want to be, then you grow all cynical and failed in various ways, but he's still that guy - so what else are you going to do but hate?

In breaking Bono news, my sister was passing the famous Bono Vox shop last week, and it's closed down. The sign's still up, but the windows have been boarded over. One of the less-heralded sad days for rock & roll.

I actually always wanted to be Edge when I was younger...

He's the first guitarist I remember registering as "a guitarist I really like"--this was at age, like, 10 or so. Discovering postpunk early in college blew my head right open because all of a sudden here were all of these guitarists who did cool economic angular things like Edge!

when you're young Bono is the guy you want to be

really?

Best angle I have on the Bonophobia is that it's a mix of envy and embarrassment. Because when you're young Bono is the guy you want to be, then you grow all cynical and failed in various ways, but he's still that guy - so what else are you going to do but hate?

lol what

I so adore psychoanalytic explanations for why we dislike rock star posturing.

I don't think I'll ever fully understand the vitriol spewed at Bono by so many...

admittedly this is recent, but I still offer it up as exhibit A:

HAHAHA! OH MY GOD BONO NOOOO SOMEONE MAKE HIM STOP OH THE HUMANITY

Bill Flanagan deserves a Nobel Prize for literature for making Bono a probing intellect in U2 At the End of the World, still one of the most intelligent tour biographies extant.

Well yeah, he should probably be drawn and quartered for that... I just get the impression that Bonohate among the cognoscenti has been around pretty much as long as the band itself, to the point where it's bascially institutionalized. Why so much hatred in the early days?

that was an x-post BTW

The only thing I remember about U2 At the end of the world was this picture and caption:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_u-zEPWVQP0E/S0Nf1g5Cs6I/AAAAAAAAD9I/3iaDjwEIhm8/s800/lm1.jpg

Larry Mullen, toughest guy in the band

And a chapter about Bono's nautical kleptomania that was too awesome to be true

and swimming nude on Bondi Beach with a waitress they shanghaied.

mullen is such a beaver, damn

I'm mulling that one over

Why so much hatred in the early days?

I don't remember any Bono hatred at all in the early (pre-Joshua Tree) days, apart from the stray "Boy, that singer's crazy, climbing up the scaffolding!"-type comment.

Holy crap does it bother me when people inexplicably invoke the "U2 was being ironic" line when it comes to talking about "Achtung Baby" and "Zooropa," two of their most heartfelt and honest albums, imo. Like, who listens to "Achtung Baby" and just thinks such a dark record is actually the band being silly, ironic and goofing around?

http://www.avclub.com/article/foo-fighters-taylor-hawkins-why-he-hates-u2s-disco-204670

Seriously, what album was he listening to? I can imagine hearing "Discotheque" and hating it, and yeah, that song is one of the few examples of U2 actually being ironic/silly, but even "Pop" is a pretty dark record. But I totally don't get people who shrug at "Achtung" as some sort of digressive lark.

"I know! Let's ask the Foo Fighters drummer why he hates U2."