“20” – U2 TRACKS POLL (voting closes midday, Thursday 4 August)

http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/U2-black-and-white.jpg

What to do?

PICK YOUR TOP TWENTY U2 TRACKS. Put them in order. Email them to ismaelklata at gmail dot com by midday, Thursday 4 August.

Points will be allocated as usual: 40; 36; 33; 30; 28; then 26 down to 12 for the others.

An experiment: the idea of negative votes has been suggested before but never done, so if you wish you may also choose ONE HATED TRACK, which will score -20. Suck on that, ‘Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark’.

Sources

• list of songs
• full discography
• spotify playlist

Votes in by midday, Thursday 4 August. That’s midday at Zabriskie Point, California; so circa 8pm UK time and 3pm in New York. I’ll count them that evening, and the rundown will be on Friday the 5th. Now get to it.

Why U2?

I thought they’d be an interesting band to poll. Really famous but without I think a huge fanbase on ILM, and hence no real preconceptions as to what might do well. They also more than meet the ‘different eras’ test – there are at least four different versions of the band, and it’ll be interesting to see how they play against each other.

Also, beyond half-a-dozen or so headline singles my impression is that their music isn’t actually that celebrated. I’ve been researching them like crazy and I know they’ve got a ton of good stuff, so it’ll be fun to bring it out.

What is U2?

You may pick any U2 song, which includes solo work and The Passengers.

Don’t specify remixes, alternates or live versions – you can discuss which version is best during the rundown. ‘Party Girl’ and ‘Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl’ are the same song. ‘Gloria’ is the one off October and Under A Blood Red Sky – if you want to vote for the snippet off Rattle and Hum, and by all means do because it's a blistering medley, vote for ‘Exit’ and explain yourself during the countdown. The two ‘No Line On The Horizon’s will be counted together.

Votes for the ILM-only release of No Line On The Horizon are not eligible.

Is the Passengers side project eligible?

An experiment: the idea of negative votes has been suggested before but never done, so if you wish you may also choose ONE HATED TRACK, which will score -20. Suck on that, ‘Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark’.

omgbrilliant

The Passengers are in. Any solo stuff also counts. I didn't think they had that much - just the Mission Impossible tune and Bono's horrible duet with Sinatra, but it appears he's done quite a few collaborations. I have not heard these.

Votes for the ILM-only release of No Line On The Horizon are not eligible.

aw

Are you going to post the top 5/10 most hated tracks as well as the regular countdown?

I may do, depending on turnout, but mostly they'll just form part of the regular countdown.

I'm a bit scared that this is what'll decide the #1, but if that's what happens so be it.

Jah Wobble/The Edge/Holger Czukay Snake Charmer for Top 5 please

The spotify playlist should be collaborative, incidentally, if I've done it right. Feel free to add any odds & ends.

As it stands it contains: all the albums; the two 80s live EPs; a couple of non-album singles; plus the extras from the rereleases of the early albums, except where those seemed superfluous.

GOD DAMMIT "ELVIS ATE AMERICA" IS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE US

also I don't know about anyone else but this was the easiest ballot to put together yet

yeah I put mine together this afternoon in like five minutes

gonna sit on it a bit in case someone says something provocative on this thread (e.g. I've already rethought my vote for "Elvis Presley and America" but if it seems like it's gonna be -100 I'll re-rethink it)

I really did mine properly, so it was bloody hard!

I wasn't actually a particular fan before doing this, but I've listened to everything I could find, ordered and devoured Under A Blood Red Sky (which is absolutely spectacular), then cut it down, cut it down again, and was eventually left with 23 tracks. Took me weeks all in. Last one to go was probably my favourite before starting the whole process, so I'm feeling a bit bad already.

I've been listening to b-sides all day (the things I do for you people), so my ballot's proper too! But still, I've lived with these songs enough that it's not too much a challenge. & it's been a while (like, since the 80s) since they were my favorite band, so retrospective perspective is easy to come by.

They used to be my favorite group growing up, but as I got into tons of new music in late high school and college, these guys became one of these bands I was embarrassed about ever liking. It would have seemed unimaginable to me in 1997 to not own all their albums; by 2000, the idea of owning All That You Can't Leave Behind never even crossed my mind.

Two years ago my brother insisted on lending me How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, and I was pretty much blown away. Though sonically, it's a total rehash, the tunes are fantastic and it's probably my favorite album of theirs after Achtung Baby. Should be interesting to go back through their catalog and see what still works for me; I'll definitely be repping some of the Atomic Bomb tracks in my ballot.

That's the kind of thing I want to hear! With that album I don't even know where to begin in 2011---at an Obama rally in 2008 they played "City of Blinding Lights" & it sounded pretty great but it was just the moment, I think?

All I can stand these days is Zooropa, on which they pretended to be glitz hounds.

by 2000, the idea of owning All That You Can't Leave Behind never even crossed my mind.

If you like Atomic Bomb, you'll like All That You Can't Leave Behind

they're ok, but they're not the frames or anything

can I just do a negative vote? ;-)

i'm hella down for this

hella down for u2 trax poll, i mean

can I just do a negative vote? ;-)

I did wonder if I'd get this request! I think you'd probably better put in a plausible ballot first. If I open this up to everyone who hates Bono, it'll look like a golf leaderboard.

The two 'No Line On The Horizon's will be counted together.

Votes for the ILM-only release of No Line On The Horizon are not eligible.

Wait, wha? Link please!

let's release the U2 album before U2 releases the U2 album

The HATED TRACK option makes for interesting strategy (not least because there are so many to choose from). Do you pick one that no one's gonna plausibly vote for because it's so awful, or do you to try to stick it to a song that might place otherwise?

also I still have a hard time believing the names of the songs on No Line On The Horizon---I don't remember how any of the songs sound, but I'm not talking about that, I'm talking, ffffuck, "Fez - Being Born" & "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight". Though actually "Original of the Species" is another appalling title. I threw a brick through a window indeed.

I don't know if it will even get any votes, but I know without any doubt that I'd give "Walk On" an anti-vote. (This is because I'm pretty certain no one will even bother voting for any of the Spider-Man songs.)

Live At Red Rocks is what I was referring to as 'absolutely spectacular' btw - the album's great, but the film is incredible.

If you like Atomic Bomb, you'll like All That You Can't Leave Behind

Yeah, I checked out that and their most recent album after liking Atomic Bomb so much (I now even own a copy of ATYCLB, found it for like $3 used), but neither of them grabbed me apart from a song or two.

Dude, "Walk On" is my No. 2 at the moment. The downside of the -20 votes is that we'll end up with a far more "tasteful" and less embarrassing and therefore boring list--I'd almost rather the hate votes not count at all but just be added as a note after each placer, so you potentially have a No. 1 that's also the most hated.

On first impulse, my hate vote was going to be "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," but I have to say, seeing them play it live a couple of times took the energy out of my hate. "Where the Streets Have No Name" still won't make my list, but seeing that live made it undeniable in that context too. Also hated "Mysterious Ways" until seeing my 2-year-old niece dance to it, at which point its awesomeness became obvious, and now that's at the bottom of my list. Those are probably my least favorite albums, but to hate a song, you have to remember it. I'll probably go with "Angel of Harlem."

Rattle and Hum has a buncha contenders. When Love Comes To Town is dire, and the two remakes are hilariously bad.

I honestly don't think I could do 20 songs for any band and def not U2 however I do count one of theirs as among my favorite ever songs and that is "Out of Control". Why? Because it is the best. That's why.

Oh and I got to meet Bono a couple years ago when I was working on a project dealing with HIV/AIDS patients in sub-Saharan Africa and he was tiny, funny, charismatic as hell and pretty great all around. Fuck the Bono haters imo. I think he's sort of awesome.

I honestly don't think I could do 20 songs for any band

seriously?

Out of Control is terrific. On my listen to Boy yesterday it was the standout.

she also said bono was awesome, so grain of salt.

lol - he really was!!

Seriously. OK well maybe I could but I don't have the attention span for that sort of thing and I'm not really a list person. I'm also not and never have been an album person. I honestly can't remember the last time I listened to a whole album start to finish without skipping some songs. Some of these polls have sort of amazed me insofar as that (for example) I was like "Oh man, I love the Pet Shop Boys!" and then I opened the thread and it wasn't until like half-way through that I started recognizing songs and then I was like "Well damn, maybe I don't love them as much as I thought I do".

Ok so maybe I like U2 a little more then I let one because I did once (albeit a very long time ago) sit in my car all night in freezing weather so that I could be at Tower at 5:00 am to buy what, aside from the first Pixies shows in London, remain the most expensive concert tix I've ever bought.

BUT when they played Out of Control that night I may have jumped and screamed a little bit. OK, I totally did.

it's okay. i went to a they might be giants concert once. we all have our skeletons.

lol

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so did i

yeah def. voting for "out of control". heres a lesser known U2 track thats up in my top 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ9sLF1sSp8

"love comes tumbling" is pretty great from that e.p. as well

For many years I forgave most of U2's, er, indulgences because I loved Bill Flanagan's protrayal in U2 at the End of the World, still one of the best rock biographies: catching a band shedding one skin for another. They really do like the best kind of bros if you never have to listen to them.

For a band with so many haters they've never had a rep for treating people badly. Like, Bob Geldof seems like a bully and by all accounts is a bully, but you don't hear horror stories from people who have worked with U2 or with Bono in an activist capacity. I can see people finding him annoying or hating U2's music but I can't work out what's underpinning the current consensus that he's one of the worst people in music - there are many terrible human beings out there and I don't believe he's one of them.

ilxor sonofstan has told a few tales of u2 douchebaggery from their early days

Ah, that's interesting. Haven't heard them.

Guitar solo on "Out of Control" is all-time. I do love how they play pretty much any song from their catalog at one point or another--did "Zooropa," "Scarlet," "Please," and "Discotheque"on Saturday. Speaking of U2 hate, my incoherent spill from that show: http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2011/07/u2_at_tcf_bank_stadium_review_setlist.php

it was Stewart Osborne-

"I encountered U2 on what I believe was their first UK tour, which they were supposed to be co-headlining with Delta 5.
I wasn't aware that they were supposedly Christian at the time, but the way they and their entourage conducted a concerted campaign of bullying and intimidating Delta 5 (who, lest we not forget, were 3 girls and 2 guys) until they had effectively relegated them to being U2's support band, didn't seem to be exactly overflowing with "Love Thy Neighbour" Christian spirit to me.

Sounds completely right."

They behaved exactly like that in their early days in Dublin too.
Pricks then, Pricks now.

― sonofstan, Monday, April 13, 2009 11:19 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

xp Lovely review Pete. Reminds me what a patchy strike rate those snippets have though - sometimes great (I saw them do Two Tribes during I'll go Crazy), sometimes excruciating. Wish he'd give them a break.

Lest we forget, Christians always come off "bullying and intimidating" around atheists and skeptics.

I loved Bill Flanagan's protrayal in U2 at the End of the World, still one of the best rock biographies

I've just picked this up based on your recommendation, Alfred. (On some old thread while I was researching this, like I say I'm doing this *properly*). Must say I was taken aback when it arrived - how the hell can it be 500 pages long?! - but I had a long run at the first quarter yesterday and it's most entertaining. The best bit so far is only tangentially related to U2 (Mel Gibson, Gary Oldman and Phil Joanou being total dicks) but them meeting Bill Clinton is also pretty choice.

Thanks! The best chapter: Eno and the boys recording Zooropa, especially the scene where Eno lectures the band on the perils of salt poisoning.

That's the kind of thing I want to hear! With that album I don't even know where to begin in 2011---at an Obama rally in 2008 they played "City of Blinding Lights" & it sounded pretty great but it was just the moment, I think?

― Euler, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:08 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

imo that's their last great song, totally in my top 10

since its release it has graced every school function as "inspirational" music

cool!

Are the same song with different versions added for the final results? Like 'Out Of Control' EP or Album version, will that just be added up?

Because the bitch needs to make the top 20, yo.

No need to specify a version - all remixes, live versions and alternates will be counted together. You can explain, post youtubes, etc during the countdown.

(PS cut that out, can you imagine Larry Mullen talking like that?)

lol thanks :)

Ballot sent!

1980-91 trax: 18
1992-present trax: 2

If I open this up to everyone who hates Bono, it'll look like a golf leaderboard.

As someone who wouldn't be able to get more than a Top 5 together, that's a great line.

i'm actually having a hard time thinking of a song for my negative vote -- i'm not the biggest U2 fan and there are a lot of songs i'm kind of indifferent to, but very few i actively dislike, aside from a few of the really glaring duds from the last couple albums that hardly need to be taken down a peg

I'm excited for this poll. I just saw them play in NJ last week and was phenomenal. I saw them twice before, on the Joshua Tree tour and the Achtung Baby one, and this was far and away the best.

Why all the hate for Bono? It seems very 1989.

