defend the indefensible: RATTLE AND HUM by U2

Nonetheless, I wrote U2 off for good based on the evidence presented by Rattle And Hum. They'd taken the Joshua Tree anthemic americana schtick as far as it could go, and the result was not just unpretty but, worse, uninteresting. Clearly, it was time to stick a fork in these guys.

Turns out, they knew it too - hence the anthemic continentinalia of Achtung Baby, which brought me right back...

DESTROY!_______________________
Everything else.

"Ey...Bono? Are We Stealin' it Back?"

Your question for ten: what were the other two?

A guess, Will Downing - A love supreme?

If not Will Downing, something from mid-80's I'd guess, Scritti, Lloyd Cole or some other wannabe hipster.

The third one is from the '80s but not from that particular pop ballpark.

What really rankles about this (apart from having shelled out good $ to go to the cinema and see it) is the imperious tip of the hat to Billie Holiday, Elvis, homeless blues guys &c. It's like a slug saying the moon is quite good.

How does the dialog go pre-rehersal?

BB KING
This are very heavy lyrics for such a young man.

BONO
Thank you, Mr. King.

a. i shall then post a very POSITIVE review
b. i shall then abuse my residual site-admin powers to DELETE the post
c. then i shall LEAVE ilm in a blaze of calculated publicity!! hurrah!!

*dies laughing* OTM!

1) I, like Markus, was turned on to a bunch of other music via R&H. Good music...music even ILM likes!
2) The gospel version of "Still Haven't Found" is actually two parts...if you remember, the a capella intro is much longer on the film, and is edited for the soundtrack. The a capella parts are pretty nice. The choir can sing. But then you realize that Bono is trying to make himself sound as if his every word is backed by a choir of angels...crap.
3) The Edge's refusal to play a "blues" lead on a song with BB King. At the time, I thought he was a punk ass who just couldn't play guitar...since then, I have realized that his solo, as un-"blues" as it is, is quite blues...drone, tone, and moan!
4) The homeless man's blues (Freedom for My People, right?) was the inspiration for one of my finest drunken open mic moments ever.
5) Desire, All I Want is You, Van Diemen's Land

I've done what I can. I suspect my efforts will be dunked like a cookie.

Also, "Silver and Gold" not so bad, if memory serves, but that I haven't heard in years.

I thought it was a great, warts and all doc at the time that left me with mixed feelings. Some beautiful footage of great live performers. Adam Clayton certainly looked cool by this point. Musically, "Heartland" and "Silver and Gold" were closer to what I loved about U2 than anything on The Joshua Tree (that was the album that pushed me away from die-hard fandom, though I love "With or Without You"). But the lyrics, and the stage banter accompanyiny "S & G," were unbearable. "Edge play the blues"? "Am I buggin' ya"? They had to know. They just had to.

The cover choices--not even knowing the lyrics to "Helter Skelter"--were stupid. And somehow also pompous and ridiculous. This was them letting it all hang out in great cinematography. I didn't get into "All I Want Is You" until years later. Same with "One," actually, which is their real roots fusion song, on the next album. Their best music makes it look easy. "Surrender" and "Two Hearts Beat as One" were the template. U2 dismissers can go ahead and miss out on a unique, and pretty great, R&B-punk fusion that's still commands my attention all these years later...

I dunno -- this is the line of argument that I always saw cropping up in grad school talk about various pieces of literature always being designed to undercut itself. "Don't you see? It was all ironic!"

I, like Markus, was turned on to a bunch of other music via R&H. Good music...music even ILM likes!

Now I feel mean, but I shouldn't. My beef was more with the STATEMENT made by all those references, which I took then and take now to be "This is the company we are now keeping. These are standards by which we wish to be judged. History, open another chapter. There is a new band in town."

I mean, chutzpah, and it works, but what's it not an ounce of? Fun.

These two were back-to-back prom themes for my high school class and the year before me, so OTM.

