Taking sides - U2 vs Simple Minds

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Why do so many people still love U2, and why are Simple Minds seen as irrelevant in comparison?

― Damian (Damian), Monday, 26 August 2002 08:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't it because U2 are a cutting edge, post-modern band on the cusp of the dance/rock interface? Or at least they are if you are a 40 something Rolling Stone writer. i.e. U2 have played the media better but I wouldn't want to hear either of them. It did strike me as a a telling preservation fo the brand image that U2 wouldn't release the Passengers album under their own name.

I once sat beside Charlie from Simple Minds on a plane and he is a very nice man.

― Winkelmann, Monday, 26 August 2002 08:57 (twenty-three years ago)

U2 are a far better band than Simple Minds. Unlike them they haven't remained locked in one groove and have shown an ability to change over time. You could see that as being open to new influences and sounds, or them cynically jumping on trends, but either way it shows a level of ability the Minds are unable to match.

I actually like a lot of U2 music and am happy to listen to them on occasion.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 26 August 2002 09:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Ha Simple Minds changed more in the first four years of their existence than U2 have ever changed.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 26 August 2002 10:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I Travel > Discotheque (and 17 years earlier)

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 26 August 2002 11:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Simple Minds died out after "Dont You Forget About Me" whereas U2 died out after Zooropa
You're pitting a one-hit wonder against a band that has made three or four truly stunning records.
I'm siding with U2 not just because its the right thing to do, but because it goes against the most tiresome of ILM cliché's.
ILM Unwarranted Hatred of (U2 | Clash | Springsteen) was once annoying to me but now it just tedious.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:03 (twenty-three years ago)

"You're pitting a one-hit wonder against a band that has made three or four truly stunning records."

Sure U2 had more than one hit.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:05 (twenty-three years ago)

being annoyed at cliches = first step towards critical thinking

unthinking use of phrase "one-hit wonder" = oops lost it again

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:10 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't see anything clichéd about a band releasing five good-to-genius albums within the span of four years.

Where do you see unwarranted hatred of U2 in this thread?

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:10 (twenty-three years ago)

You're pitting a one-hit wonder against a band that has made three or four truly stunning records.

I never knew that "Don't You Forget About Me", "Alive and Kicking" and "Sanctify Yourself" were all one song!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Ya think maybe it was because Simple Minds bought their own hype and played up the 80's synth-pop, Wham! image? The Breakfast Club is when they started to to turn shitty.

U2, not innocent of buying one's own hype, bought into the political-rocker image instead of the 80's image. Bullshit none-the-less, but more palatable among the record-buying masses.

― dave (Dave225), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Where do you see unwarranted hatred of U2 in this thread?
Just wait...as soon as the rest of ILM see's this thread, the Bono-Hatahs will decend like locusts.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:20 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm sure it will follow, but it seemed like you were insinuating that preference was equal to hatred (since Tim and I didn't make any U2-hate comments about Bono scaling Red Rocks or whatever).

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Nope, I never said Tim Haaaayyyteeed U2.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Lord Custos, you've not actually heard Simple Minds' first four albums, have you?

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:37 (twenty-three years ago)

My main point is that U2 gets alot of pointless abuse on this forum. There are much worse bands in the world with much more annoying frontmen.

Lord Custos, you've not actually heard Simple Minds' first four albums, have you?
No, I haven't, but I wouldn't mind hearing them.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:40 (twenty-three years ago)

― Siegbran Hetteson (eofor), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:46 (twenty-three years ago)

And making the right music.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:47 (twenty-three years ago)

This is basically a management issue - U2 were far more successful in talking to the right execs, getting the right producers, choosing and timing the right singles, hiring the best marketing men, getting Anton Corbijn to take band pics, working hard to keep the band together, giving interviews to the right magazines, attending the right award shows, etc.
See, this is exactly the thing I was dreading: The implication that if someone makes it big, they *obviously* got there by corporate fiat rather than talent, skill or hard work.
Forgive me if my tastes are "unhip" and that I still like a band I grew up on. I'm sure the forum will now tear them apart...again.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 12:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Relax, I'm nog slagging U2 for being commercially successful. I even like them (musically, Bono himself is of course highly irritating), but U2 always did strike me as a very well managed band who never makes a big mistake and "always delivers", similarly to Madonna in a lot of respects.

― Siegbran Hetteson (eofor), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Thank You, Siegbran.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:02 (twenty-three years ago)

There are much worse bands in the world with much more annoying frontmen.

Much worse bands defently, Durst aside dont know if I can think of a more annoying person then Bono. Dude's got more ego then Krazy Keith's personas.

I got no problem as they got big, its Zooropa onwards that I can't swallow. Still I'll let that slide since I havent really listened to their albums since (when possible) so I'll still side on U2.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Granted, Madonna probably "always delivers" in a see-thru negligee. Bono never did that. (Thank God.)