^^^ a man who has grown tired of the peacemakers of the west

"Angel of Harlem," "When Love Comes to Town," "God Pt. 2" -- lots of contenders from R&H for worst ever. Also: three quarters of Pop and half of ATYCLB.

yeah i just saw them live for the first time this summer so i'm very primed for this poll

i don't particularly dislike any of the R&H or Pop hits. don't like all of them (but actually am thinking of putting "Angel of Harlem" and "Discotheque" on my ballot).

What's the take here on the "Desire" remix?

I loved it in '88. In South Florida the Top 40 station played every hit in its dance remix iteration.

From 'Pop', 'The Playboy Mansion' is great

Still love Neil Tennant's quote from '89:

What [rock critics} 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 have been Starlight Express if you ask me.

...We hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's totally 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. To me U2 are a dinosaur group. They're saying nothing but they're pretending to be something. I think they're FAKE."

But my favorite track still is 'Gloria'

I was pretty shocked by it at the time, naif that I was, but that was savvy on the band's part.

xxxp

That's a good quote but why is a pop band being fake a bad thing?

anti-rockists like to use the language of the oppressor against them

1980-91 trax: 17
1992-present trax: 3

LOL at the idea of U2 doing Rattle and Hum, or anything else really, to please critics.

1980-91: 10
1992-present: 10

Done
1980-87:19
1988:1

Part of me is hoping your lone 1988 vote is "Hallelujah (Here She Comes)", because I didn't have room for it myself.

gonna think about this one over the weekend. The Joshua Tree was the first album I owned (on cassette tape) and Achtung Baby also made a big impression a few years later (Rattle & Hum not so much). Suspect those two will dominate my ballot although there'll be room at the top for more 80s stuff, especially the title track off The Unforgettable Fire.

Speaking of which, RTE (the Irish national broadcaster) did a pretty interesting documentary about the making of TUF, including footage of Eno, Lanois and U2 recording and mucking about in Slane Castle and Windmill Lane. It's easily findable on youtube altho unfortunately I can't post the link here as I'm at work. Worth a watch, if only for those who were wondering upthread why people hate Bono - even in 1984 he was a complete tit, as is abundantly clear in this doc.

^^^ a man who has grown tired of the peacemakers of the west

Am I buggin' you? Don't mean to bug ya.

clemenza, if you're looking to vote for more than a song or two, here's some lesser-knowns from my Top 20 worth hearing:

"Miss Sarajevo" from Soundtracks 1
"Wake Up Dead Man" from Pop
"Surrender" from War
"Cedars of Lebanon" from No Line on the Horizon
"Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car" from Zooropa which is like a really good Talking Heads song
"11 O'clock Tick Tock" from Under a Blood Red Sky

sorry, Original Soundtracks 1--not the most memorable title.

It's a pretty good record - not releasing it as a U2 album proper strikes me now as a rare 90s false step from them.

I liked your review by the way

Thanks! Also love the Long Mix of "Two Hearts Beat as One."

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'm just incapable of ever really liking them, the way some people are with R.E.M. or Yo La Tengo or other bands I love. I may submit a ballot with five songs, I'm not sure yet, but because I'm such a non-fan, I wouldn't exercise the negative option.

I've got eleven ballots now, which is an excellent start, thanks all. I've replied to everyone, if you haven't received an acknowledgement let me know.

Great stuff, but of course I WANT MORE.

It's a beautiful day bump - why not use it to draw up a ballot?

bump for night owls

good morning

Still working on my ballot, but so far "Wire" from TUF is my #1.

Working on a ballot here. Not a huge fan, think I probably dislike a lot more of their songs than I enjoy. Having to fill with lots of old album tracks, and listening to those, much of them seem like the one song repeatedly rewritten. Was a pleasure to discover 'Drowning Man' again though, one pre-Eno song where atmosphere really triumphs over anthem.

Not sure at all what my #1 is, nor what I'm gonna spend my hate tokens on.

I have been listening to old tapes of them live
and watching youtube videos of Zoo TV tour.

I will make a top 20 list and send it to Mr Klata.

you are good men

Just want to pop in and rep for the "deep" cuts from "The Joshua Tree" (which is to say, pretty much anything from side 2): "In God's Country," "One Tree Hill," "Exit" and "Mothers of the Disappeared."

My ballot was ridiculously 'Joshua Tree' heavy but I somehow didn't vote for 'exit', as Ismael rightly pointed out. I feel suitably chastened by that omission. It should have been there to make it 9 from JT instead of the paltry 8 I ended up with ;)

I have voted in this poll.

I was surprised, looking at the wiki list, how many songs I do not know.

I found it hard, in any case, to keep it down to 20. But I am satisfied with that 20.

I wish Spotify had the Passengers record.

I may submit a ballot with five songs, I'm not sure yet, but because I'm such a non-fan, I wouldn't exercise the negative option.

Are non-fans supposed to vote or not? I mean: unlike e.g. Pavement, almost everybody has heard the singles from this band and has opinions about them. Should people like me, who have never listened to a U2 album all the way through, not vote? Or should I send you a ballot with the four U2 songs I think are really great?

i'm not running the poll but imo there should be no 'barrier of entry' for voting in these things, if you like any number of eligible songs and want to help them do well you should go for it. especially a big singles act like U2 where pretty much everyone knows dozens of their songs and has opinions about them.

Oh, definitely vote!

It's not about making up the numbers - I reckon about 20-25 ballots are needed to make it worthwhile and we should get there no problem - it's just that it's valuable if more people have decided 'yes, this deserves to be there'.

It'd probably be useful if you want to big up (without giving away too much) some songs which might otherwise be overlooked. Boomerang I is an excellent groove imo.

I wish Spotify had the Passengers record.

Available here, in the UK at least: http://open.spotify.com/album/40i4U8691CTAUVKSEQ5wcy

Jesus Christ, where do you even start with their worst track? I thought that 'The Saints Are Coming' was horrific but then I listened to their version of 'Unchained Melody' and it's a whole new world of horrible. Did they do any cover versions that are worth hearing?

just sent in my ballot, ended up being a little funky and 40% post-Achtung, kind of playing up the idiosyncrasies of my fairly canonical view of the band (lots of ballads, for one thing -- for some reason the slowies always get to me most with U2).

My previously stated indifference notwithstanding, I've always loved "In God's Country." That was the highlight of Three Kings for me.

i take it everybody is sick to death of 'one'?

Voted.

I favour their 90s stuff. Placed "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" very high because I love both versions of that song equally. Placed "Hold Me Thrill Me" and "Desire" very high, partially influenced by how much I like the videos for both. More obscure picks: "A Celebration", "11 O'Clock Tick Tock", "If You Wear That Velvet Dress". Hate voted for "Angel Of Harlem", but could've easily picked "When Love Comes To Town".

Love "Snake Charmer" but I thought it was cheating.

90s 10
80s 9
00s 1

Angel of Harlem's nice, what's with all the disapproval of that one?

i voted for it.

Did they do any cover versions that are worth hearing?

I like "Satellite of Love", "Dancing Barefoot", and "Can't Help Falling in Love".

i take it everybody is sick to death of 'one'?

― Michael B, Sunday, July 31, 2011 6:21 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

i have a weird feeling with that song where i AM totally numbed to its charms most of the time largely because of how overplayed it is, but i don't recoil from it like with songs where i really am 'sick of it.' it sounded great when i saw them live this month. but for some reason when i was loading up on ballots i just didn't want to vote for it like "With Or Without You" or "All I Want Is You" or "Stay."

"One" is like "Wonderwall" where sometimes the guitar tone in the opening strums strikes me as really pretty but the actual riff/melody doesn't do much for me

Johnny Cash version is where it's at with that song.

As much as I loathe U2 I gotta admit that their "Dancing Barefoot" cover is pretty fetching, and -- yes -- I prefer it to Patti Smith's. Because Bono doesn't change the gender but does change the stress falls, the song has a mild transgressive kick ("Could it be he's taking over me?").

"One" has grown on me over the years; it's a love song & these things take time.

"One" barely has a melody, seems like the song the most points to the bland tunes of the last couple records.

Mind you, it's not a candidate for my ballot. My sappiness is far-reaching & I'll throw a vote to "All I Want Is You", but "One" is one too far.

how is "One" sappy?

but then I listened to their version of 'Unchained Melody' and it's a whole new world of horrible.

I ridiculously overpaid for that 12" at a record swap back in the early 90s because there was no other way to get it at the time. I may just love it because I invested so much in owning it, but even now I think it's quite nice.

The strings (or string synths) push it into that category for me.

I like its conflation of erotic love of the flesh & of the divine, but Bono is too much on his knees; Prince knew better that such worship isn't supine.

Angel of Harlem's nice, what's with all the disapproval of that one?

― Ismael Klata, Sunday, July 31, 2011 6:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

It's overplayed and I hate those horns.

if "Angels" is overplayed there are literally 30 U2 songs in that line ahead of it

AOH's problem isn't overplaying -- it's that once was enough.

Did they do any cover versions that are worth hearing?

Their cover of "Neon Lights" is pretty great and I may be the only person who likes their take on "Night And Day"

AOH's problem isn't overplaying -- it's that once was enough.

Whenever "Where The Streets Have No Name" starts up it's like "I understand why people like this song enough to listen to it every day even if I personally feel otherwise", see also "Bad", "One", "Pride", others.

Not even dissing those songs, just that I don't resent their inescapability, you know?

I love the part in Rattle & Hum where they switch from b&w to color for the Sun Devil Stadium concert and play almost the whole first side of The Joshua Tree...especially "Where the Streets...", as it eases in with the red lighting and the band walks out on stage and takes their places as the synth bit plays.

Fuck, I'm gonna watch it right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-zqIS7vWbY

^ What we talk about when we talk about U2

"Joshua Tree" tour was my first concert ever. Wish I could remember more about, though I do remember buying "The Joshua Tree" on the day of the show, maybe.

Hope I can get around to a list here, if only to include "Loves Come Tumbling."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBuHvmQtfms&feature=related

I hope so too. I was saying to pinefox that you, he and bimble seem like the three most consistent ILM well-wishers, where mostly it's been 'lol bono'. Would be lovely to have two of you voting.

I like 'angel of Harlem' and wish I'd voted for it, but think the surprise vote for 'new york' was maybe more worthwhile.

I loved the film RATTLE AND HUM very much including 'streets'.

I like U2's 'unchained melody' a lot, love the dip and swoop of the lead guitar into the void near the end. Even their 'everlasting love' strikes me as quite good - the way the 60s-soul guitar chinks enter from nowhere for the second verse.

I was always very impressed by 'dancing barefoot' which I bought on the 'when love comes to town' 12" B-side way back.

As I've said there are a lot of songs on the wiki list that I don't know - 'neon lights' is one.

'night and day' was a good thing, in 1990 or so. I don't think they exactly played all the chords, though they played more than usual.

I liked their 'xmas baby please come home' but haven't heard it in many years.

I was always mystified that 'one''s chorus used the same words and melody as 'one love' - this seemed too much. I don't think I ever warmed to the song as much as others did. I quite like the guitar textures but religious language means very little to me. But maybe there is still some good material in the lyric.

I think they made more videos for 'one' than for anything else -- I have an old Achtung VHS tape which was absolutely magnificent but won't seem to play on my machine now, and I recall it having about 5 'one' videos, including one where they're all in drag.

I wish I had voted for 'stay', a good 90s U2 song.

iirc there were 3 "One" videos and the drag one was the first -- each one got a lot of play on MTV until the next one premiered

I thought for most people that the Pet Shop Boys cover made the original "Where The Streets..." redundant.

for most people

Nice bubble, Alfred.

The foyer is di-vine.

I thought it was a nice gesture at Glastonbury when Bono sang a bit of Andy Williams over Streets. I'd rather he hadn't but nice gesture nonetheless.

I dunno whether anyone else rates this one but I'm gonna throw a decently high vote to "Heartland". It was originally written during The Unforgettable Fire sessions, & it sounds like it, but the lyric is less clumsy than say "Elvis Presley and America", & Bono's singing is more forthright (this can be a plus & a minus but here it's a big plus). I don't really know if it ~says~ anything, but it's been a favorite for years.

Yeah, Heartland was one of my last cuts before I sent in my ballot.

Yeah, I love it and gave it a few. I guess finding an earnest Bono vocal is no big surprise, but when he hits the spot, y'know, what's better?

I love that song!

BTW, I would like to submit a ballot and all that, but I don't really have the time to do this before the deadline. I don't even really understand what I'm supposed to do. I was an ardent preteen U2 fan, sorta liked them on and off (mostly off) post Achtung Baby, but when I loved U2, I LOVED U2. So I guess I have opinions, but no energy to assign numerical value to them. Also my media is all spread out -- I have most U2 albums on cassette or vinyl, but some on CD...making an educated list would be more complicated than anything I have time for atm.

aw, just write down the first songs that come to your mind, don't think that much about it if you don't have time, and put, say, "Heartland" at the top of your list !