Nice to see Acme back around here, I'd kinda wondered what happened to ya!

Eno is doing keyboards on Heartland -- a song you forget while you're listening to it

lolz

"am i buggin' ya?" provided some MST3K chuckles, at least.
Oh please please please tell me that Joel/Crow/Tom ripped the "Rattle & Hum" movie a new asteroidhole...that movie was bad enough to be the subject of an episode of MST2K.

-- Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Saturday, July 2, 2005 4:55 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link
Great Concept! Somebody do it!

hmmm you know I may be able to grant this wish - my in-laws run Rifftraxx with Mike Nelson

"Desire" was that one bit I did like from it then, and do still. As for the rest... um no, way too much cold vomit and lukewarm crap on two vinyls.

hmmm you know I may be able to grant this wish - my in-laws run Rifftraxx with Mike Nelson

!!!

i played this album for my gf on the way to work yesterday b/c she hadn't heard it beyond a couple singles. there was lots of cringing from the passenger side.

the live tracks on this kind of wreck the flow of the much better studio tracks, it would have been a really good 9-song album imo.

^^^^^^^^^ so very, very true

I love it.

Back when this came out, we used to file into school assemblies to classical music picked out by the fearsome by-the-rule-book Head of Upper School. One week he got the boys who switched on/off the records to pick something out. They played "Angel of Harlem".

did he call those rascals into his office and put them on double secret academic probation?

If by that you mean "did they get a bollocking?" then yes.

"Angel Of Harlem" is of course one of only three UK Top 20 hit singles to namecheck John Coltrane.
Your question for ten: what were the other two?

Ian Dury - Reasons to be cheerful, part 3.

"Don't Believe the Hype"? Did that go top 20?

What about Sheryl Crow?

1996 "If It Makes You Happy" UK Singles Chart 9

"Listen to Coltrane/derail your own train . . ."

The difference between U2 and The KLF is that The KLF does blatant exploitation that's fun to listen to.

The White Room samples the crowd noise from Rattle and Hum extensively, especially on Last Train to Transcentral.

The UK version does; redacted from (inferior) US version

It's too calculated but it's a reasonably good, ambitious record, any "consensus" that it's bad is wrong.

^^^^ deaf person

I'm not really willing to become U2's advocate, but just to give teh kitteh above some perspective:

Allmusic 3/5
Christgau B+
RS 4/5
Amazon 4/5

Also, keep in mind that tribal/provincial "consensus" often amounts to superstition and/or manipulation.
Carry on.

allmusic is exceptionally generous in their star ratings, christgau is notoriously rong much of the time, rolling stone lol, amazon lol

i say this as one of ilx's few u2 apologists btw

i mean this was the first u2 album i heard and i have a soft spot for it tbh but i think listening to it yesterday sort of sealed the deal for me on its major problems.

superstition? like, if I confess to liking Rattle and Hum I will get hit by a car or have bad luck for 7 years?

Allmusic: this ties for third-worst U2 album based on their star system
Christgau: lists Achtung, Baby as a bomb
Rolling Stone: 3.5/5, which makes it third-worst album, amazing considering the band could basically fart into a boom mike and RS would give them 4 stars
Amazon: lol you're joking, right?

Exactly the opposite Shakey one, if you just go with the flow of any given small-community consensus, it's like accepting a superstitious belief because, well, you want to belong, you don't want to be seen as different and you are, at the end of the day, afraid to express yourself and venture out in the world as an individual.

omar little and small cat, those four sources above are, at the very least, as valid as this one.

railing against the ILM "hivemind" = strawman argument

I know it's confusing given the maturity level of the average ILX post but this isn't high school. People here aren't "going with the flow", they are agreeing because that's what they believe.

vision are you this bizarrely accusatory and conspiratorial when you talk to people in person?

i think rattle and hum is embarrassing and weak because i've listened to it, and that's what it sounds like. look at me, venturing into the world, totally unafraid to express myself

Shakey, not if you take the thread's original premise into account: it's about how ILMers think "this one is pretty bad".
small cat, there's no difference, it's just your way to give more weight to the opinions found here, it's still arbitrary.

