Classic or Dud: U2

Imagining Bono nude is a Political Statement

With or without pants

I can't believe the nudes today
I can't close my eyes and make it go away

lol YMP

Thought this was Richard Branson for a sec:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/261490777_6616405951765554_7450432136253468005_n.png?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=M0wXM_qcdUwAX9nA96L&tn=nMaCpl2pu4gQQq4y&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=45a86d350faa8306443aad14fe8b281b&oe=61AFFCC0

U2 will reportedly stage a Las Vegas residency to open a newly constructed Sin City arena in 2023.

Billboard reports that Bono and company will be the premiere act when the $1.8 billion MSG Sphere finally opens at the Venetian resort next year. The residency’s dates have not yet been announced, but the shows will reportedly be non-consecutive and spread over the course of 2023.

MSG Entertainment, the company building the new venue hailed as the world’s largest spherical structure, and U2 did not confirm the residency to Billboard.

U2 has not performed a U.S. concert since the North American leg of their Experience + Innocence tour wrapped up here in July 2018. The band last played together onstage in Dec. 2019 when their Joshua Tree anniversary tour ended in Mumbai, India.

The MSG Sphere was originally scheduled to open in 2021 but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed its arrival until 2023. When completed, the 388-foot-tall venue will hold between 17,500 and 20,000 people along with what is promised as a state-of-the-art audio and visual experience, including 580,000 square feet of programmable LED panels, KSNV reports.

Doesn't surprise me at all that U2 will have a Vegas residency.

U2 is a total dud. One of the worst bands I've ever endured. I live near a stadium and heard them rehearsing for their Joshua Tree anniversary tour every night for several nights in a row. One of the most horrific weeks I've ever lived through.

I'll admit they had some good songs in the '80s but it's all very formulaic and samey and anthemic and good god, someone please stop the endless delay...

I live near a stadium and heard them rehearsing for their Joshua Tree anniversary tour every night for several nights in a row. One of the most horrific weeks I've ever lived through.

LMAO. Reminds me of a friend who actually worked next door to a stage where Led Zeppelin rehearsed daily for their big one-off reunion at the O2, except he actually likes Zeppelin, as did his colleagues, so it was a surreal and mind-blowing treat.

Haha would be so psyched to have Ghost Club's problem

Day 4, morning, groggy and confused from lack of sleep, can't figure out if you're hearing things or if the Edge's delay is still echoing from the night before

They're not the worst band ever and they're not the biggest band ever but on a graph of those lines they'd be the nexus of worst and biggest.

True. I can't think of a more polarizing band than U2, at least when you factor in the sheer number of people who love them or despise them, and that's probably applicable to both public support/opposition and critical support/opposition. Even my own fandom runs that way - they're discography kind of whiplashes all over the place for me.

*their*

can’t emphasize enough how cool this band would be if they had any other frontman, though they wouldn’t be u2 i guess

I actually think Bono is underrated. I mean, he can be annoying for sure, but so can Mick Jagger, and he (Bono) is as important to that band as the guitar. Back when my guitar teacher and I were trying to figure something out about "With Or Without You" (the repeating 4-note part at the start that turned out to be a synth) we found some recent (so, still several years back) clip of the band doing that song, and Bono was really struggling, because if you go back to the recording he sings the *hell* out of it.

Anyway, I can't think of any U2 songs/albums off the top of my head that I dislike because of Bono.

he's a terrible and overwrought lyricist and vocalist

like even at his best (achtung baby) his performance undercuts the ideas he's working with bc it's like he doesn't know what irony is (not that irony is objectively good or bad it's just a device)

his whole thing works on boy bc he has yet to become ponderous and who gives a fuck if those songs are about anything

I'm used to be the biggest, sometimes only, U2 fan no matter where I roam :(

The purported "ironic" attributes of "Achtung Baby" are as invented as the "Exile on Main Street" parallels to Liz Phair's first record.

And by the standards of terrible and overwrought he's nowhere near the worst. I can think of several off the top of my head *influenced* by him that are worse lyricists and singers.

I often think of something I read: “If U2 weren’t so full of shit they wouldn’t be as great as they often are.”

Bono’s never bothered me.

I think he’s a great vocalist, gonna get FPd to hell but I think you’re describing Robert Smith

i've probably made these points before, i just really hate bono. can you imagine how perfect the passengers record would be without "elvis ate america" which has to be in the hall of fame of the worst writing in human history

xxxp

the funniest Bono moment is when he gives advice to Stephen Dorff in the terrible film Entropy

“If U2 weren’t so full of shit they wouldn’t be as great as they often are.”

i accept this

xpost Elvis Ate America is terrible, but it's the worst song on a self consciously weird side project record, and Howie B is probably as much to blame.

howie b forced bono to write those words and say them like that at gunpoint

but he did so ironically

There's a helpful helping of 'dated' references (East 17, video stores, handicams, HIStory) in some 90s Bono songs that endear them even more to me

YAHWEHHHHHHHH

God Part II is probably my favourite example of terrible lyrics good music in all of pop

It's like the rest of the band conspired to come up with that metallic INXS/proto-Achtung sound just to upend all that rather meaningless pontifying.