Educated, comprehensive - forget all that stuff. Just jot down your favourite twenty RIGHT NOW and send to ismaelklata at gmail dot com. It'll make me happy.

oh ok

i'll do it. don't expect any surprises though. i was a pretty garden variety no nukes preteen U2 fan.

C'mon, knock out a 20-minute ballot. That's how I did my Prince ballot, and I haven't been chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob (yet).
xp

"Heartland" is a good one.

haha you could multiply amanda's vote by two and then it would be like i'd voted, too.

type and email it yourself and you're on

C'mon, knock out a 20-minute ballot. That's how I did my Prince ballot, and I haven't been chased by a pitchfork-wielding mob (yet).
xp

― time to put it in hi geir (WmC), Monday, August 1, 2011 5:23 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

if you voted for "Alphabet St." and not "Adore" i'lkl let the mob know where to find you

Ok, I did it.

uh oh

it took me almost exactly 20 min!

Heartland will totally be in my top 10 tbh

Still working on my ballot. This U2 poll is messing me up in all sorts of ways ~ in a forcing you to face your past way. No other band I have loved and loathed so completely in my life. First band I completely loved, visited fanclub meetings of, traded cassette boots etc ... around 'Pop' both U2 and I, in my life, went completely separate ways. Fortunately, in the end, the verdict meter didn't swing to just one side. I still hate all U2 from Pop on, but still love what I loved from before that.

I must have hated pop so much that I forgot that it existed. I'm in the same boat, just voted w/ my <3

^^ Only way to go! :)

I loved Zooropa from the start, but Pop felt like it was released too late, like, were they still doing the ironic thing four years later (& six years after Achtung Baby)? So I never bought it & only barely knew the singles even. I can listen to it now that the time has passed & hear it more clearly now: "Mofo" is a beast, for instance.

Hah! Zooropa is their best, most coherent, most exciting, on the edge album for me.

U2 and I just took separate turns after that. But boy do I love Zooropa.

^^^^ otm

Yeah, it's their best album.

I can't separate it from my discovering Low in the summer of '93.

If the band had followed the example of "Mofo" and "If You Feel Loved" (which is an unexpectedly sexy song), I'd have more appreciation for the results, not to mention intentions.

I can't separate it from my discovering Low in the summer of '93.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 2, 2011 12:43 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

OMG!

Had the exact same! Same summer! (and what a summer it was) If you are referring to Bowie's Low that is. 'Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car' just seemed such a logical progression from Low and 'Always Crashing In The Same Car' to me. It was pure chance that this happened, yet made such huge sense to me at the time.

Of course!

I don't think they've ever attempted anything as playful-serious as "Babyface" and "Lemon." And "Stay (Faraway So Close!)" is their best "straight" ballad.

I know, I know... Zooropa remains the only album in U2's discography that was recorded in six weeks and of which they say it was just an "in between" thing. Yet look how brilliant that worked out. Without the great planning, years of recording in the Riviera or Morocco, no great marketing plan etc. They should try that more often.

Been thoroughly disappointed when after Zooropa, with every new album, Bono would pop up in the press and exclaim how he felt their album was going to be so cutting edge, "best album so far"-bollocks etc.

"love comes tumbling" is pretty great from that e.p. as well

Hell yeah it is. My favorite U2 mode is probably that sort of atmospheric "Edge doing most of the work while Bono behaves more workmanlike and less stridently"--they're so good at that. This song, "Heartland," lots of stuff on The Unforgettable Fire... Edge was the first guitarist I remember identifying as a kid as "a guitarist I like," and I still distinctly remember discovering things like the Comsat Angels, the Sound, Echo and the Bunnymen--you know, "atmospheric postpunk"--and being excited to hear things that reminded me of Edge! So in a very real way they were my gateway into postpunk and thus into a lot of my most cherished music.

"Love Comes Tumbling" is definitely gonna be on my ballot. The aspect of U2's work you're describing is one of my favorite things about them, and is well-represented on my ballot (lots of tracks from The Unforgettable Fire, e.g.). I'm also partial to their early 1990s work. I'm not sure how those two aspects are connected; I need to think more about that.

"Do You Feel Loved" and "Heartland" are a couple great Adam/Larry songs that I wish were better Bono/Edge songs. The bass line on "Do You Feel Loved" in particular is U2 minimalist perfection.

Zooropa made me fall in love with the band again after pretty much chucking Achtung Baby, but dismissing any of their albums now seems hasty--I disliked each of the last four at first and wound up changing my mind on all of them.

Zooropa remains the only album in U2's discography that was recorded in six weeks and of which they say it was just an "in between" thing. Yet look how brilliant that worked out. Without the great planning, years of recording in the Riviera or Morocco, no great marketing plan etc.

Yet the thing sounds like it cost $4.5 million and took months to record.

Imagine what all their albums afterwards that sound like it didn't cost as much yet actually cost them ten times as much!

I remember the story at the time being that it was just an EP.

what

xp

I think I rated Unforgettable Fire tracks too low on my ballot. I prefer Ironic Bono to Earnest Bono, but instrumentally, tUF is the band's high-water mark

The aspect of U2's work you're describing is one of my favorite things about them, and is well-represented on my ballot (lots of tracks from The Unforgettable Fire, e.g.). I'm also partial to their early 1990s work. I'm not sure how those two aspects are connected; I need to think more about that.

I'm with you there. I think the connection lies in the immersive qualities of both of those periods. Both are less alert, less sober, less chest-thumpingly self-actualizing versions of the band. The atmospheric stuff is blissed out, hazy, delicate, stately; the best stuff on Achtung Baby is maximalistic, layered, thick, intoxicating, humid. The key to the band's success in my mind is tempering Bono... He has an objectively fantastic voice that easily lends itself to becoming just too much, and in both of these versions of the band he's perfectly balanced with the rush and feel of the rest of the band.

I don't know if I said so upthread, but I adore the title track of "The Unforgettable Fire" despite the crap lyrics: those shifting synth textures. The 12" mix should have been a schlockier Trevor Horn-esque disco track.

That sounds right to me. I don't favor anthemic U2 anymore, though I can remember its appeal. "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "New Year's Day", the whole of Under A Blood Red Sky, those are good songs! But Bono is too self-aware, too keen a historian of rock, to ~really feel it~ every time, & I think this is the band's secret weapon over its more resolutely strident peers (yes, even Echo). This is why they were able to pull off their big switch at the turn of the 1990s.

xp to Clarke

yes! "The Unforgettable Fire" is high on my ballot.

certainly fascinated by 70s Bowie / 90s U2 connections but I also suspect that it may be a bit played up by the 'crashed car' title echo -- and the two crashed car songs don't even sound similar. but certainly U2's title must be a nod to Bowie's

also Bowie did a 70s 'stay', not sure on what LP

maybe arguable that general Eno textures provide a link.

thinking about 'zoo station' a great deal over the last couple of months, playing many different versions - after actually going there

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5779818835_b33cd0a8a6.jpg

i ended up going pretty light on the early albums -- nothing from the first two, 1 from War and 2 from The Unforgettable Fire

- 'versions' ie: LP version on vinyl, and otherwise live ones on old tapes, and youtube

still compelled by this song, still feel it represents heart of the Achtung turn, as it was meant to

but also struck by how un-experimental all this really is, by Enoish standards: if this was really like LOW, then 'zoo station' itself would go on for 12-15 minutes, hypnotizing you - instead it's compact, 4 minutes and out and on to 45 'real thing' - sense of this being really a streamlined rock LP

maybe that's obvious.

other thing about it:

'zoo station' is example of a category of KEY / ICONIC ALBUM TRACKS that are not 45s but still have a special status

maybe this applies to lots of bands, but re U2 I think the list stretches to

October
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bad
Bullet the Blue Sky
Until The End of the World

I think that's it, actually, can't really see any more from the last 20 years.

'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is a real contender for my least favourite U2 song, now I think about it, esp all the live versions I've endured on tape, video etc - I wish they'd retired it as it seemed might happen after Rattle & Hum film.

'until the end of the world' is another song I now find I can be endlessly interested in - again the slight paradox of a track with such a big live history that was never a 45. I think the Edge likes playing the guitar parts inc solo: he does it all on one of the deleted scenes on the dvd IT MIGHT GET LOUD.

"Until the End of the World" may be one of my very favorite U2 songs, absolutely. The live versions of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" really do kill it, don't they? It gets painful to see Bono in that state. I've never liked "Bullet the Blue Sky"... "Ultraviolet" has always slayed me.

All your other true statements notwithstanding, 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' was definitely a single. Well, here in Europe it was.

xp

i don't think i can justify sending in a ballot for this when i forgot to vote in the prince poll but i kinda want to anyway

do it! no research or anything. just pull the first 20 songs you can think of (that you like) from the air around you and make an email out of it.

'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is a real contender for my least favourite U2 song, now I think about it, esp all the live versions I've endured on tape, video etc - I wish they'd retired it as it seemed might happen after Rattle & Hum film.

when i saw them a few weeks ago and they were doing the "how long must we sing this song" part, i turned to my wife and said "it's been, what, 29 years and counting?"

so far my ballot is like two unforgettable fire tracks up front, the pre-uf hits minus sbs, a couple josh tree songs, one tune from achtung, and nothing since then.

i kinda want to stick the mary j. blige "one" at the top just for shits and giggles.

negative points tune is gonna be harder to figure than the whole positive list.

What do tickets to see U2 cost these days?

Well, having seen the band too many times, beginning in 87, I recently got refunds for four tickets a few weeks ago - thanks to the show's postponement, Ticketmaster let us do this the week before the show, literally a year and a half after we bought them! Total cost: $278 for four GA tix. I'm glad to have the cash back, since I've more or less had my fill of U2. BTW, the band's live peak to me came after 9/11 - I saw them perhaps the year before and they were great. Then I saw them when they came back, after, and they were on fire, truly powerful, moving stuff. I've seen few shows from bands of any and every bent that rose to that level.

Then I saw them the tour after that, and they sort of dragged. And that's the end.

i got to see them for free to review the show -- basically tickets fell in my lap 5 hours before the show, which was pretty great to be able to surprise my wife with since U2 is one of her favorite bands

U2 opened its 2001 tour in Miami -- still one of the best shows I've ever seen. That's the one where Bono tumbled off the stage.

They also closed the world tour in Miami -- a less exciting performance; they sounded exhausted.

There seems to be a general consensus here that U2's output from 2000 forward is not on the same level as their early records. For those who subscribe to that theory, I urge you to take 4:19 out of your day to listen to Window In The Skies. This could be their best song ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-NskE3M2A&ob=av2e

i managed four songs from the 21st century on my ballot

^^^^ title of their next comp

kornrulez, thanks for posting that -- it might make my ballot

more taken aback by the video than the song

Yeah, great video concept/execution. The song is like an 8th generation xerox of good Joshua Tree/Rattle & Hum/Achtung-era U2.

booooo

Got my first cut down to 33, but there are three or four songs I might put back before the real bone-cutting begins.

OK, sent.

In the UK the WAR 45s were 'new year's day' and 'two hearts beat as one'.

Wikipedia says 'Sunday' was a 45 in Belgium and Netherlands.

It says the same thing about 'I Will Follow (live from Hattem)'.

'until the end of the world' is another song I now find I can be endlessly interested in - again the slight paradox of a track with such a big live history that was never a 45.

OTM. My #1 pick. Probably Bono's best lyric.

Truly surprised to see that 'sometimes you can't make it on your own' was a UK #1 45.

and that 'all because of you' was released before it and made #4.

'city of blinding lights' a creditable #2.

They've had 6 UK #1s + something called 'take me to the clouds' that I apparently don't know.

DL, you might enjoy the first 75 seconds of this fabulous clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMw8NjCs_dg

a strange thing is that I still do not know how to play those last 2 songs, and on seeing him use a 4th-fret capo for 'until the end of the world' I'm no longer sure I know how to play that either.

"Do You Feel Loved" and "Heartland" are a couple great Adam/Larry songs that I wish were better Bono/Edge songs. The bass line on "Do You Feel Loved" in particular is U2 minimalist perfection.

Haven't heard 'Do You Feel Loved' for years, think I like it a lot more than anything else on that album, but listening to it now it's amazing how similar to 00's Radiohead it sounds, particularly the bass and drums.

I always quite liked its opening clanging shiny keyboard sounds.

The bass on that track has always seemed to be the deepest and loudest of their career.

Don't think the lyric is very meaningful, though.

Radiohead! They've kept popping into my head while I've been doing this. Basically they seem to always be about six years behind, but without the guts to try to combine the aesthetic with proper stardom or, y'know, songs.

I like their first LP

Radiohead's Where You End and I Begin reminds me of something from the Achtung Baby/Zooropa/Passengers years. It's got that dark Berlin dancefloor thing going on.