Defend The Indefensible: Babies

I don't agree with Dan the small cat about very much but he is right on this count.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g204/automatic_writing/EvenanAndroidCanCry.jpg

I will say you are excellent with the type of trolling that stimulates conversation, Vision; you could give Geir a run for his money.

xp: meglolz

70s Vision = klassick

00s Vision = troll

Really? How am I a troll again small cat? I don't remember calling anyone a "deaf person"-- now that would be trolling.

he's got you there dude

okay i'm done on that front.

anyway, i just put the studio tracks on my itunes and listening to it, it makes a nice studio album as i suspected. hawkmoon is my favorite track.

it's a much more pleasant listen without the hectoring, i think the closest any tune gets to it is god pt 2.

This album is like listening to Joe Lieberman speak.

look Vision the problem is accusing everyone of being conformist mouthbreathers does not advance debate - it cuts it off. Rather than presenting an opposing viewpoint and encouraging a deeper engagement with the material in question, it merely impugns the motives of those who disagree with you. People here have listed a number of things they dislike about this album, cited specific problems, etc. You can either attempt to expose those arguments as being innacurate or wrong or misguided or what have you, or you can spell out why you think the album is actually good - but just saying "waaah you guys are all ganging up on it for no reason I'm taking my ball and going home" is childish.

Personally fwiw I haven't listened to this album in 20 years and have no real inclination to refresh my memory - what I do remember of it is prety cringeworthy. jeezus the album cover alone.

I like "Hawkmoon 269" (wtf the title though) and "Heartland" just fine, and in the right mood "All I Want Is You". The record was a heartbreaking disappointment to me at the time, but that's probably for the best, otherwise I'd have been a thirteen-year-old listening to Melissa Etheridge and T-Bone Burnett records.

yeah I never noticed the Moorcock ref before - don't remember the song at all!

Neil Tennant's tetchy, impromptu review still the best:

Rock critics liked RAH because they want a return to the traditional rock values. What they basically want is for it to be like 1969 again. It's this thing where British -- or in U2's case Irish -- groups discover the roots of American music. U2 have discovered this and they're just doing pastiches (his voice rises) and it's reviewed as a serious thing because `Dylan plays organ' on some song and B.B. King plays on some throwaway pop song `When Love Comes To Town' that could have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It could be in `Starlight Express' if you ask me.

The fact is that the PSB stand against all of this, so it's quite right that people like that should slag us off. Because we hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's stultifying, it says nothing, it is big and pompous and ugly. We hate it for exactly the same reasons Johnny Rotten said he hated dinosaur groups in 1976.

Neil Tennant is big and pompous and ugly.

haha you know I don't own a single PSB release but I love Neil Tennant and always dug their singles and that review is hilarious

omar little and small cat, those four sources above are, at the very least, as valid as this one.

http://darklondon.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/wisdom.jpg

ps Vision WAHT CAMILE THNIK OF RATTLS N HUN?

i say this as one of ilx's few other u2 apologists btw

There's nothing wrong with being retro. "Rattle & Hum" failed because the songs were generally too bluesy and not diatonic enough.

Recently I realized I didn't have "Heartland" on my iPod and dug it up and put it on there. I found out it wasn't really as good as I remembered.

really like the singles on this. rest of album mostly bleh. bb king song is lame. "ok edge, play the blues" is still funny 20 years later.

FWIW, I really like U2 a lot; just not this album.

it says nothing

i thought pop folk are cool with that
funny also that he rips U2 as being pompous as tennant comes across as being super pompous in any interview i've ever read
this album does stink tho

i wrote a mocking review of the movie for my college paper and got a phone call from an angry kid who informed me that his dorm wall was covered -- covered! -- with u2 posters and i didn't know what i was talking about.

