defend the indefensible: RATTLE AND HUM by U2

i guess if you stripped it down to just "desire", "angel of harlem", "heartland" and "all i want is you" then you have an ok EP

I'd drop "Heartland" but yeah pretty much - it would've been a pretty nice EP in a lot of ways. I like B.B. King on "Love Comes to Town," it's a nice guest shot, but you're better off hearing his own records.

FWIW, I revisited Robbie Robertson recently, which was fucking awful - I take back every defense I had for it. A lot of it was overwrought, but then you had two tracks (with Peter Gabriel's involvement) that felt like Roberston wanted to make So and two more (with U2) that sound like the blueprint for Rattle & Hum. I'm all for artists trying something different, but just as U2's Americana was mostly dubious, so was Robertson doing the reverse, and hearing the two ambitions intersect was wretched.

Rick Danko does backing vocals on one song on that record that couldn't sound more pasted in. I have loved "Showdown at Big Sky" since the first time I heard it though.

"Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is one of the most vacuously expensive indulgences recorded by a great songwriter.

i was feeling like a stranger in a strange land
you know, where people play games with the night

Hearing anything with Sammy BoDean at this point is pretty much a cringe.

That said, I think "Broken Arrow" is a heck of a song. I'd like to hear it more stripped down like with a Chris Whitley like feel with the tune played on a dobro. (HEY BILLY STRINGS - COVER THIS ONE...)

I kinda think the old hipster spoken stuff works better on 'Underworld of Redboy'. I really like that one.

I went into see this movie and it was like an 11pm showing packed to the gills and came out kinda thinking U2 was definitely not as cool anymore. WTF...

"Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is one of the most vacuously expensive indulgences recorded by a great songwriter.

There's a quote about it by Robertson or Lanois about it that's been published ad nauseam, describing how Robertson has all these great stories and they thought, why not just record one of them and put some music to it? I was almost expecting something like Loretta Lynn's recitation on "Little Red Shoes" and how Jack White built a track around it, but instead we get this shitty fake story-song that's self-consciously delivered by Robertson - it's not telling a story but blatantly acting like a narrator written into an unconvincing script. You'd think it was ad copy made up for a shitty liquor commercial.

That said, I think "Broken Arrow" is a heck of a song. I'd like to hear it more stripped down like with a Chris Whitley like feel with the tune played on a dobro. (HEY BILLY STRINGS - COVER THIS ONE...)

With Gabriel programming the keyboards and drum patterns to what's already a spacious, stripped down production, it should've been a Gabriel track - sort of like "In Your Eyes" if it was done more like "Don't Give Up." It's very easy to picture Gabriel singing it than Robertson and doing a much better job of it.

Also re: "Love Comes to Town," it would've been much better if they got someone like Bettye LaVette to sing it with King than Bono.

* There's a quote about it by Robertson or Lanois that's been published ad nauseam

This album would have been fine if it was released as a sort of odds-n-sodds stopgap, minus all the hoopla. That said, iirc I bought a poster in the theatre lobby after I saw the movie.

BTW, yesterday I came across this Chilean U2 tribute band that absolutely kills it. Their Bono es muy bueno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemonU2trib

Weird, that was just a link to their youtube home page. Anyway, here's a song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4KKCx3CAC0

never not funny to me that neil tennant's off-the-cuff review manages to be absolutely wrong in almost every detail -- in what conceivable way is R&H "like 1969 again"? -- but overall absolutely correct (rattle and hum is bad not good and PSB were right to be against it)

I think the context's important, namely the Wilburyizing of the pop charts on both sides of the Atlantic, though you people had acid house on the chart.

"Somewhere Down the Crazy River" provided grist for Robertson impersonations between me and my friends for years, though... "Man, this is sure stirring up some ghosts for me".
I think the song was a dry run for the semi-autobiographical screenplay that a Rolling Stone article said he had written at this time.

"You know, I'm going to go down to Burger King to get a Whopper and see if the cashier can read my mind... She said your coupon is not valid anymore."