I love lots by this band and lots by the Edge, but he was totally outclassed in that documentary, and in fact, I'm now one of those conspiracy theorists on the fence as to whether the guy can really play his guitar, at least conventionally. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, I feel the same way about Eddie Van Halen, a prodigy whom I've never heard any "normal" stuff from; he can apparently only play like EVH. Edge is so distinctive, but at least half of his sound is his effects (unlike, say, jazzbo Andy Summers, whose chords and phrases are tricky at their easiest). No question, the effects are cool and, um, effective, but I find they make learning U2 songs hard, since they're both carrying a lot of the weight and hiding/disguising the actual (usually simple) chords.

Anyway, "Until the End of the World" will place high on my list. I've never liked Bono as a lyricist except on "Achtung Baby," where his words seem to be getting at something larger than himself (and not just god, or oral sex, for that matter).

I still think Kid A and Achtung Baby are the two great contrasting examples of a massive rock band reinventing itself. Kid A's more radical, obviously, but I admire Achtung Baby more for making a sonic leap without any loss to the songwriting - quite the opposite in fact. Whereas Thom Yorke almost erased himself as a lyricist and personality, Bono found a whole new candour and wit which hasn't, unfortunately, been matched in the past decade. I think he once said that Acrobat was his most self-analytical lyric: "I must be an acrobat/To talk like this/And act like that."

Think my ballot will be ballad heavy, but I may toss in "Wire," U2 at its most urgent.

I have always found 'wire' magnificent
there is a remix of it on an old NME 7-inch from 1985
which I also have

I don't quite think the songwriting improved with Achtung Baby, as I think their best work is 1984-7 -- but it was good enough, to work with the new textures and feel exciting. Though I must admit it took me a long time to accept Achtung Baby; I was very disappointed with it at first.

Edge: well for one thing there are times when he DOES seem to play in a really cool 'chops' kind of way - I'm thinking of the thrilling Hendrix solo he added to 'bullet the blue sky' from the 1990s on ... I can listen to that in awe.

But more broadly, agree that he's not great in that way, that it's the FX, but isn't that the point, or something he might admit? - he openly shows at some point in that film how 'elevation' (pretty bad song) is just a hugely amped-up version of him playing 2 boring notes.

I still think it took ability or taste to get to those sounds, and find those particular things to do within them.

whether he makes the songs harder to play - I don't think the FX is the issue here - I think I can hear through FX. I just genuinely can't fathom how he's playing all the notes that he does on 'bad', for instance (think of the highest note on the opening chord), without a capo (I managed it with a high capo + C shape the other day, but he's not doing that on that video, no capo. ditto I finally nailed 'pride' with a capo and a D shape but that doesn't fit what he's doing either).

Hmm, even the Bullet solo is short on actual notes, isn't it?

Don't think many (any?) U2 songs are capo-ed. A few are tuned down a bit, and the delay encourages the Edge to use a lot of open strings, so that could be part of it. Regardless, it did take ability to figure out all those cool effects; I listen to him like a cool synth player.

Best part of that doc, btw, is where Edge goes back to his school and points on the stage where they first played, notes how he randomly picked that spot to the right of Bono and that he's been standing there ever since!

the bullet solo on Joshua Tree is one thing. I'm talking about the one he started playing later - I have it on live tapes from 1993 and 2005.

It needs the whole structure of the song to change: going a few rounds in E but then into 4 x a big rock sequence of E-D-A-E. The (simple enough) bass is thus key in making it work. It's very much old time standard Hendrix rock type stuff, but this has an extra piquancy and appeal as the Edge isn't normally about that.

this gives you an idea of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6nzA5gtBUY
from c 2:15 to 3:00

though that's not the best rendition I've heard and I'm not sure the bass changes come out enough on the sound.

I have always found 'wire' magnificent
there is a remix of it on an old NME 7-inch from 1985
which I also have

yeah i got that too. very gang of 4/steve albini that track.

listened to 'achtung baby' recently. it still sounds superb but theres some wretched lyrics on that record.

to be frank I think the Edge slightly mucks up that solo, esp the end, but you can still see the idea.

I also like the muted part he adds around 3:30.

Love how it took Edge like 30 years to pull off some Guitar 101 blues solo! ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Go2DK9VtQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOhWSGbhxAo&feature=related

More like 15 years really - he was doing this version in 1992 - as you can see here from 2:20:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Lojsm-rAg&feature=related

Is it that easy to play a good blues-rock solo? I've been playing for 22 years and I can't do what he does on those videos.

Ha, I can't either, but I don't have his effects rig! I also suck. ;)

Okay, have gone and voted. My hate points were decided by looking at the most played tracks on last.fm and choosing the first one there that makes me want to kill.

I completely forgot about my hate vote! I'll send that now.

Most played top 15 if you need reminding:

Beautiful Day
With Or Without You
One
Sunday Bloody Sunday
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Vertigo
Where The Streets Have No Name
Elevation
New Year's Day
Mysterious Ways
Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of
City Of Blinding Lights
Walk On
Desire

I looked at those and I though 'hola!'

okay I wasn't going to do any campaigning but have you ppl not actually heard "Elvis Ate America"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XF_hxuMMcI

We're beyond twenty ballots now, which was my target for the whole thing being viable - so thanks to you all (so far). Every ballot now can only make things better.

Anybody who's stuck could do a lot worse than just listing all of the first album and then figuring out nine more tracks.

I mean, there are songs in the U2 catalog I hate (hi dere "Angel of Harlem") but NOTHING can approach "Elvis Ate America" in terms of awfulness

I have never listened to that song as the title is just perfect as a standalone.

Huh. I only voted for 4 (maybe 5) of last.fm's most-played songs. I wasn't trying to be strictly-4-tha-headz and I love most of them when I hear them live but I guess they don't resonate that deeply with me.

Is Elvis Ate America the poem? That reeks.

"Who's gonna ride your wild horses?" remains one of the dumbest lyrics they have, imo. Worse than "a mole digging in a hole elevate your soul" or whatever it was.

don't make me post the "lyrics" to "Elvis Ate America"

No no no do it
U2 can take it

I'm with you re. the lyrics on that song. "Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World" is a pretty dumb lyric too; I groaned the first time I heard the "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" line because that's the kind of the bullshit I'd see in corporate & doctor & teacher offices, just awful bumper-sticker material, & Bono doesn't pull it off with any irony.

xp to La Lechera; "Elvis Ate America" is also horrible but way less high profile so I give it a pass.

omg the "arms around the world" thing was SO embarrassing to me when i first heard it. euler totally otm.

this is what made me unable to accept the "ironic Bono" that you guys seem able to love. i liked U2 the way they were at the time, and relied on them for something, and then they started being posers, i guess. i realize that for some people they were always posers, but not for me. i entered U2ville right when they were huge and then dug backwards and stayed there, for better or worse.

Here are the lyrics to "Elvis In America". The only thing worse than the lyrics are the song used to deliver them, which I linked upthread. Marvel at how it just gets progressively worse as it goes along:

Elvis... white trash
Elvis... the Memphis flash
Elvis... didn't smoke hash
Would've been a sissy without Johnny Cash

Elvis... didn't dodge the draft
Elvis... had his own aircraft
Elvis... having a laugh
On the Lisa Marie in a colour photograph

Elvis... under the hood
Elvis... with Cadillac blood
Elvis... darling bud
Flowered and returned to the Mississippi mud

Elvis... ain't gonna rot
Elvis... in a Memphis plot
Elvis... he didn't hear the shot
And Dr. King died just across the lot from...

Elvis... vanilla ice cream
Elvis... girls of fourteen
Elvis... the Memphis spleen
Shooting TVs reading Corinthian's 13

Elvis... with God on his knees
Elvis... owned three TVs
Here come the killer bees
Head full of honey potato chips and cheese
Elvis... the bumper stickers
Elvis... the white knickers
Elvis... the white nigger
Ate at king burger and just kept getting bigger

Elvis... sang to win
Elvis... the battle hymn
Elvis... the battle to be slim
Elvis ate America before America ate him

Elvis...

Elvis... stamps
Elvis... necromance
Elvis... fans
Elvis... psychophants
Elvis... the public enemy
Elvis... don't mean shit to Chuck D.
Elvis... changed the center of gravity
Made it slippy

Elvis... Hitler
Elvis... Nixon
Elvis... Christ
Elvis... Mishima
Elvis... Markus
Elvis... Jackson
Elvis... the pelvis
Elvis... the psalmist
Elvis... the genius
Elvis... generous
Elvis... forgive us
Elvis... pray for us
Elvis... Aaron
Elvis... Presley

I don't have much of a problem with that marginal track - what I WOULD like is for 'Elvis Presley and America' to have better words. That could be called a wasted opportunity.

Elvis... stamps
Elvis... necromance
Elvis... fans
Elvis... psychophants
Elvis... the public enemy
Elvis... don't mean shit to Chuck D.
Elvis... changed the center of gravity
Made it slippy

WOW

Elvis ... changed the conversation
Elvis ... in many parts of the nation

OF AMERICA.

Elvis... owned three TVs

Oh shit me too, hi five EAP

I keep waiting for Bono to sing, "Elvis....was fat."

xp I always took Elevation's "mole" lyric as deliberately goofy but I guess people don't see any goofiness in Bono. If that line was in a New Order lyric people would find it adorable.

some people are allowed to giggle and others are not

elvis would have known that

I just genuinely can't fathom how he's playing all the notes that he does on 'bad', for instance (think of the highest note on the opening chord), without a capo (I managed it with a high capo + C shape the other day, but he's not doing that on that video, no capo. ditto I finally nailed 'pride' with a capo and a D shape but that doesn't fit what he's doing either).

I've seen an interview with him where he mentions the fact that he's got a slightly deformed little finger on his left hand, which allows him to stretch to frets that most people can't reach.

xp That's true. Just because you can write a line doesn't mean you can sing it.

Kool G Rap shares the "Drowning Man" love.

done. didn't expect to vote in this tbh as been a bit of a hata over the years but thought why not and surprised myself by finding 20 songs i quite like, some of them quite a bit. nice memories of listening to 'the joshua tree' in my dad's car too.

"Bad" is pretty badass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zIW8qDPhos

I haven't received it xp - have you sent it yet?

(anyone else: I've acknowledged every one I've received, if you haven't had an email from me, holler)

mine? really, it says 'sent'. right, just forwarded again.

Your second email bumped it through, thanks.

:)

Yeah "Elvis Ate America" is unbelievably awful. They should have quit after one Elvis + America song.

For anyone too timid to search for it, here it is. HOW TRULY HORRIBLE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW-C8GQguMw

Quick question... should we add notes to our picks? I've got my twenty, but am wondering how much annotation to write...

Bloody hell, I was just such a big dumb fan of this band.

No annotations, please - just be here on Friday for the results thread. Appraisals, anecdotes and abuse belong there.

I have a couple of questions. I was going to rephrase them to make them seem less lame than they are, but what the hell:

• Is Bono attractive? Seeing him as a young man I can totally imagine that the hair, the passion and the charisma would make men want to be him. But would women want him? He's been getting ropier since, I can see that.

• How Irish are U2? There are a few obvious references like An Cat Dubh, Sunday Bloody Sunday, or the arrangement on Tomorrow. What I mean is - are there other resonances that mean a lot locally but that the rest of us might not be getting?

- my wife still has a mad crush on Bono; I find this unfathomable

- there's also the gaelic bit at the end of 'Another Time, Another Place'; all the onstage waving of the tricolour that they used to do; the ruins of (?) Slane Castle on the cover of The Unforgettable Fire - a lot of this stuff was ditched from The Joshua Tree onwards.

Oh shit, I forgot about that Bono & Clannad song.

I think Bono is less attractive than many pop stars have been

but then, many pop stars are not attractive to me

especially the male ones.

But even by those standards

I think he has not been that attractive

He is very small, this may possibly not help.

Yes, early U2: Ireland

later: not so much, occasional returns like 'Please'

But there is also a genuine lingering enigma here I think -- that the Edge's guitar playing DOES often seem to encode a Celtic flavour even when he's not playing on Celtic material - when he's not playing big blues-guitar solos, that is.

I feel that this is not wholly intentional - I feel that it is a strange case of a kind of cultural DNA operating - as though 'traditional music' went into the Edge and came out without his especially intending it.

The claim sounds like hokum and something I would not normally buy, but I think the musical evidence is there, though I can't point to examples on the spot.

The outro of 'Mofo' might be an example -- the big heavy dance number moves into something else as he sprinkles guitar on the fade.

BTW Johnny Marr has talked of growing up surrounded by trad Irish music
and people have made a lot of 'please please please' etc and tried to say he's an Irish guitarist

but really this pales next to the Edge - the comparison shows how marginal the influence is on Marr
it's like in the Edge that really DID happen
wasn't just a critical fantasy.

That's interesting, I'll open my ears for that. It's more than that the effects he uses bring to mind a kind of pipey/flutey celtic atmosphere, I take it?