So what else did Mr. Flowers have to say.

Wow, back it up a few years, Tipsy Mothra, and it would have been ME arguing about U2 with a bunch of posters of them on my wall!...only...U2 would not have yet made such a shitty movie as this one...so um...

Right...early b-sides anyone?

really like the singles on this. rest of album mostly bleh. bb king song is lame. "ok edge, play the blues" is still funny 20 years later.

"When Love Comes To Town" was a single......

And I don't like the singles at all. Some of the non-singles were OK - "Van Diemen's Land" was great. But mostly too American and too bluesy. U2's worst album!

Agreed. Sadly, also the first proper album on CD I ever owned.

this album sucks! i kinda like it.

on the other hand, Joshua Tree is pretty awesome, and i kinda hate it!

I still love this record, or both these records, as it's a double LP.

And Neil Tennant is still an ugly, pompous, droning whiner. Most of his records are not nice to listen to. When they come on last.fm from someone else's library I have to shuffle it on. I will take no lessons from him.

Neil Tennant is still an ugly, pompous, droning whiner

OMG this is so OTM it's scary.

The Pinefox is miffed.

allmusic is exceptionally generous in their star ratings, christgau is notoriously rong much of the time, rolling stone lol, amazon lol

i say this as one of ilx's few u2 apologists btw

I'm in agreement here. I love a good bit of U2's catalog, pretty much everything from Boy to Pop... but this is not good at all. Their only big misstep before the last decade or so.

"When Love Comes To Town" was a single......

ok well the other singles. i like "desire," "angel of harlem" and "all i want is you."

And Neil Tennant is still an ugly, pompous, droning whiner. Most of his records are not nice to listen to.

The Pinefox is usually OTM but not in this case. I mean, I don't buy Neil Tennant's attack on U2 and what U2 used to stand for, or his entire pathetic "anti rockist" stance for that matter. But the guy has made a lot of really, really great music. Particularly after he struggled to dominate the charts, but got better than before at irony.

Hmmm.. I said I dislike all the singles there, which is not entirely true. "All I Want Is You" may be the greatest song on the entire album. "Desire", "Angel Of Harlem" and, most of all, "When Love Comes To Town" leave me very cold though.

XP to Ilxor: It was "Pop" that was their last misstep yet. The two albums after "Pop" have both been great. Particularly the first of the two.

i can take or leave the PSB and neil tennant, but his review of rattle and hum is pretty OTM esp. given what i remember was the mindset of some rock stars/critics circa 1988. in a way, rattle and hum is sort of the tales of topographic oceans of the 80s -- in the hubris of the creators of said records in making the damn things in the first place, that the creators themselves ended up none-too-pleased with the results, and that while the records themselves are FAR from the best things that the bands ever created there are still some good moments on both.

what i mean is, that neil tennant is skewering the attitudes of certain late 80s rock stars/critics in his criticism of rattle and hum -- and is on target as far as that goes.

wow! Geir is surprisingly otm regarding the album's singles. go go Geir Hongro!

Geir, you're crazy, Pop was great if a bit inconsistent. The next album was the first time U2 took a step back and retraced their previous sound, instead of doing something new within their style.

Then again, you don't care for Purple Rain, either, so I don't know why I'm even trying to argue my point here.

I think the best thing on POP might be 'Mofo'.

Is there a thread about POP, the U2 LP?

Doing something new is rarely a good thing. Plus U2's two 00s albums are different from their 80s in that they rely less on Bono's voice and The Edge's guitar playing and more on melodies and anthemic singalong choruses. The U2 of the 80s were never even remotely as melodically strong as they were on those albums. The influence from Britpop had a huge positive influence on U2 in that it taught them to rely more on writing strong tunes and less on the backing track and performance.

Then again, you don't care for Purple Rain, either

Not the song, no, but the album is ace.