"Angel of Harlem" is worse than any song mentioned.

Worst 80s U2 single - I like When Love Comes to Town even less but the first 10 seconds or so are funny. No subtlety or tension-and-release for Bono he just cuts straight to it

I think Greg Kot came up with the best defense for Bono, calling him an Irish soul singer. Like once I heard that description, I enjoyed him more, as long as he didn't let his pretensions get the best of him. That's what sunk a lot of The Unforgettable Fire for me - I like the production but it's a wildly uneven batch of songs.

Going over U2's discography, if I gave a quick grade to everything (and these are very subjective):
Boy A-, October B, War A, Red Rocks (the DVD) A, The Unforgettable Fire B-, Joshua Tree A-, Rattle & Hum B- or possibly C+, Achtung Baby A, Zooropa A-, Pop B-, ATYCLB A-, Dismantle a Bomb C+, No Line on the Horizon B, and I can't even rate the last two as "Every Breaking Wave" is the only song I've bothered to listen to again.

I can enjoy "Angel of Harlem" and even enjoy the first verse (having flown into JFK during winter many times, I'm probably biased). But it feels like a guy who strings together musical references without really understanding them. Like he's name checking Billie Holiday and John Coltrane but the whole song's built on Memphis Horns charts that are more fitting for a Stax/Volt record. (I think the live acoustic version is kind of nice FWIW.)

I like B. B. King on "When Love Comes To Town." Granted, it sounds like he could've laid it down in one take without even a rehearsal, but his guitar does sound good. It sounds like a nothing song, something they could've knocked out very quick...I would be amazed if they labored over it.

(I think the live acoustic version is kind of nice FWIW.)

Same to be fair. Works quite well during ZooTV, I would say 'strangely' but dissonance was the whole point of the thing.

The purported "ironic" attributes of "Achtung Baby"

The thing is, after the ham-fisted humorlessness of Rattle & Hum (the film and the record, but especially the film), which essentially defined U2 from 1988-1990, Achtung felt like a goofball comedy record. And a welcome one.

I think "Achtung Baby" is super dark and serious. But due to its ham-fisted humorlessness "Rattle & Hum" is actually pretty funny, which is ... ironic.

Achtung and Pop both use their colourful veneers as trapdoors. And to this end both have the most miserable endings as well (along with NLOTH probably).

That Neil Tennant takedown of U2 justifies the existence of “when love comes to town”

Sep 96: Hay una discoteca por aqui?
Feb 97: ¡aquí está!

When Bono learned PSB had covered "Where the Streets Have No Name," he faxed Tennant: "What have we, what have we, what have we done to deserve this?"

I was fortunate enough to see this band at their seminal Red Rocks gig in 1983. My friend and I almost didn't go because of the rain. We were so happy we did, because even then we knew it was something special. At the time, Bono's act came across as sincere and inspirational. It was only later that the whole thing soured, at least for me. Probably in part because I waited in line all night for tickets for the Rattle and Hum tour (which sold out before I got halfway to the window), but mostly because they (Bono) started taking themselves too seriously and overstayed their welcome.

Verdict: dud overall, with occasional flashes of brilliance.

Joshua Tree will always be perfection to me. Never really cared for any U2 albums after that incl Achtung Baby.

I use an iPhone for work and every once in a while, not sure why, it starts playing U2

do you work at the U2 factory

Zoo Station led off Achtung Baby in fall 1991, and it came just on the heels of summer 1991's Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, featuring the character Station. When you realize that the year had started off with Cinderella's Heartbreak Station (released in Dec 1990, but come on guys, year of impact) and a remastered release of David Bowie's Station to Station, it was just a hell of a year for stations.

bono was at his best on achtung baby & zooropa because even just trying to adopt a pose was enough to counter his worst tendencies for the most part, he's fantastic on "the fly" and "lemon" and never anywhere near his worst

of course he invents new ways to be bad later in the decade like on "elvis ate america" and "the playboy mansion" so it didn't last that long, but he makes things work for at least some of pop (his vocals are fucking terrible on it though)

he made the big soaring shiny arena rock thing work some of the time in the 80s but still kinda in spite of himself. he's a big enough, soaring vocal presence to sell that sound but whenever his lyrics are anything more than vague they falls flat

otm