I also wondered about them treating faith as a fundamental, serious question; certainly with religion early on but throughout their career in various ways I suppose. It seems to me, though I can't really think of an equivalent, that British bands would not have camped on that territory in that way.

Yes, IK, it is the notes he plays.

And yes, the 'faith' business works from an Irish background (ie: you can get away with it) as it wouldn't here - I think that's a good observation.

Bono has done all this 'reading the Gospels together' business with extreme right-wing US senators. I wonder if he has done the same with the surely less malign Cliff Richard?

Well, I suppose the Edge did cop a bit from the Skids, who were not Irish but whose music did glimmer with a little bit of that stuff. But really, it seems to me the Irish stuff, what there was, went out after "War." Unlike a band like, say, Midnight Oil, which remained Aussie-centric til the end.

I can't think of two more different guitarists than Johnny Marr and the Edge, in almost every single regard.

If you mean Irish stuff disappears in lyrics, images, etc, yes

(though lots of exceptions: Van Diemen's Land, Please, Peace On Earth, Hands That Built America, Breathe)

If you mean it disappears from the guitars as I tried to suggest, then obviously I disagree

I could think of many, many guitarists more different from each other than Marr and the Edge, in many significant regards.

I think the Edge himself makes this fairly clear on the Yentob Imagine video that's on youtube, where he says there are gunslingers vs sidemen, the latter are about 'supporting the whole song', and aligns himself with Keith Richards & Marr in this group.

I think he is broadly correct here (in fact so much so that it's a bit of a truism, a bit of an easy unsurprising victory, like a lot of what the Edge says)

I don't mean his general role, I mean his style. I would align Edge with Keith, sure, but not Marr, at all. Nor would I align Keith with Marr, either. That's just crazy talk. Though I concede all three do play guitars.

The people that I hear in the Edge's guitar playing are Tom Verlaine (especicially in the earlier stuff e.g. check out the solo in 'Another Time, Another Place') and John Martyn (don't know if they used any of the same gear, but some of Martyn's echoplex stuff certainly has sonic similarities to the Edge circa The Unforgettable Fire)

Marr has always said, for about 25 years, that KR is his model of the guitar player, and that kind of thing. Undoubtedly he sees himself as in that bracket or tradition. He could hardly have been more explicit about it - he called 'Bigmouth' 'my Jumping Jack Flash'. I think the way KR moves between rhythm and lead (an old guitarist friend once told me that KR had made the distinction redundant) is pertinent.

In fact I think Marr and KR are closer than they are to The Edge. Mainly because Marr had a bit more of a blues / rock / twang tradition in his play ('nowhere fast', 'vicar in a tutu', 'queen is dead' etc) at a time when the Edge seemed more about purity of scales and textures (though the Edge did later join the rhythm & blues party somewhat with 'the Fly' etc).

Is Bono attractive? Seeing him as a young man I can totally imagine that the hair, the passion and the charisma would make men want to be him. But would women want him? He's been getting ropier since, I can see that.

Going to say no, not really. Appealing in some way, sure, but not attractive. His hair was horrible, he's self-absorbed, and like I said before, I could never get over feeling betrayed by the terrible lyrics on Achtung Baby. Larry was (and let's face it, remains) pretty hot. My choice was always The Edge (TM). He's quiet, thoughtful, skilled, and not prone to embarrassing himself.

Also, he goes by a pseudonym: THE EDGE

Dave 'take me to the Edge of' Evans

hahahaha
I put Van Diemen's Land on my list, I'll put it that way.

he also sang 'seconds'

and seems to have written most of 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' according to that film?

and he 'sang' 'Numb'

and ... ?

he's actually quite a good singer considering all the things he does at the same time

whereas Bono is one of the worst guitar players ever to be a rock star and pretend to be able to play guitar.

see, he's the best

How come nobody's mentioned Adam? I'd've thought he & Larry have this all sewn up.

Has everyone seen that Brian Eno quote about Larry Mullen's timekeeping (before I go looking through old popbitch emails for it)?

nope

Here it is:

Brian Eno told a story about U2 drummer, Larry Mullen. When he was producing All That You Can't Leave Behind, Eno gave Mullen a click track (computer generated beat) to play drums over, as a way of keeping everything in synch. Mullen swore the click track wasn't right, and refused to play over it. Eventually Eno adjusted it - but just to humour the drummer, as he knew it couldn't be at fault. Except he later found Mullen was right. The click was off - by six milliseconds!

"The thing is," said Eno, "when we were adjusting it I once had it two milliseconds to the wrong side of the beat, and he said, 'No, you've got to come back a bit.' Which I think is absolutely staggering."

wau!

Yep. For the curious, the original source is the New Yorker, April 25, 2011 issue.

I like that.

I like Larry's seriousness, his simplicity, a kind of puritan focus that is also youthful or childlike.

Might be a daft question, but if he was so shit hot, why did he need a click track?

it sounds like eno was foisting it on him

he of little faith in the robotic shit hottness of larry mullen

If I had a head like yours I'd bleedin' bury it

I was reading about Larry and click tracks last night! He never used one 'til he was convinced to do so by Andy Newmark from Sly & The Family Stone, who swore by them. I still don't think he likes it though.

Nate's story is better.

Yeah I was reading that story this morning too, it's on the wikipedia entry for Boy or October, I think. It's what reminded me of the Eno story.

On the other hand, Adam went for bass lessons in the mid 90s

my wife still has a mad crush on Bono; I find this unfathomable

Ha! I was working in a record store when the tree album came out, and I had a huge crush on my manager, and she had a schoolgirl-swoon crush on Bono--she was like Elaine's "Desperado"-loving boyfriend whenever we played it in the store, completely zoned out and oblivious to the world. I'm sure that contributed greatly to my U2 problem.

Hey ladies

http://www.wnd.com/images2/bono.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Mp_K0c6kJkk/Tb2e8f71gBI/AAAAAAAACPQ/QnSI-M6DLs8/s400/bono.jpg
http://www.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/bono.jpg

he looks like robin williams in bad convenience store sunglasses

STILL, I understand the raw power of a residual schoolgirl crush. I do.

24 hours to go, and 31 ballots received. Well, 29 and two runts. So vote, and vote now.

Excellent stuff, but still plenty of scope for change. Not that I've done an interim count or anything, but my feeling is that it's pretty close between half-a-dozen tracks at the top. There certainly won't be a runaway winner.

I'm still going through my absurd relisten to their entire catalog, including most b-sides, remixes, & a few live albums also. It's a lot of material! Some of it's really good! Much is so-so, as you'd expect from a band in its fourth decade. I'm guessing my ballot is more or less finalized now, but I'm still moving songs around, with a big change this morning after relistening to 1987's finest.

I promise to be underwhelmed if your top three is the opening three tracks from The Joshua Tree, in order.

I've never liked "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". No relistens can redeem ending a sentence with a preposition.

There was a tv show on the ten-year anniversary of Live-Aid and they interviewed the girl Bono pulled from the audience. She was pretty embarrassed about it, didn't seem to have been too happy about being picked and complained about Bono being "all sweaty."

really regretting not putting 'an cat dubh/into the heart' on my ballot. Been listening to 'Boy' today a lot and it's just magnificent.

Speaking of that, I hope people are giving "Twilight" its proper respect on their ballots.

i did!

I feel a little bad I hosed a lot of the early stuff on my ballot, since it meant a lot to me at one point, but Fire/Joshua Tree/Achtung/Zooropa are my adult faves by far.

xpost Actually, in part to humor Larry, the click tracks the band/producers use, as such, are usually in the form of percussion, tambourines, etc, that often even get left in the final mixes. They're organic, not just some drum machine pittering away.

Once again re: Marr et al., what Marr was saying about Keith Richards and "Jumping Jack Flash" was not at all that he had Keith's playing in mind, but specifically that when it came to "Bigmouth" he wanted to write a rousing, unabashed anthem in the vein of "Jumping Jack Flash." I mean, almost every guitarist is influenced by Keith, to some degree, but Marr is not really that guy. Edge, on the other hand, is, especially when it comes to his "lead rhythm" approach (which is also not unlike that of Pete Townshend). Just saying. It's kind of a pointless point of contention, anyway.

Per Larry, I think lots of drummers would notice odd shifts in tempo and stuff, but given the guy's largely been relegated to timekeeping mode, I can imagine he's more sensitive than most. The click track, btw, is less for the drummer and more for the rest of the guys, who may be working on overdubs or redoing parts separate from the drum tracks. The click lets them all sync up smooth when they mix the whole track together.

Bono's proclamations on "official" live tracks are ripe for results thread title, e.g. "Sing this with me, this is 40 top U2 songs".

I say "sing this with me, this is 40" entirely too often for my own scrutability by, well, anyone at this point.

I just sent my ballot, and hope that a few of you made room for, well, "Your Blue Room."

not much of a song, but it's a nice atmosphere

DOn't know that song, but is the title another Bowie reference?

Thanks for the click track explanation btw Josh.

he wanted to write a rousing, unabashed anthem in the vein of "Jumping Jack Flash."
IIRC he refered to this song as the kind of comeback/return song he wanted Bigmouth to be.

ah, from wikipedia:

Johnny Marr is said to have wanted an explosive, searing single, along the lines of The Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash", to announce that The Smiths had returned from hiatus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS4hJabqRc4

Your Blue Room is a Passengers song and it's one of my favourite discoveries here. I'm afraid I cut it late on though. 'Nobody else is going to like that', I thought.

If someone said that the first 3 tracks from The Joshua Tree were their 3 favourite tracks then I would not feel able or willing to argue with them, at all.

I think that by my own particular lights, which I have no desire to shine harshly in others' eyes, they may be the greatest 'first 3 tracks' ever to appear on an LP in the pop era.

"With Or Without You" wrecked me this morning; it had been years since I'd listened to it, but what a track, so strange sounding a single, as the band knew well. I thought of your points re. the Irishness of the band when listening to the synths in the opening of the song this morning, pinefox.

Those synths introduced Brian Eno to a lot of people.

"Your Blue Room" live...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1RBxyTeanI

synths? I thought the whistling melody at the start was the Infinite Guitar; unless you mean the beautiful tinkling sound.

to Josh in Chicago: sure, Marr said that specifically about 'Bigmouth'. But that's just one instance of his attitude to Keith Richards. Look up any interview asking who his favourite guitarists are. I don't think there's much doubt that KR would be a model for him. This is not controversial stuff. It's what you Americans call 'Marr 101', or maybe '102' or '202' or whatever (we do not have these educational terms in my country).

To be sure, we can also name as major guitarists for Marr Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Nils Lofgren (am I imagining that?), Roger McGuinn, Bert Jansch, and others. But not, I think, The Edge.

btw also, Bono wrote 'silver & gold' after an encounter with KR and, I think, Ron Wood where he realized he 'didn't have any songs' and missed the rest of the band. (I think it was a bit feeble of him not to have reflected more on his own band's particularity pre-1985/6.)

To be sure, we can also name as major guitarists for Marr Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Nils Lofgren (am I imagining that?), Roger McGuinn, Bert Jansch, and others. But not, I think, The Edge.

John McGeoch! Marr has said so himself.

If it's the Infinite Guitar I'm thinking of (I'm not sure), then that's even more in comport with your point, since it would be the Edge & not Eno behind it.

I know the high, piercing notes are guitar; I'm talking about those swirls that are obviously keyboards adorning the verses.

Having said the above, I should turn around, think again and add: listening to Keith Richards doesn't really give you much of an idea what Johnny Marr sounds like.

One of JM's distinctions is that, though he was so classicist and in a sense derivative, I can't think of ANY prior guitarist that sounds like his great work -- the sound is a new signature. And I think the same is true of The Edge, for all the accusations of derivativeness etc that were thrown at him.

btw also, Bono wrote 'silver & gold' after an encounter with KR and, I think, Ron Wood where he realized he 'didn't have any songs' and missed the rest of the band. (I think it was a bit feeble of him not to have reflected more on his own band's particularity pre-1985/6.)

Not quite. "Silver And Gold" was written for Artists United Against Apartheid Sun City album and the original recording on that album is Bono + Richards + Wood. U2 later recorded their own version of it.

I was thinking of the both the high notes that evidently are guitar & the swirls; I don't have enough of a muso ear to tell the difference.

during the opening & opening verse, I mean

Yeah, that's Infinite Guitar at the start of "With or Without You," which was invented by Michael Brook and Daniel Lanois (roomates at the time), and which actual gets a credit in the liners of "The Joshua Tree." Though to be fair, it's not that different in concept from Frippertronics.

Marr also big ups James Honeyman-Scott a lot. This website is killer: http://www.smithsonguitar.com/

"“The main thing I took from Keith Richards was his musical ideology; that there is a nobility in playing rhythm guitar and being the engine room and steering the ship, all these very valorous concepts which he threw in the face of guitar culture in the early ’70s.”"