And "Mofo" was the worst track on "Pop" and the best example of what was wrong about that album.

Doing something new is rarely a good thing.

As The Beatles demonstrated all through their career.

I'll agree that "Mofo" was the worst song on Pop, no contest there. But "Elevation" is much, much worse.

Doing something new is rarely a good thing.

I'll take doing something new and failing over treading water on the same sound almost every time. What U2 were doing in the '90s was infinitely more interesting than their '00s work. And I won't deny there are a few strong songs on their last two albums, but there is no exploration to be had, no risks to be taken, no height from which to fall. The songs may be structurally well written and catchy, but they reveal themselves almost entirely on the first listen and are not interesting beyond that in the least.

The best songs on Pop, for the record, are clearly "Do You Feel Loved," "Staring at the Sun" and "Please," all fucking great and among my favorite U2 songs, especially the latter two.

The Beatles were great not because they were doing new stuff but because they had the best melodies this side of Mozart.

I'll agree that "Mofo" was the worst best song on Pop

I want to see Geir and Vision talk at each other here.

I guess doing something new is maybe good if you're already doing something bad, and bad if you're already doing something good.

I don't think Britpop had any influence on U2.

Doing something new is good if you're doing something good already, but can do something new better.

I guess doing something new is maybe good if you're already doing something bad, and bad if you're already doing something good.

OTM

I don't think Britpop had any influence on U2.

Bono said himself in interviews around "Pop" that Britpop was an influence. Obviously it didn't influence tracks such as "Discoteque" or "Mofo" much, but the Britpop influence shines through in tracks such as "Staring At The Sun" and "If God Will Send His Angels" (the good songs on "Pop" that is)

hay guyz i took out all the live tracks and other shit and added in a b-side and reordered it. side 1 is more "country" or whatever, side 2 is the more rock stuff. no bono speechifying histrionics.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yj2tmiwzamx

thanks! I'll download this.

lol at pinefox -- or anyone -- calling Tennant pompous.

anyone see the You Tube RoseBowl show at the weekend? 10 million did so i assume 10 or so on her must have? anyone?

"Rattle & Hum" failed because the songs were generally too bluesy and not diatonic enough.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, 27 September 2008 10:33 (1 year ago)

Rattle and Hum is a good title.

anyone see the You Tube RoseBowl show at the weekend? 10 million did so i assume 10 or so on her must have? anyone?

Ummm... I was actually *in* the Rose Bowl for the show if that counts.

Hattle and Rum. (If only 'hattle' meant something.)

"am i buggin' ya?" provided some MST3K chuckles, at least.
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Thursday, June 30, 2005 2:10 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Hm, remind me where again.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, June 30, 2005 2:13 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

"magic voyage of sinbad"

four-and-a-half years late, but there you are.

:D

also, i 2d custos' and shakey's suggestions that "Rattle & Hum" be given the Rifftrax treatment.

XD

Rattle and Hum is a good title.

― Mark, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 04:04 (3 months ago)

TS: U2 "Rattle and Hum" vs. XTC "Drums and Wires" vs. Sex Clark Five "Strum and Drum!"

four-and-a-half years late, but there you are.

Too kind of you.

I don't follow the general U2 bashing on ILM. But this album is overlong and actually rather bad. There are a few highlights ("All I Want Is You"), but generally it's way too Americana and also probably has the wrong producer. Jimmy Iovine was not the man they needed, and I guess they realized as they have never ever used him again afterwards.

contains favorite U2 song "desire"

I thought you'd love this, Geir: ugly white men playing melodies on guitars.

TS: U2 "Rattle and Hum" vs. XTC "Drums and Wires" vs. Sex Clark Five "Strum and Drum!"

by title:
sc5
xtc
u2

by music:
xtc
sc5
u2

i love two of these records to death.

though u2 did rebound rather nicely.

