ENO U2

i'm looking at metacritic and all the recent u2 albums have "generally favorable reviews"

they're just a band that some people like to bellyache about

The 1975 have written twenty-four songs better than U2 in the last three years.

the last two albums are good imo but i'm on board with these dudes. how to dismantle an atomic bomb is their worst though. moreso than R&H.

xpost:

If you say so, Denise.

For me, Zooropa is the last truly satisfying album they made front-to-back, and I think Pop had the potential to be something better than it actually is. I think 'Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me' was a great standalone single, and I do enjoy 'Beautiful Day' and 'Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of', even if I didn't rate that album.

Pop was where i got off the U2 train -- i loved most of Zooropa, but Pop just seemed lame.

There's some good songs on Pop that were ruined because of how they chose to make the record. Realistically, it could have taken them less time to make it and the end results could have been better. Zooropa at least showed that they could pull off a quick record when they wanted to.

FWIW, "No Line" is the first U2 album that gives Eno/Lanois co-write credit, and it's pretty dull.

Still not understanding what part of the '80s so revolts you that The 1975 become lepers, but it's for another thread.

So the 1975 is a 2016 band that sounds like the 1980s?

So the 1975 is a 2016 band that sounds like the 1980s?

Yep. And they're really good.

...for nothing!

FWIW, "No Line" is the first U2 album that gives Eno/Lanois co-write credit, and it's pretty dull.

"Magnificent" may not be the best thing they ever did – but it's a pretty solid single with a good hook and some great chiming guitar work. "Moment of Surrender," OTOH, might actually be the best thing they ever did – Eno's description of how it comes together here is quite good: https://youtu.be/8HDFCiN1XWw.

There are some other good moments as well (admittedly, "Get Your Boots On" is garbage). But my sense is that it's better than a bunch of records these guys have made away from Eno and Lanois.

Yeah, I was just listening to it, actually, and ran into the same problem I always do: starts fine, got some nice high points, some real low points, and ... I can never finish it. Then I forget it exists. Anyway:

better than a bunch of records these guys have made away from Eno and Lanois

U2 has made a whopping two albums sans Eno or Lanois since hooking up with them, "Pop" and the most recent one. It's definitely not better than "Pop," and I'm not sure it's better than the latest, either.

U2's prob - and no amount of Eno or Lanois can help this - is that they have the luxury of writing in the studio, and have done it this way for some time. They let the tapes roll, jam a bit, then when they settle on something they like Bono starts improvising vocals. Then it's a matter of shaping and refining stuff, which goes on until apparently the absolute last minute. Sometimes a great song gets run into the ground. Sometimes a go nowhere idea is built into something incredible. But when the clock stops counting down, the band is left with what it has, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. And really, I'll always have time for this band's "worse," since it's often better than some similar band's best. But the issue I have with nu-U2, Eno or no, is the complete lack of studio risk, or surprise. U2 has radically remade itself three times: the first from jagged post-punk, the second into Eno-Lanois epic widescreen art rock Americana mode, the third as deceptively dark alt-rock with Achtung. Yeah, "No Line" did not benefit from the "experimental" buzz, but it wasn't just that it wasn't "Zooropa" it's that what was left I can't even conceive of as *ever* being experimental. Just more U2 in its current mode.

But sure, "Moment of Surrender" is great.

best songs on NLOTH are the first three and the last three. my favorite is maybe 'breathe'. i have good memories of this album for a few reasons, number 1 being that their Rose Bowl show was pretty incredible, at least from right by the stage.

'songs of innocence' was, the tone deaf campaign aside, a solid middle-of-the-road U2 album which thankfully didn't really have a 'vertigo' or 'get on your boots'. well, 'volcano' is kind of close, but it's a lot better than those two songs.

"Volcano" is actually the first U2 song I've truly enjoyed since whenever, the 80s I guess. But that Joey Ramone tribute is everything pretentious & dumb about Bono in 1 convenient package

OTOH, "California" is pretty great.

Also, that's a very good post, Josh. One minor quibble and expansion:

U2 has made a whopping two albums sans Eno or Lanois since hooking up with them, "Pop" and the most recent one. It's definitely not better than "Pop," and I'm not sure it's better than the latest, either.

U2 has radically remade itself three times: the first from jagged post-punk, the second into Eno-Lanois epic widescreen art rock Americana mode, the third as deceptively dark alt-rock with Achtung.

On the former point, it's more like three albums -- Eno and Lanois only produce one song on How To Dismantle an Atom Bomb. The rest is Lillywhite, Chris Thomas and Jacknife Lee (Lanois has a co-production credit on another song with Thomas).

To the latter, I would also add that U2 have remade (or at least, self-consciously repositioned) themselves two or three additional times — first, when they left behind irony and "reapplied for the job of the best band in the world" (barf) with All That You Can't Leave Behind, secondly, when they ditched the widescreen panoramas (again) for the rockist pastures of How To Dismantle an Atom Bomb and the aborted Rick Rubin sessions, and thirdly, when they returned to that sound (again) to make No Line On the Horizon with E&L. At this point, it almost doesn’t matter. They all end up sounding like U2 — sometimes the guitars have more distortion, sometimes less, but they all have a single or two worth your time, some decent album tracks and at least one hideous stinker.

But particularly when you add Pop and Spider-man to the mix, it's hard to look at the endless churn of shifting musical styles and producers to no real end without wondering how a such a popular band with a sound this recognizable could find itself in what is effectively a permanent state of identity crisis.

i want to add that U2's single worst sound in their arsenal is whenever they anchor a song to an overly compressed riff from The Edge. sometimes the songs aren't horrible i guess but when you hear superior recent songs like 'magnificent' or 'beautiful day' next to middling songs like 'get on your boots' or 'vertigo' or 'the miracle of joey ramone', you wonder why they constantly stray from the sound that everyone wants from them for the singles that kick off their recent albums.

what is effectively a permanent state of identity crisis.

Well, they're flailing around for relevance, aren't they? I do give them credit for at least trying. The last (current?) tour pretty impressively tries harder than the last few to focus on a theme/new record, which they play almost in its entirety, right? And some old warhorses have been dropped from the setlist to do it.

Man, still trying to listen to "No Line" again, and I get to a song like "Unknown Caller." It starts out promising, and old U2 would have left it a mood piece, as it begins, but new U2 tries to blow it up into an anthem at the same time, with some of the worst lyrics ever. (And the rare Edge solo!). I think "Moment of Surrender" might seem so strong because the band lately seems afraid to just be quiet or otherwise risk people not paying attention. They used to manage the balance and dynamic so much better, on stuff like "Mothers of the Disappeared" or especially "One Tree Hill."

Hmm, "Breathe" is a pretty good song. (with bad lyrics) Maybe it's just a matter of bad sequencing?

cannot think of that song or album without thinking of nabisco version

ahah. yeah, especially since I have never listened to the real version of the album !

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-10-11/u2-the-boom-and-bust-of-the-worlds-biggest-band.html

Good article on Achtung's 30th

TIL of the "Passengers" album with Eno... which wasn't even worth a mention on this thread?

Passengers - Original Soundtracks 1

good job board

It might be 30 years since I listened to The Joshua Tree so I don't know but there seems to be more Eno and Lanois to this than anything on the album. A bit generic maybe but also not too far from side 2 of RIL or somewhere in AGW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZloDgx4Lq0