Elvis, I have the Sun City tape with the original version, though can't say I've played it much -- I still think the story is true, unless it's not.

Then there's the great U2 studio version whose solo is different again from the also fantastic 'play the blues' solo of R&H.

by 'solo' I mean 'lead guitar to fade'

I need to hear that again now.

Rare unexpected Edge guitar noise terrorism, btw, at the end of "One Tree Hill."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BK2MhvQiBo

Another thing I didn't vote for: I've really been digging A Man And A Woman. It would grace Electronic, speaking of Johnny Marr.

I just sent my ballot, and hope that a few of you made room for, well, "Your Blue Room."
--livin in my own private Biden hole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

I was tempted to make it my #1 just to give it a chance to chart. Nice to see I'm not alone in affection for this one.

& now I hear the little tinkling arpeggios more clearly---I'd never fixed on them before but now they're so loud.

I need to learn to listen to music as closely as you all.

Lots of Edge/U2/Sinead soundtrack collabs: "Heroine," "You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart," "I'm Not Your Baby" ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiWZ5bzcdaM&feature=related

the tinkling whatever they ares (keyboard I would think) are one of my favourite things in pop history.

I don't really like 'your blue room' but I quite like the very off-centre solo at the end (when I think Adam C talks).

I think 'one tree hill' is a bit botched, as a production - interesting things are buried, like the Edge playing the blues. It came out, for me, a bit more clearly when I heard the version they did on new year's eve 1989 and the Edge played those blue notes a bit more frontally. I like the track (it's in my top 20!) but really think it's muddy and a bit underachieved. I walked through St Stephen's Green listening to it last month and confirmed this view.

'a man and a woman' is a rarity, a late U2 LP track with real character, distinction; catchy, poppy, dramatic, corny -- very good indeed, I think, and slightly lost in most accounts of their career. I think there's a Yeats touch, as Buck Mulligan says, on it somewhere. 'Soul needs beauty for a soulmate' and, if I remember aright, 'rent' as in ripped?

Lots of good Edge guitar leads here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2kWgm-0xmM

What I've always liked about Marr is that even though he's open about his influences (sometimes explicitly so) it's never too obvious unless you trace it backwards. "The Queen Is Dead" title track was apparently a direct spin-off from VU's "I Can't Stand It" but I never would have guessed that until Marr pointed it out in an interview. Now it makes sense.

Seriously, check out that website I linked to. It has song by song descriptions of what he claims to be copping, and rarely does the final product sound anything like what he claims to be ripping off!

if that 'one tree hill' is the new year's eve one (at the Point) then that's nice.

the 'one tree botched' idea would support my other larger sense that The Joshua Tree is oddly experimental / improvised / live / organic / rough for a massive selling international #1 LP -- obviously Eno / Lanois the obvious explanation.

(though this thing can happen with oddly big records - in a different way, BORN IN THE USA is strangely rough too, for its status)

Then there's the great U2 studio version whose solo is different again from the also fantastic 'play the blues' solo of R&H.

Yeah, it's on the b-side to the "Where The Streets Have No Name" single. That version of S&G actually got some airplay - certainly here in LA.

Seriously, check out that website I linked to.

I'm well familiar with that website... Was going to post it here, but you beat me to it.

Guitar on that 'One Tree Hill' sounds very Will Sergeant to me.

Like, "How Soon is Now?" is apparently CCR/Gun Club's "Run Through the Jungle" plus Can's "I Want More," plus Bo Diddley, plus these two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7XBDaodo1g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3tuJ4qFmxY

!!!

Anyway, sorry to derail.

"True love never can be rent
But only true love can keep beauty innocent"

is meant to be Yeatsian, I'm sure.

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/a-man-and-a-woman-lyrics-u2/4f73f1112f2ecf0c48256f2000063ddf

Elvis, I'm playing the B-side 'silver & gold' now.
I like the guitars on it a lot.
It was never a big thing here, prior to the film showing the song off.

I'm really just waiting for the solo.

someone should stick up for 'race against time'.

There's also a 'rent from this land'/'rent the soil' (or something like that) in Van Diemen's Land

Isn't the word 'tear'?

tear their hands as they tear the soil.

S&G: The solo starts about 4:16 then fades.

Josh, I went to Simon Goddard talking about Smiths in 2005, and he laboriously went through these influences - piling them up but each time he'd repeat the whole list of what they were. It was sort of educational for me, nonetheless.

Part of the point no doubt is: you try to sound like X and end up sounding like Q, and that's creativity.

'Mona', though, is an OBVIOUS reference point - via the take on THE ROLLING STONES' first LP, featuring guess who. I heard that in 1994 and thought I'd happened on the secret source of 'how soon is now?'.

Really wanted to vote for Paul McGuinness as the worst song/aspect of U2.

Isn't the word 'tear'?

¡Ay! (though there is also a 'to be rent from one so dear', thank goodness)

The click track, btw, is less for the drummer and more for the rest of the guys, who may be working on overdubs or redoing parts separate from the drum tracks. The click lets them all sync up smooth when they mix the whole track together.

While I was composing my top 20 list last night I was listening to a recording of the in-ear monitor feed from the Denver show this year (it's on D1m3 if you want to hear) and was shocked at just how much clicking/countdowning is going on. Hell, on "Even Better Than The Real Thing" and "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me" there are countdowns to the chord changes. I wanted to shout out "c'mon guys, you know how to play this" at them.

Yeah, though, it's like the national anthem in a stadium: you may think you know it, and you may know it, but factor in acoustics, noise, flashing lights, fans, and it's a wonder these dudes don't screw up more often. I saw Paul McCartney on Sunday, and he joked about how he looks out from the stage and sees all the signs and has to focus: "Paul, don't read the signs!" Then he gives in and starts to read the signs, anyway. And then he messes up or flubs a lyric.

I'm not familiar with the website you mention, but try a recording of U2 at Wembley 8.1993: they're on 'real thing' and during the solo Clayton casually forgets a whole load of bars, goes into the solo and makes the Edge discordant and scrambling to find a new way to get back to the song without it all collapsing.

later Bono goes into the chorus of 'babyface' while it's the verse, and spends the rest of the line pretending it's a new alternative verse

etc

let me say that I have a lot of time for Josh in Chicago who buys expensive tickets to U2 and Paul McCartney. This is what one should do.

But U2 are very very different from Macca - he's always been a pro, never really made a mistake in 50 years, whereas U2, however long they go, can't get it together. It's one of the real oddities of the band, how they can't play their own songs without basic errors.

and makes the Edge discordant and scrambling to find a new way to get back to the song without it all collapsing.

And that's precisely the point where Edge's playing gets interesting for me... I like his playing a lot and he's probably the biggest influence on me as a guitarist, but I wish he would allow himself to play the wrong notes on occasion.

See also: Mark Knopfler vs. Richard Thompson.

xpost Ha, I don't pay!!!! One should most definitely not do that, if they can swing it.

Mark Knopfler vs. Richard Thompson.

Which of these guys are you saying plays wrong notes!?

Do you mean that Knopfler has this more exploratory style, more ... tentative, for lack of a better word, whereas Thompson just rips out these perfect blow your mind leads like they're nothing to him?

Case in point... that crazy background harmonic bashing going on in "Surrender." You don't really hear it in the studio version as it's rightly in the background, but whenever I saw them play it live he'd really free himself up and go bananas. You can sorta hear it in version on Under A Blood Red Sky.

Knopfler is the one who's too controlled.

I like him.

Elvis, do you like the solo at the end of 'dancing barefoot'? I do, always did, since that song first surprised me.

just listened to all those 1989 covers and can't see any objection to them, save from someone who just doesn't like U2 anyway. if you like U2, they seem to be very good; don't think I'll ever hear a better 'unchained melody', certainly not a better 'dancing barefoot'. guess there are just the 3 covers.

Most played top 15

On pure vote-from-the-heart impulse, I initially picked three of the best tracks from All That You Can't Leave Behind--"Beautiful Day," "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of," and "Walk On"--as my Top 3. I eventually moved the last one down my ballot in a fit of strategy, but now wish I hadn't. They're the songs, it seems to me, that they were trying to write their whole career.

They're the songs, it seems to me, that they were trying to write their whole career.
--Pete Scholtes

This, to me, is like saying the Rolling Stones spent 30 years working up to "Love Is Strong" and "The Worst"

i voted for a few later tracks, but only "Beautiful Day" from that album -- i liked "Walk On" for the first time hearing it live but in general that and "Stuck" are bland tripe imo

Beautiful Day is their finest late-career song.

Stuck In a Moment... is probably their best late-career "slow" song.

Walk On is, next to Mysterious Ways, one of the two worst tracks that have ever appeared on a proper U2 record (not including Elvis Ate America).

voted

but not for anything in this millennium

My two current millenium picks were "Beautiful Day" and "All Because Of You"

certainly not a better 'dancing barefoot'

Enh, I still think The Church's cover of this is better but that's something you'd know I'd say anyway.

Potential side-poll idea... songs you would like U2 to cover. My vote: "Cortez The Killer"

I'm not a big enough Stones fan to get the references, but the songs are live staples (don't know if that's the case with the Stones ones), and like I suggested upthread, I came around to them slowly and reluctantly. (In fact, I don't think I instantly loved a U2 album after 1983 except Zooropa.) "Stuck" to me is just timeless pop/soul about getting over despair, but then I also still love "Sunday Bloody Sunday." (On-the-nose can be a spine-tingling thing when put right.) "Walk On" is a more poetic and evocative update of "Pride" without its blunt force, maybe because it was dedicated to a living hero rather than a dead one, and could as easily be about death.

Beautiful Day is their finest late-career song.

Agreed. When that song came out, I was like OK, now they're trying. I really liked it! I've enjoyed this song on occasion. But then? I started to feel manipulated again. Clearly I have trust issues wrt U2.

i've never not felt like someone was pulling strings when i enjoyed a U2 song, it's not really a problem for me

I'm not proud of being such a naive earnest U2 fan, but here I am :-/

The production of "Beautiful Dady" is sooooo chintzy. I was so let down when I learned Lanois-Eno produced it: the verse melodies are lame, therefore the chorus has the unfair job of trying to lift a limp song.

*Day

i didn't like "Beautiful Day" initially because of the way the booming live drums on the chorus still end up kind of mixed lower than or sharing equal space with the gently ticking snare loop from the verses, but it's grown on me, i think it's a pretty cool-sounding track.

xp Alfred: Wait, aren't you a Taylor Swift fan? I hear a huge influence there. And the verses are as singalong as any U2--the "been all over you" is an all-stadium moment. And there are like three choruses. But yeah, I had the same initial reaction.

Chinzy nu-U2-style production is the template for pretty much all MOR pop and rock these days, from country to Christian.

Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono though; and the production of Speak Now is arena done right.

I'm gonna throw "Beautiful Day" a vote for its chorus, an über-U2 moment, but the times I heard the song, on lowish bit rate mp3, I was convinced the tinny sound was an artifact of the rip. Once I got the album I was puzzled that that was how the opening & verses really sounded.

otm

Didn't vote for it, but I could have easily voted for "Electrical Storm," which makes me wonder what William Orbit (MIA? RIP?) would have done with latter-day U2.

"Electrical Storm" is one of my favorite Lost Singles.

plus it had Larry semi-naked at the beach.

lol

Boy George had a quip: "When Bono sang 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for,' I used to say, 'Turn around, he's right behind you!'"

adam knows

Aside... have to mention "The Three Sunrises" as another great Lost Track. I gave it a vote.

Confessions of a teenaged U2 fan part 1...
I don't want to sound like a "the music of my youth was so much better MAAAAANNN" guy, but holy shit there were a lot of great records released in October 1980: Remain In Light, Black Market Clash, In The Flat Field, Telekon, Organization, More Specials, Kilmanjaro, The River, Dirty Mind (though I wouldn't know about that for a couple years), Making Movies, I Just Can't Stop It, The Black Album, Zenyatta Mondatta (confessions of a teenaged Police fan will have to wait). I remember hearing "I Will Follow" somewhere in the middle of all that. I kinda liked the song but it never made a big impact on me. I kept thinking that it sounded like Joy Division with a couple pots of coffee - all furious drums and bass with just enough guitar to glue it together but man did Bono's "YOUUURRRRRR EYYEEESSS" yelping bug me*. At the time I never would have believed that they would go on to be one of the biggest bands ever. Really? Those guys? You would have an easier time convincing me that Ride would huge on the sole basis of "Chelsea Girl." I never did get around to picking up Boy as the stereo I had so carefully pieced together from garage sale finds over the summer was sidelined* so U2 was, with apologies to Douglas Adams, "just this band you know."

I remember reading a Robert Hilburn column around then and... ah forget it, fuck him and fuck everything he's written as he's done more to make me a disillusioned U2 fan than U2 themselves.

*I was 15 years old - just old enough to demand authenticity from my rock stars. Mad scientist new wavers and punks were, of course, exempt.