I thought you'd love this, Geir: ugly white men playing melodies on guitars.

"Rattle and Hum" is probably the least melodic U2 album of all. Extremely blues influenced, and the blues is boooooooring.

Don't mean to bug ya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9NaIYULk6s

Saw this on bluray in hmv for a tenner, would I regret it?

For the most part yes.

man this movie is non-stop laffs

I'm putting that tenner to the test right now. Initial thoughts: this is a really odd thing, it's quite enjoyable and the music is actually pretty good, yet it's extremely ungaging. I'm now down to glancing at the screen once every couple of minutes. And yes, the only* bits that do stand out are the laffs - gawd, Bono writhing in front of a gospel choir while The Edge plays really quiet guitar is something to behold.

* not strictly true, the shots of Dublin are also quite nice but that's only because I know the place well enough to see how it's changed

I do now understand why people really, really hate U2, though

when my next door neighbor gets drunk he turns When Love Comes to Town up to 10 and hollers along.
not that i was ever going to like this record but still, thanks mark.

'unengaging' up there, not 'ungaging'

The 'Fuck the revolution' rant is good. If it really was a spontaneous response to events earlier that day, it's quite impressive.

Actually, whether it was spontaneous or not - let's not turn this into a salute to authenticity.

ugly white men playing melodies on guitars.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Surely a problem with "God Part 2" is the lack of melody. Notice I didn't say *the* problem.

Then Play Long barely can defend U2, really: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/u2-rattle-and-hum.html

more like outright condemnation

I had never seen this video before today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1GLDGiLE4c

Tremendous. So thrilling.

I have watched RATTLE AND HUM a number of times but this contains footage not in the film. Very well edited.

The band all look so thin! It's not just that they were young, but perhaps that - as when you look at photos from the 1940s - people were generally thinner then?

BB King plays great lead guitar and there is good footage of him.

I like the way that The Edge is asked to play a solo in a blues song and just plays a long, reverby arpeggio with a blue note in it.

This record was much maligned and even I didn't think it compared to the band's best. But how does it compare to U2's output now? I think it seems quite classic.

A good modern blues song and it had the virtue of bringing the great BB King to the UK charts. He liked the song and played it with his own band for many years.

"Angel of Harlem" is still awful.

In fact, let's grit our teeth, and go through all the Hat Tips on Rattle & Hum:

stealing Helter Skelter "back" on behalf of the Beatles
dedicating The Edge's effort to poet John Boyle O'Reilly, and dissing him in the sleevenotes
sticking Dylan on inaudible Hammond on Hawkmoon 269 (and Honey Cone on backing vocals)
Dylan again / Hendrix on All Along The Watchtower, because there's no chance of bathos there
yuk, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For goes gospel with the New Voices Of Freedom
Hey, Sterling Magee, Bobby Robinson & Macie Mabins, would you like 0:38 on our bloated album?
the brass nerve of "for Billie Holiday" on Angel Of Harlem: how wonderful it would be to hear which curse words she would use if she heard it
Bono and Bob set the Bible to music and Bob does backing vox on Love Rescue Me
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister BB King
of *course
Eno is doing keyboards on Heartland -- a song you forget while you're listening to it
"for John Lennon", because God needed a sanctimonious updating
hey, dead Jimi Hendirx, would you like 0:43 on our bloated record, on which the guitars are also quite good?
"put El Salvador through the amp"
and after the rattle, the hum: Van Dyke Parks on All I Want Is You
"thanks to Tim Buckley"?!
the Spinal Tap Gracelands moments

― A.C.M.E. (A.C.M.E.), Thursday, June 30, 2005 11:19 AM (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ booming post

i like the movie a lot, don't know the album too well.

There's far worse U2 songs than 'Angel of Harlem' ... I don't mind it, personally.

ANNNNNNNN-GEEEELLLLLLL

the two best tracks on this by far are Hawkmoon 269 and Heartland, they're both actually great songs. whenever i've made a U2 mix i stick both of them on.

