Classic or Dud: U2

The more you ignore them, the more annoying they get

It should be noted that they are practically at the Bridges To Babylon point in their career.

with BTB the better album

Well, yeah.

You'll never unmake a saint of Bono...

over 20, have never liked U2 - basically because I thought the music was boring. In the 80s, I found them overbearing and WAY TOO MUCH on the radio. After that, I found them one of those brands you simply have no feeling for because, hey, it's a brand. I actually did think it was interesting when they started embracing dance music/electronics, but more in a conceptual way than actually enjoying most of what they did.

Anyway, I won't have to deal with this until I get a new laptop, but I think more disturbing than the fact iTunes would work with U2 like this (which really isn't that surprising, unless the files' undeletability is true), is the 5-star review. I don't read RS, and haven't in a while, but imo that kind of endorsement smacks of a fairly obvious promotional tie-in. Do you believe these people (RS) think they're doing good work, or are they resigned to know all of this is part of the business as a whole, justifying it by saying they are speaking to/for their audience? The remark above about wanting to believe someone really loves music that much -- yeah people actually do love music that much, but considering the reaction from most of the world apart from David Fricke and RS, it's hardly cynical to see something like that as part of a marketing plan.

how do people get themselves into situations where they are plagued by marketing campaigns?

Those still holding regular reviewing gigs.

sounds horrible

This isn't in my iTunes or iPhone yet, what gives?

I'm sorry, I haven't really been paying attention and am now skimming. Is this true? Surely not...

have you tried deleting it?

― john wahey (NickB)

You can't.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

yeah afaict the best you can do is hide it

https://twitter.com/AndyRichter/status/509701981053927424

no 'soused,' that's for sure. albini should have 'recorded' this

http://touch.dangerousminds.net/all/just_say_bo_no_mark_hosler_of_negativland_on_apples_u2rusion#1

nice, I just saw Negativland a couple of weeks ago and was wondering what their take on this was

http://itunes.com/soi-remove

http://i.imgur.com/1rpF20H.png

more like poo poo

It should be noted that they are practically at the Bridges To Babylon point in their career.

― You and Dad's Army? (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, September 11, 2014 3:15 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In purely chronological terms, they're pretty much exactly at that point.

Bono's as old as Mick was when Bridges to Babylon came out.

he's aging better.

Would love to see U2 enter a neon "Let's Work" period.

Fricke's review is the beginning of U2's Doodoo Lounge period:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/doodoo-lounge/Content?oid=885084

as this state of affairs continues, reviewers will be forced to make finer and finer distinctions to keep describing records as better than the last one but not as good as Some Girls. Mathematically, this recurring loop can be demonstrated thusly, where Some Girls is given a value of 1, its successor, Emotional Rescue, is arbitrarily assigned half that value, and each succeeding album is assigned half the value of its predecessor plus the total of all the fractions before it:

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 .

While this progression is theoretically infinite, it may eventually strain the bounds of human journalism. It's possible reviewers will eventually agree that some future Stones album is better than Some Girls, and then compare it to the previous watershed, probably Exile on Main St. (As the quotations below demonstrate, this process may have already begun.) Exile will hold for a while, and then even earlier benchmarks (Beggar's Banquet, Aftermath) will be cited and then breeched. Finally, inevitably, England's Newest Hit Makers, the Stones' U.S. debut, will rise and ultimately fall in the face of their extraordinary continuing artistic growth. All of which can only mean one thing: the band's best work is ahead of them.

I feel like Eno should devise a series of Oblique Strategies exclusively for U2:

235. "Losing Your Edge"
14. Record in a room filled with money. Then record the sound of just the money. Then delete that recording and burn the money. Then record that.
72. Replace Larry with a machine. Then replace Adam and the Edge with a machine, too. Then replace Bono with a machine, but bring back the real Larry, Edge and Adam.
875. Cut your hair like Macklemore.
65. Wrap it in foil, stick it in the microwave, see what happens.
8777. Record an album in a week.

I feel like we can replace Eno with an Oblique Strategy.

Not really bothered about reading his U2 review or even listening to the album, but I'm just wondering... does David Fricke still have that haircut that makes his head look like the shape of the helmet of a penis?

Would be funny if one of the rhythm section decided to do a Bill Berry at this point. Maybe funnier if they actually carried on

Xpost at least as of a Robyn Hitchcock concert in manhattan a few years back, yes he does still have that haircut

Fricke looks like a cross between Johnny Ramone and Skeletor.

http://www.programmingthenation.com/production_stills/David_Fricke.jpg
"Five stars. You're welcome."

(To be fair, he always seems like a nice guy, and he's one of the few older critics who still goes out to shows all the time.)

Greates Marky Ramone tribute act ever

I dunno. Could also read that as the Greatest Tom Scholz tribute act ever.

Would be funny if one of the rhythm section decided to do a Bill Berry at this point. Maybe funnier if they actually carried on

― Master of Treacle, Tuesday, September 16, 2014 12:25 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think U2 could quite comfortably carry on if Adam Clayton left. Maybe less so if Larry Mullen left.

I think at this point they could carry on if they all left.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, HoloBono and the U2s!"

We are all U2, that is why they are called U2.

this is not "No Line on the Horizon" by U2

Indeed!

Anyway, I won't have to deal with this until I get a new laptop
― Dominique, Thursday, September 11, 2014 5:46 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^i really love this, the new U2 album as something you're gonna have to man up and face someday, like death and taxes

I thought I'd lost my mind during the 'ba ba barbara, santa barbara' part

does this album sound weird, or do iTunes files just sound bad?

so when I download the latest version of itunes this is gonna be in my library?

if you download it before Oct 13, yeah. I think so.

dud

ughhh it's on my ipod touch

Nelson Muntz should have been on the cover of this album, basically

You can miss it if you have automatic downloads turned off in iTunes, I think.

yeah I don't have that turned on (why would I want anything automatically from iTunes)

oh wait, there is a little cloud icon with an arrow, so i think it's in my library but i have to download it to get it? anyways this is so fucking stupid