**I had just put on side two of Who Are You when Jim D. barged into my dorm room and shouted "it's fucking 'Trick Of A Light' you have to crank it LOUD!" and maxed out the volume as far as it could go. The speakers didn't just blow out, they smoked - frying the speaker transducers to slag. Motherfucker just said "oops, sorry" and never offered to replace them. I just realized that I'm still sore about this.

I eventually liked "I Will Follow" but it'll have to wait until the next part.

Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono
Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono

^^ next-level trolling itt

its weird how stirring i found bono's bellowing on Pride (In the Name of Love) at one point, and how thoroughly that song bores me now - maybe its just radio overexposure

I think 'city of blinding lights' probably the best late-period U2 song

otherwise:
a man & a woman
beautiful day OK for the arpeggios
peace on earth, I like the melody
NEW YORK a big lost track
Miracle Drug
sometimes you can't make it? - maybe

I quite like the opening 2 cuts on NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
and maybe the best song on that is 'I'll go crazy if ...'

I bought that on double vinyl, if I played it now it might make me nostalgic for ... that heady, distant summer of ... 2009.

lol

@davidjriley98 Don't get me wrong, I like the band U2. and I give them more credit than Disturbed, since this is originally their Song, not saying their version or the band itself is bad, I just happen to like Disturbed's version a bit better.

RyanKenny59 9 hours ago

When U2 played in Glasgow a couple of years ago Bono stood on stage snapping his fingers and said, every time I snap my fangers astarving child somewhere in the world dies. Someone in the crowd shouted, Well stop snapping your fingers then you sick bastard.

alecahauf 1 month ago 14

:-D

That joke has appeared on every single internet comment thread about Bono since Live8 in 2005. It is to Bono threads what "dancing about architecture" is to threads about music criticism.

no... (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻ NO

have enjoyed reading this thread a lot

Will prob still go ahead and vote for last.fm most played tho.

U2 are dublin-irish, maybe middle-class irish, they're irish but they're afraid-to-milk-a-cow irish.

Would add Protestant to Dublin and middle-class (except maybe Larry?).

They don't wrap themselves in the flag nearly as much as these days - there's already somewhat of a backlash due to their tax-exile status so I think that may have some bearing on their reining it in. back in the 80s I remember them being held up as a source of national pride, I'm sure a lot of people still feel that way about them.

one aspect of their success that probably doesn't have much impact outside Ireland is the continuing influence of the coterie that came up with them. people like Gavin Friday, Guggi, and many of the Hot Press crew.

Taylor Swift is a better singer than latter-day Bono

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Thursday, August 4, 2011 2:09 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ next-level trolling itt

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.),

oh plz

oh man, that clique, hot press, just no.

Yeah, i think protestant is definitely in there too. None of it diminishes their irishness, just to be clear, but they're very much a specific type- i suppose that's true for anyone anywhere tbf.

FWIW i don't ever feel like they milked it or anything, yeah the tricolour but i mean cmon, yeah we wore them like a badge in the 80's but what else had we in the 80's, until ray houghton anyway. I was six when the joshua tree came out and i can still clearly recall how big a deal it was to have bonofied proper worldwide superstars back then. It's not like that's still not a novelty either.

Bono's always had his eye higher than winning over just ireland, so i don't think they ever really overdid that aspect.

The tax stuff, the fakery, the middle aged success merchants dressing badly and wooing the world, the desperation for currency (either way you like it tbh) and the cod-yet-not-cod religion- 100% irish, the boys done good.

lol well said DM, been waiting for your response since the question was posed tbh!

now if we can get sonofstan and localgarda to weigh in...

I've mentioned it before, but I found the most illuminating aspect of the Bill Flanagan book the financial stuff, the implication that U2 really didn't rake in the dough the way people thought they did. Hence the emergence of nu-U2, "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and beyond, where the band has been overtly aiming for hits and mega tours that fill the coffers several times over.

xp Pretty sure Bono is working-class - he certainly self-identifies as such. Not sure about Edge. Adam is disarmingly, unapologetically posh.

I voted for four "Rattle and Hum" tracks (all were in my top 12) -- I'm one of the only people on the board who defends that album so I figured I needed to back up my words. I also gave a high placing to "Numb", which I've always felt was their most underrated single.

i coudn't imagine bono is working-class tbh, but i mean in ireland there are so many social factors that rival or outright beat that for importance

Stoney Batter

His dad was a postal worker - not sure where postal workers fit into the Irish class system but middle-class sounds like a stretch.

i believe that was a full review of the chippy up by landsdowne rd

postal worker, pension, public sector

I think it might be a stretch, but a small one tbh.

not sure where postal workers fit into the Irish class system

Either second class or parcel post, depending on weight iirc.

The other thing you learn in that book is that, appearances aside, Bono is apparently very smart.

Bono has talked some nonsense on stage and all that, but he's clearly intelligent. His sheer eloquence reminds me of Seamus Heaney's. Both have done whole books made of interviews, and I daresay neither needed a lot of rewriting to smarten up the sentences. They are phenomenal characters in this respect.

Adam is disarmingly, unapologetically posh.

Favorite moment in the American-football "Stuck in a Moment" video is him reading the Irish Times sports section through the game.

that's not posh, that's knowing good sports writing

and say what you like in other regards about bono, i don't think his intelligence is much in question.

hey, i was only referring to his unfortunate styling when asked if he was "attractive". i totally believe that he's smart! that's a relief and a disappointment at the same time, really.

in ireland there are so many social factors that rival or outright beat (class) for importance

so otm. nonetheless, Bono's definitely middle-class imo.

not sure why Stoneybatter got a mention there? none of them are from around here iirc.

xp Eno was once asked about being seen as "the only intellectual in pop" and asked to name some others and he said "Bono, believe it or not." Bono loves having theories about things and some of them are nonsense but some of them are astute and you can always sense a sharp brain whirring away. He just has a bad filtering system and a fatal weakness for florid hyperbole.

^^^ the terrific thing about Bill Flanagan's book is how Flanagan collects enough of Bono's theories for the reader to judge how many of them are ridiculous.

U2 were my first real live Irish people whose names I knew. Before I listened to U2, I wasn't really sure what Ireland was like beyond the fact that it was very lush and green. I was a middle school kid in the Rust Belt and we had really only received formal instruction about one group of Europeans, The Explorers. Well, Explorers and Pilgrims. Maybe curriculum has changed since I was a kid, but we learned about the world in Geography class, not History class. The two intersected woefully rarely.

(I'm not proud of this or anything, just wanted to give some perspective re: Irishness from someone who knew literally nothing about Irishness before U2.)

Dunphy's UNFORGETTABLE FIRE says that Bono grew up in Stoney Batter.

oh right... i thought he was from Glasnevin

My mistake, I haven't read that book in over 2 decades:

he mentions Stoney Batter but says B's parents lived in Stillorgan then Ballymun, 'only a few minutes' drive from Stoneybatter'. I think he went to school in Glasnevin.

Bono grew up at 10 Cedarwood Road: Ballymun to the east, Glasnevin further south it appears.

'running to stand still' was supposed to be about a Ballymun estate I always thought.

It's all further out of Dublin than I imagined.

The father took early retirement and moved to Howth - funded by rock music I suppose.

anglo shares, cushy pension, sure they were all doing it matt

oh plz

Well it's true I refuse to bother with U2 post Passengers, but dude would have to have fallen off a lot. Taylor Swift outside a studio is like, anti-singing.

Hi all. I'd cleared the decks for a single-day countdown tomorrow but that's just been scuppered. Am now working tomorrow, at least the morning, so things will be slightly delayed. There was a bit of scepticism about the single-day thing anyway.

On the plus side we're now past 40 ballots, so how long / to count down these songs?

Still got 2 hours plus to vote no? Am on it.

Single-day countdowns are no fun. Spread it out a bit if you have time.

Deadline's in three-and-a-half hours, yes. Voting closes at high noon over Joshua Tree.

I'm going to stick to that, get the abacus out tonight.

How many you planning to reveal? 2-day rollout seems right. 10 per day for five days (Prince) seemed a bit too drawn out.

Depends what the hierarchy looks like - I honestly haven't started on it yet so I don't know. I'm guessing 40 ballots means a top 40 will work - there'll be no trawling through days of ties.

40 ballots is a good turnout

If it's 40 I'll probably do 20 on Monday and 20 on Tuesday.

hmm i'll try v hard to get one in just to shore up the middle

Twenty years ago, Bono described Achtung Baby as “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree” while Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that “stripped-down and defying its old formulas, U2 has given itself a fighting chance for the 1990's.” The album won a Grammy® Award for Best Rock Performance and became one of the most significant records of the nineties and of U2’s career.

To mark twenty years since its 1991 release, an anniversary edition of U2’s Achtung Baby is due on November 1, 2011, in the United States (internationally, October 31, 2011).

Recorded over six months at Hansa Studio in Berlin and Windmill Lane in Dublin, Achtung Baby is U2’s seventh studio album. Produced by longtime U2 collaborators, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno with Steve Lillywhite, Achtung Baby was engineered by Flood and led by “The Fly.” The album spawned four other singles: “Mysterious Ways,” “One,” “Even Better Than The Real Thing” and “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses.”

The Achtung Baby archives have unearthed some previously unreleased songs from the recording sessions. With a raft of unreleased material, video, remixes, b-sides and documentary footage discovered, a full album of demo and early versions of the final 1991 tracklisting has also been revealed. Five physical editions including vinyl, CD, DVD and digital options will be made available. Full details of all formats are at achtungbaby.u2.com.

Earlier this year U2 returned to Hansa Studio in Berlin to discuss Achtung Baby in From The Sky Down, directed by Academy Award®-winning director Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth). The film has been selected to open the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8 and will be included in the anniversary edition.

Voted!

80s: 13
90s: 7
00s: 0
10s: 0

AB 4
JT 3
R&H 3
ATYCLB 3
POP 3
Various 4

Two hours left, 43 ballots received.

http://monsterrebellion.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/bono_zoom.jpg

Now I too have done my part for democracy.

The sun is over the meridian. Thanks to all 44 of you who voted. Will get to counting.

Unnnhhh ... why oh why did I decide to attempt to use the .xls after all? I am not competent. In fairness it does get easier as you go along.

^ my way of saying that no way am I going to have this ready to go tomorrow. It'll be a Monday/Tuesday countdown by the looks. I'll try to think of some nice feature for the rundown in the meantime.

PS I am halfway through and eight points cover the top three.

hmm, not sure i'd want to predict what somgs those might be

with or without you
When love comes to town
Dancing queen

lol

looking thru my ballot it seems I like TUF and Boy exactly the same amount, TJT easily outstrips them both tho.

!!
http://achtungbaby.u2.com/?utm_source=Publicaster&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EMLU2COS_201100803_AchtungBaby&utm_term=http%3a%2f%2fachtungbaby.u2.com%2f&AID=1613

dan. try that again
http://achtungbaby.u2.com/images/top_image.jpg

i like the sound of this new doc/ DVD.

That looks like a Sears catalogue from 1981.

Without the bra section, surely.

It looks like a disassembled Transformer.

I hate that all these acts keep releasing awesome looking boxed sets years after I've more or less sworn off paying for expensive, awesome looking boxed sets. I'm looking at you, too, Smiths Pink Floyd, etc.

I do want these Achtung Baby extras -- but I bought the CD singles as they came out, and I have the LP on the original vinyl, still pretty pristine. It is funny that those things are now 'de luxe'.

The dvd would mean most to me because my really fantastic Achtung Baby video cassette won't seem to play on my video player.

not sure I can justify this one at all:
http://www.rhino.co.uk/store/products,the-smiths-complete-deluxe-collectors-boxset_39767.htm

again, some of us had the vinyl first time round!

pf i have it in my head that just about everything you possess is an antique, I can quite easily imagine a mahogany ipad

It looks like a disassembled Transformer.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, August 5, 2011 4:36 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

LOL!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cSIJd5KIL._SL500_AA300_.jpg http://www.u2rockband.com/postcards/images/bono/bono_makeup.jpg

I just had another thought re: U2 and Irishness and the USA.

Major detour here, but humor me:

I know "Oh, I just LOVE his accent, it's so SEXY" has been around since the dawn of time. And that it applies for nearly every discernible variant of world Englishes.
However.

There is a certain kind of American woman -- you may know the type or maybe not -- of a certain age, usually, who will just flip the fuck out for any old run of the mill dude with an Irish accent. I blame U2 for that. Colin Farrell, for instance, has benefited substantially from this.

