yeah mine is this is where you can reach me now but country mile is amazing all things considered im pretty optimistic about the new one. ive made peace with a lot of their later output that used to give me ire but something about the way they talk about themselves now encourages me as far as a recalibrated creative mindset. idfk what itll sound like though lol
Listening to All That You Can’t Leave Behind for the first time in awhile. This fucking thing sounds like it was recorded yesterday, goddamn. Probably my favorite U2 record gun to head
Has become weirdly underrated over the years, but I still really love that album. I feel like where they went after that album kind of diminished how effective of a comeback album it was in the moment.
Yeah if they’d broken up after it came out I think it would be (rightly) viewed as a career highlight Instead we get the iTunes jokes of various flavors
And like, I really like the other late-career stuff too, but that album is such a perfect distillation of the "we want to be the biggest band in the world again" ethos. I remember when everyone was clamoring for Arcade Fire to have a similar moment (before they got cancelled) and they just couldn't muster it, at all. A much more challenging feat than U2 got credit for.
I really wish I liked that album more but it does not beat the "safest record we could possibly make" allegations for me. the second half is probably one of the roughest stretches of any U2 album too
yeah tbt, atyclb is my singular least fav u2. i like it more than i used to at least, but i don't think it embodies the better parts of that ethos haha, just kinda feels as sanded down to the middle as it could be an album centered around levitate / stateless / ground would have been the money though
yeah would've loved to hear the beats and loops focused version of it that apparently existed before Iovine talked them into AOR rock instead. if Levitate is any indication might’ve been some of their best. it really sucks that this band are terminal overthinkers nowadays
Call me crazy, but I like when bands that are really good at writing pop songs write really good pop songs. At that point in their career, it had been 13 years since they'd made a straight-ahead stadium rock record. I think the impact of the return-to-form of ATYCLB is dampened somewhat by the fact that they never really experimented again, but it was a necessary calibration at the time, IMO. I like those post-Achtung '90s records, but they're not my favorite mode of U2 by any stretch of the imagination, and that was clearly a feeling shared by the general populace.
ATYCLB was the first CD/ album I ever bought when I was 10 or 11 so it holds a very special place to me. I can understand not loving the back half but that first half is so stacked it rivals side A of Joshua Tree. In a Little While, Look at the World and Ground are also great. Ground is easily one of my favorite U2 songs
Similar to side B of The Joshua Tree, the back half of All That You Can't Leave Behind has really grown on me over time. "New York" is the only one I'm a little meh on, and that's mostly because the lyrics are kind of dumb. Still a cool musical idea. I think I love "Peace on Earth" more than any other U2 fan I've ever encountered. An honorary Christmas song for me.
Same re: Peace on Earth! Tho admittedly I didn’t listen to it this past year lol New York’s lyrics are kind of dumb but I relate to the line about sweating through your shirt after half a block in the summer, so
lol, I did listen to it this past year, albeit, more sadly than usual. I do chuckle at the "you can't walk around the block without a change of clothing" line. Bono probably high-fived himself when he came up with that one.
peace on earth has such a good melody that I can handle the turn of millennium corniness not at all grounded in reality haha
i definitely have some acts where i dig their atyclb type of album more than i do here, like the new volumes album is one of my favorites of the decade and is very much their stab at linear songwriting, but i guess why it doesnt work for me with this specific band is their pop songwriting has always been crazy strong no matter what they decided to sound like, and them being able to wield such sharp hooks in music that challenged their audience is the thing that made them special for me personally. if anything i almost find atyclb onwards less catchy than the stuff on pop and zooropa since there are more parameters in those tracks where hooks can (and do) pop up, but thats a preference thing also the redone peace on earth a few years ago with edge on vocals is absolutely gorgeous
I like Pop and Zooropa, but they are definitely not "catchier" in the traditional sense. I think the fact that none of those songs have lingered in the cultural bloodstream (or the band's setlist) kind of makes my point. But my favorite U2 album has always been The Joshua Tree, and that is probably their broadest-appealing, least "challenging" album, at least up pre-2000. Them basically running the playbook of that album back with more modern production was always going to be catnip to me.
I do wish they had continued to swing back and forth between super populist statements and experimental left turns. It seems like the '90s mostly beat that adventurousness out of them, though I do think No Line on the Horizon is a weirder album than people give it credit for.
if you mean the songs are more streamlined so the hooks that are present can rise to the top easiest, then sure, but that's not all catchiness comes down to. take a song like do you feel loved where every single layer of that track features some kind of hook, and if anything the instrumental is hookier than the vocal part. stuff you can come back to endlessly and find new hooks out of. just depends what you want out of your music but i myself can only put so much stock in the populace
If you look back at my original post on this subject, I said "I like when bands that are really good at writing pop songs write really good pop songs." "Do You Feel Loved" has hooks, but I would not call it a pop song. I like Zooropa and Pop, but I think they're sometimes (especially the latter) burying good songs under a lot of wankery. So yes, I supposed I do prefer this band a little more streamlined!
regardless of my own opinions on their quality, i would say like nearly everything on zooropa and pop exhibits the language of pop songwriting to varying degrees to my ears, so that is a complete agree to disagree on that front lol, but to each their own. i am generally just happy to see people still talk about them
I spent a lor of time listening to Pop last month and yeah it's one of their best records for me these days, so much more interesting than the stuff that came after. Gone is top 5 U2
I keep forgetting that With Or Without You came out in 87 and every time I remember I am baffled all over again