I don't know much about Tim Buckley but - had never realized he was mentioned on this LP.

'Angel of Harlem' is one of the best new songs on it. I agree about Hawkmoon and Heartland also. In fact come to think of it, most of the new songs are good and, sadly, probably all better than U2's last two or three LPs.

I always liked the song title Hawkmoon 269 very post punk like Wire song title bigger

kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight

I still like "Desire," it's a good Bo Diddley riff.

its a musical journey

a car salesman who loved to play guitar

I like "All I Want Is You."

I recall some bootlegs of R&H outtakes knocking round years back and of course, they're all on YouTube, makes for some very glum watching, they look so unhappy/self-conscious. 'Outside It's America' is miles better than Rattle & Hum.

I've been wondering for a while when the death of 12-bar blues in pop music happened, and maybe it's "When Love Came to Town."

I do like the b-side "Unchained Melody" cover from this album.

*Comes to Town

Eheh it seems all their albums up to « Achtung Baby » have had a deluxe or remaster version... except for « R&H » ! Isn’t it weird !?

I REALLY like the line "but I did what I did before love came to town"

I like "All I Want Is You."

i've always felt that god part II was an unfairly underrated song, and mainly because it's on this album. i don't think the lyrics are spectacular or anything but i love the sound of it, it sounds more like a precursor to achtung baby than anything else here. if they'd used it as a b-side or something people would probably remember it more fondly.

what is OUTSIDE IT'S AMERICA?

I do have a dvd called RATTLE & ROLL which is RATTLE AND HUM outtakes that are mostly very rough indeed.

I think almost all the songs mentioned here are good - not U2's best, but still more powerful than most of what they have released since, say, 1993.

For sure, the worst part of the record is the live stuff/covers, imo. The best part of the record is that the band seemed to recognize how it had lost its way - iirc post-R&H was the closest they came to breaking up, at least post October - and made a conscious effort to change, which resulted in Achtung Baby. I don't think they would have done that had they not made this album and movie and had their missteps documented and mocked for all to see, including themselves.

I don't think there are any missteps!

Well, technically speaking...
http://www.gifbin.com/bin/052015/1431971132_u2s_the_edge_falls_off_the_stage.gif

Yes but not on RATTLE AND HUM! :D

The missteps are mostly tonal, like Bono's introductions or "play the blues!" or their faux naive embrace of Americana. This is the last band in the world that should be paying tribute to BB King or Elvis or Hendrix, let alone the Beatles or Lennon.

But 'play the blues' is exciting!

In a sense it redefines the blues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg48S4Ino0k

This is much more like the band stuff in Depeche Mode's 101 i always felt. As MaresNest suggests it's way more fun that Rattle. I think the cheap film stock helps.

Wow, this looks tremendous!

"put El Salvador through the amp"

lmao

XXP - it's very good indeed, but there should be a longer cut of it floating about somewhere, 31' seems way too short.

Can't think of another track they've done as loose as 'Desire'.

Desire was the song that brought me into the U2 fold as a kid though i don't rate it as highly now. the two songs i mentioned above i think achieve everything they set out to do. Hawkmoon just sounds massive and Heartland is a great haunted epic, i especially like both the delivery *and* the lyrics here especially:

See the sunrise over her skin
She feels like water in my hand
Freeway, like a river
Cuts through this land
Into the side of love
Like a burning spear
And the poison rain
Like dirty tears
Through the ghostranch hills
Death Valley waters
In the towers of steel
Belief goes on and on