Example: My old roommate, who was not a good judge of character by anyone's measure, once fell for this Irish guy who worked as a bartender in the college town where we lived. He was kind of coarse, nasty, and stupid - not someone I would want to socialize with much less date. Months she dated this guy, he came over, was a complete tool, and mostly just mooched off of us. Later, she found out that he was smoking crack while she was sleeping. THEN she found out that he *wasn't even Irish* and that he had been faking the accent. That's when she broke it off.

i don't think u2 has all that much to do with american chicks going nuts for any accent from the british isles

Another example: Lisa Simpson's Irish boyfriend!
Colin: I'm Colin.
Lisa Simpson: I haven't seen you at school
Colin: Just moved from Ireland. My dad's a musician.
Lisa Simpson: Is he...?
Colin: He's not Bono.
Lisa Simpson: I just thought because you're Irish and you care about...
Colin: He's NOT Bono.

(please note - i don't really "blame" U2 for this, nor do i think they or actual irish people have/had anything to do with my ex-roomie's super degenerate ex-boyfriend)

have been listening to ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND again
and to be honest I've been underwhelmed
though I still think a couple of good tracks turn up late on.

ATOMIC BOMB probably the reverse
it has at least 3 good ones in the first half (miracle drug, sometimes, blinding lights)
but the second half might be the worst half U2 have ever done, save 'a man and a woman'
I don't like how they strain for big choruses that just don't come off -
'original of the species'
and 'all because of you', so mystifyingly a 45.

we still haven't addressed NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
I wonder if I actually like that more?

'Hallelujah here she comes' underwhelmed me in 1989
maybe more to my taste now
though Desire Hollywood Remix is surely better!!

we still haven't addressed NO LINE ON THE HORIZON
I wonder if I actually like that more?

― the pinefox, Saturday, August 6, 2011 4:56 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i voted for "breathe"

There's good stuff on all the later albums, but they haven't really bedded down as a whole for me. Pop's the last one that feels like a project, rather than a bunch of songs (nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to get a handle on in the context of doing this).

I've finished the counting, incidentally. There's only one tie in the top fifty, so I'll probably go for that. There's also some stuff at 51-60 which I'd like to include, but you've got to draw a line somewhere.

Yeah "Breathe" is very good, and one of the best to hear in concert last year. "Magnificent" was also a good cut from that album. Otherwise, Horizon is probably their worst album, that or R&H. So many go nowhere songs. Sad too, because I felt like they wanted to do something different on that album, there are small moments where you feel like they are trying for new sounds or approaches. It quickly falls back on old habits, and doesn't have the tunes to boot.

"Your Blue Room" was one of the last cuts from my ballot. I've never really taken to the Passengers album apart from "Your Blue Room" and "Always Forever Now", but man, those two tracks are some of the best U2 has done. The latter would have fit like a glove on Zooropa (except maybe lyrically). And seeing "Your Blue Room" in concert was a genuine shock. I thought they themselves had forgotten that album.

yeah it was pretty goofy how No Line was preceded with a bunch of talk of an Achtung-style reinvention, and then when it came out it basically sounded like the last two albums minus the hits.

also lol @ just now learning that "I'll Go Crazy" was co-produced by will.i.am

This is super helpful to me, to get an idea of how to listen to the post-Pop albums (this is why *I* like to read critics!). I voted for two of the most obvious songs from this era, but the albums don't cohere to me either. I think it's largely their sound, the production etc.---I have the same problem with latter-day REM & I think it's that my ears don't hear enough modern rock for what's special about these sounds to stick; so even if there are hooks, they wash over me. Aging, I guess, but I don't hold my own perspective to be particularly important & would like to hear them differently, as I care enough about these artists to try to get what they're after (I trust them, in other words, for better or for worse).

I find current REM and U2 disappointing for the same reason, namely that both, I believe, are still so rich with potential. And yet the results are so middling, uneven or misbegotten. If REM needs to do an album in a church, sitting around in a circle or something, U2 needs to let a little more space back into the music, focus less on the charts or young people liking them and more on doing something weird and making young people like that.

Serious question: does it matter if neither band can? Bands have lifespans; they've had theirs.

I really admire Bowie for just stopping, y'know?

if ever there was a band that will never stop touring arenas and stadiums and releasing platinum albums until they start dropping dead, though, it's U2. obviously it's no travesty if they keep shitting up the charts with mediocre product, but it'd be nice if they made better records to justify all that attention.

also Bowie was churning out unremarkable album after unremarkable album for so long that i honestly didn't realize it'd been 8 years since the last one until you just mentioned it.

Does it matter? No, I guess it doesn't matter. But it does devalue the creative currency of both bands when their product starts to sound like product, especially since, as I noted, I believe both bands still have it in them to be great. Not every band does after that long. Then again, Eno has offered a very perceptive reveal of how U2 has long worked. The band writes in the studio, more or less hitting record and then working their way through dozens of permutations of at least that many sketches (you can hear this on Achtung Baby outtakes). Yet the band still works within a an external timeframe, and eventually has to finish the record (see: what happened with Pop). Therefore, admitted Eno, a U2 album's evolution is typically a series of creative ups and downs as songs get worked over again and again. If time runs out when things are great, great. If not, we get incomplete feeling misfires like the last album.

Bowie, it doesn't need to be said, had a good nearly 15 year run of classics before REM and U2 started making their cultural mark, so I'll happily concede the man his contemporary mediocrity. Keep in mind, too, that Bowie retired (probably) because he, you know, almost died.

U2's recorded legacy would probably benefit from if they were one of those bands who issued a collections of outtakes and alternate versions (or Passengers-type side projects) after every album or two.

I think they're one of those bands, like Rush (fittingly, the longest running stable line-up outside U2), that doesn't leave behind much in the way of detritus. Even the famed Achtung Baby outtakes are mostly just take after take of an evolving "Salome" - a b-side.

Side projects, on the other hand, I can get behind.

I don't actually think NO LINE is just a retread in the same mould as the previous 2. I think it does try to do different things. There's much more spoken-word stuff isn't there - 'stand up' and 'cedars of lebanon'? and that and 'white as snow' are newly muted.

But it might just be that it feels different to me cos I bought it on vinyl. I actually think I like it more than the previous 2, though, having made that vinyl-flipping effort.

I guess I agree with Josh that bands can get good again by simplifying things - Trinity Session style etc. It's a pity that that wouldn't work with U2: they're just not that good at playing music together, are they?

I love U2 and value what their creative process has issued, but I get frustrated by talk of 'writing in the studio', 'creative process', 'going away to the south of France for initial sessions, then relocating to New York to work together in a new way' etc ... because I have written many songs and I know all it needs (or WHAT it needs, as Chance in Rio Bravo might clarify) is a pen and paper and maybe an instrument to hand, for 15-30 bewildering minutes, no matter if it's a wet Wednesday in the same old town you grew up in. If you don't have that spark (and one usually doesn't) then the studio shenanigan thing is probably going to be a self-deceiving waste of time.

But it does devalue the creative currency of both bands when their product starts to sound like product, especially since, as I noted, I believe both bands still have it in them to be great.

Does it? Again, I hope I don't sound obtuse. That U2 keep churning out product (as they have since 2000) doesn't devalue by one cent Zooropa, Acthung Baby and the assorted singles and album tracks I consider their best work, in the same way that Stones albums don't devalue their classics.

Unless I'm not reading you correctly...?

also Bowie was churning out unremarkable album after unremarkable album for so long that i honestly didn't realize it'd been 8 years since the last one until you just mentioned it.

So has U2! But we won't agree here.

love U2 and value what their creative process has issued, but I get frustrated by talk of 'writing in the studio', 'creative process', 'going away to the south of France for initial sessions, then relocating to New York to work together in a new way' etc ... because I have written many songs and I know all it needs (or WHAT it needs, as Chance in Rio Bravo might clarify) is a pen and paper and maybe an instrument to hand, for 15-30 bewildering minutes, no matter if it's a wet Wednesday in the same old town you grew up in. If you don't have that spark (and one usually doesn't) then the studio shenanigan thing is probably going to be a self-deceiving waste of time.

But every album since at least The Joshua Tree has been recording in so, er, itinerant a manner (so was Exile on Main Street for that matter). The biographical data doesn't matter so much.

* recorded. Bleh.

Changing my mind with these guys is inevitable, but from where I sit 20 years on, the album being issued as a boxed set that folds out into a jet-ski has fewer good songs than the most recent one--which has a much better and more original production IMO--or each of the three preceding it. As for them not playing well together, I call nonsense.

I am enjoying flipping through parts of the U2 by U2 book, and finding that they withhold a lot of songs for many years before they're done. "Wake Up Dead Man" first took form in the Zooropa days, while "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" dates back to Pop, before Bono came up with the falsetto part. He sang a version of it as his father's funeral.

also Bowie was churning out unremarkable album after unremarkable album for so long that i honestly didn't realize it'd been 8 years since the last one until you just mentioned it.

So has U2! But we won't agree here.

― livin in my own private Biden hole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, August 6, 2011 6:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

hey the last few U2 albums are definitely unremarkable, sure (the difference is that Bowie's were also uneventful, and turned out at a much faster clip)

anyway that posted wasn't actually comparing Bowie and U2, i was really just remarking on wow it absolutely hadn't occurred to me that Bowie finally gave it a rest

'wake up dead man' goes back to 1990-1, it's on the Achtung Baby rehearsal tapes. I was very surprised when they pulled it out 7 years later.

I suppose the Edge, AC and LM can play well together, but I'm not sure they can really improvise, jam, go in and out of other songs, the way that a lot of musicians would. Take a country act like Union Station as a model of 'playing together' - a band really intuitive with their instruments and listening to each other (don't think it matters if you don't like country) - I don't see U2 as able to do that. I think they're too flat-footed, even the Edge too distracted by his epic boxes to really go with a flow. And even if the others can do it, Bono can't play an instrument well enough to join in - though his vocal improvisations on the AB roughs show a different way of joining in.

I think U2 can sound great together, playing a song they know, but I think there's a different sense of 'playing music together' and in that sense I suspect that they're still rather awkward at it.

yeah i don't think anyone's saying they're secretly great jazz musicians or anything, just that in the course of their songwriting method they probably stumble upon and then abandon some interesting ideas.

hopefully this Achtung Baby/Zooropa reissue box set coming out this year will have some cool stuff on it

If Zooropa was the sound of a band whipping something together over a short span, then certainly U2 used to be capable of stumbling into something great. Maybe the problem is that Eno and Lanois are not the producers they once were? I wouldn't discount that, as it's not like those once reliable dudes have been sterling across the board lately, either.

Zooropa was almost twenty years ago; maybe the band's not capable of writing songs that good anymore?

btw A Bigger Bang is better than any Stones album of the last twenty years, and certainly better than anything by U2 released since '93, but U2 could never rely on craft like the Stones (Bono has said repeatedly that they're the worst cover band in the world).

Yeah, Bigger Bang is mostly good, except for the song that sounds like INXS.

I blame Mick for that one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loo1I2b7KWY

It was a filthy block of flats
Trash was on the floor

U2 has this problem that I've mentioned a few times here in different contexts, and that is they seem to have lost the ability to write compelling melodies. That last record doesn't have a single memorable tune. Think of how much more melodically engaging songs like "Lemon" or "Stay" are in comparison. I really think that for most songwriters, the "melody muscle" loses tone with age.

"melody muscle" sounds like a euphemism for Hongro dong

haha

I've got greedy. This is going to be a top sixty after all - twenty each on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll get things rolling some time tomorrow morning.

xp: "Moment of Surrender" has a great melody, whatever else you think of it--I started softening toward the lyric upon reading somewhere it was about addiction, which makes much more sense than love/salvation/whatever else, and it wound up making my Top 20. "Get on Your Boots" has a great chorus, as dreamy as "Stay" at high speeds.

Is it possible--just throwing this out there--that you guys listened to early-'90s U2 with more open ears?

If anything, I was more dubious of imminent "Achtung" U2 after "R&H" than I am of current U2. I vividly remember my reaction to "The Fly" as some variant of WTF? Nu-U2 I've given plenty of chances and always come away disappointed. To the albums, at least.

I loved U2 pre-Achtung Baby

when it came out I was keen, resistant and disappointed
it took me a while to come round to it

I still don't like it as much as 1984-7!

but I always liked 'the Fly'

I listen to the later U2 LPs a lot so I don't think a lack of openness is a problem here

Having spent so much time on this thread, I am going to allow myself to predict 20 songs that I think will do well in the ILM poll.

No, make it 22.

1 drowning man
2 the unforgettable fire
3 with or without you
4 beautiful day
5 i will follow
6 out of control
7 gloria
8 new year's day
9 heartland
10 bad
11 where the streets have no name
12 bullet the blue sky
13 exit
14 zoo station
15 until the end of the world
16 the fly
17 acrobat
18 love is blindness
19 numb
20 lemon
21 stay
22 daddy's gonna pay for your crashed car

maybe 'drowning man' and 'gloria' are red herrings

OK, a short list of 10 that I think will do well:

1 the unforgettable fire
2 with or without you
3 beautiful day
4 i will follow
5 out of control
6 heartland
7 zoo station
8 until the end of the world
9 the fly
10 lemon

Take it to "It's a musical journey" - U2 POLL RESULTS