In fact, let's grit our teeth, and go through all the Hat Tips on Rattle & Hum:
stealing Helter Skelter "back" on behalf of the Beatles
dedicating The Edge's effort to poet John Boyle O'Reilly, and dissing him in the sleevenotes
sticking Dylan on inaudible Hammond on Hawkmoon 269 (and Honey Cone on backing vocals)
Dylan again / Hendrix on All Along The Watchtower, because there's no chance of bathos there
yuk, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For goes gospel with the New Voices Of Freedom
Hey, Sterling Magee, Bobby Robinson & Macie Mabins, would you like 0:38 on our bloated album?
the brass nerve of "for Billie Holiday" on Angel Of Harlem: how wonderful it would be to hear which curse words she would use if she heard it
Bono and Bob set the Bible to music and Bob does backing vox on Love Rescue Me
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mister BB King
of *course
Eno is doing keyboards on Heartland -- a song you forget while you're listening to it
"for John Lennon", because God needed a sanctimonious updating
hey, dead Jimi Hendirx, would you like 0:43 on our bloated record, on which the guitars are also quite good?
"put El Salvador through the amp"
and after the rattle, the hum: Van Dyke Parks on All I Want Is You
"thanks to Tim Buckley"?!
the Spinal Tap Gracelands moments

immortal post

I see Bateau got to that two days back my bad

My old friend Matt used to refer to it as Prattle and Yawn. One of his wittier remarks. He also kept a Best of Eric Clapton 8-track, pierced by a heated screwdriver, as a mantle piece. I miss that guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-XDgiTX204

The snare is way out of tune on Desire and apparently everyone is too caught up in emotion and feeling to notice

this really has to be one of the most confused follow-ups to a gigantic success ever. this was my introduction to u2, being the only album of theirs owned by my parents & the reason my dad always expressed a dislike for them and it was so confusing as this incoherent grab bag of new material & live tracks, and it still doesn't really make any more sense to me now. it's not quite a proper follow-up to the joshua tree but it still ended up having to be one. it's not a live album either and it's not even really that coherent as a soundtrack to the film, especially with the additional new tracks. i really don't understand how they decided on this being the album they put out at all.

it also just sounds really muddy and bland as an album, without eno & lanois around everything interesting about their sound is gone. the covers are mediocre and a little embarrassing. there are plenty of u2 live recordings that are more definitive versions of their 80s material than the studio versions, but none of them are found here - the only live track that's really worth anything at all is "i still haven't found what i'm looking for" with the gospel choir which is pretty great actually but the rest is totally pointless. the new tracks are mostly pretty bad too. "van diemen's land" is just an edge solo demo that it's a wonder they thought it was worth putting on the album. "desire" and "angel of harlem" are fine and while they're nothing special at all, they at least feel fully formed and justify their own existence. "hawkmoon 269", "love rescue me" and "when love comes to town" are all slogs that demonstrate how ill-conceived the whole project was. "heartland" is ok but clearly the joshua tree outtake it is, and "god part ii" is such an embarrassing concept with music to match. it's genuinely baffling that they thought most of this was worth releasing. at least "all i want is you" is genuinely very good. 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, which it clearly never should have been more than.

Neil Tennant's tetchy, impromptu review still the best:

Rock critics liked RAH because they want a return to the traditional rock values. What they basically want is for it to be like 1969 again. It's this thing where British -- or in U2's case Irish -- groups discover the roots of American music. U2 have discovered this and they're just doing pastiches (his voice rises) and it's reviewed as a serious thing because `Dylan plays organ' on some song and B.B. King plays on some throwaway pop song `When Love Comes To Town' that could have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It could be in `Starlight Express' if you ask me.

The fact is that the PSB stand against all of this, so it's quite right that people like that should slag us off. Because we hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's stultifying, it says nothing, it is big and pompous and ugly. We hate it for exactly the same reasons Johnny Rotten said he hated dinosaur groups in 1976.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, September 26, 2008

The interesting paradox about this record is that the least-successful, most egregious mistake of a song ("God Part II") is actually the one that points most directly to where they were going in the next 10 years.
The only song I kept from this is "Freedom for My People".

"put El Salvador through the amp"

(his voice rises)

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."