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Okay. I'm ending my Thread Hi-jacking. We now return you to the thread already in progress.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Custos, you are denouncing exactly the position you were taking when you argued at the weekend that "the kids invented punk to escape disco", and the rest of your "true history of rock" post. As it happens I hate U2 for quite specific and concrete (and warranted!) reasons, which is why I entirely agree with you — having occasionally been guilty of it myself and having been called on it — that it would be tiresome just to announce that they're lame manufactured corporate-approved rubbish (or that anyone else is, come to that) (like disco, for example)... It takes the personal meaning out of my *own* dislike and tosses it back at me, as bought-by-the-yard attitude.

(Also I don't actually hate the Clash, though I do hate a lot of their songs and their attitude, but I've got bored with trying to correct that misapprehension... )

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh sorry: OK ignore that, it belongs with the aborted hijack.

(Hey I thought there was a "see what's been posted since" feature!! I've been made to look a fool of!!)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Custos, you are denouncing exactly the position you were taking when you argued at the weekend that "the kids invented punk to escape disco", and the rest of your "true history of rock" post.
Denouncing it? How, Mark S? I thought I was merely laying out the sequence of past events in that thread, not making some grand kosmische statement about *why* kids rebel against what happens in pop-culture.
I do think that along with the required dunging-out of genuine refuse (U2 started getting dissed right as Hair Metal was being dissed.*) but I still think they made two more excellent albums after their peak but before their decline into irrelevance.

*=granted this was also between the disreputable era betwee the debacle that was "Rattle and Hum" and the redemption that was "Achtung, Baby", so maybe they deserved some abuse then.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Argh! That footnote should've read
*=granted this was also [...] the disreputable era between the debacle that was "Rattle and Hum" and the redemption that was "Achtung, Baby", so maybe they deserved some abuse then.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:33 (twenty-three years ago)

your "true history of rock" post.
anybody trying to write a "true history of rock" is a mow-ron anyway

― shlongdong (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought Hair Metal was being dissed from Day One?

― Siegbran Hetteson (eofor), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, it guess it depends on your definition of "Hair Metal"; The definition I'm using is the over-rated (Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Poison) stuff that overshadowed "real metal" (Megadeth, Venom, Slayer) until the early 90s.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:45 (twenty-three years ago)

My main point is that U2 gets alot of pointless abuse on this forum.

Oh heavens no, it's specific, pointed and aimed-with-intent abuse. FOR GOOD REASON.

That said, let me concentrate on celebrating albums like Reel to Reel Cacophony and New Gold Dream instead. Or talking about how Empire and Dance still feels like a new future opening up on a worldwide scale.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I've seen New Gold Dream on the racks, But I've never seen the other anywhere in the US. Are they still in print?

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:54 (twenty-three years ago)

If I'm not mistaken, Virgin is reissuing pretty much everything next month.

― Andy K (Andy K), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom & other SMinds admirers - do you really rate that 1st album though?
I agree the 2nd, 3rd and 4th/5th are fantastic - but tend to think that 1st one gets glossed over a bit conveniently. It seemed a lot less radical and interesting to me - I never bothered to buy it.

BTW - Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call: great overnight-motorway-drive music.

I don't hate U2, but don't think they ever did anything musically or conceptually interesting until all that cleverclever multimedia extravaganza phase. And I tended to look at that as just career-preservation trend-cuddling.
This isn't to say that the results of such a policy are necessarily bad, but it was somewhat suspect and annoying that only the huge money they'd made by playing all that True-Spirited ROCK for all those years in the first place allowed them to reserve that big a seat on the multimedia-tech ironywagon.

(I may have deeply incorrect, old-fashioned and vague criteria about things like this, which ILM's prevailing aesthetic will eventually thrash out of me, but to the extent that 'it's about so much more than the music', I do care about when and why certain musicians change their tune: and even if I like the sound of their work more as a result, I can still feel they're a bit contemptible for doing so.)

― Ray M (rdmanston), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:56 (twenty-three years ago)

― Siegbran Hetteson (eofor), Monday, 26 August 2002 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Whatever definition, were there actually people taking Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and Poison seriously at ANY time in history? Was it humanly possible NOT to make fun of grown men in red spandex, poodle hair and pink makeup? I can't wait for the revival (arguably, Nu-Metal already is on most levels).
HAHAHAHAHA, Yes, Yes Siegbran....it is so obvious to US that Bon Jovi sucked the big beef braunschweiger....but if you get in your time machine and go back to 1987 and try to explain this blindingly true fact to the 12-year-olds back then, you'd see a sea of uncomprehending faces.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 14:05 (twenty-three years ago)

The contacts pages of Kerrang were full of people who were seriously into taking them!

Ray: I was just asking whether Lord C had heard them - I've only got New Gold Dream (which I love) and the one before (which I dont)

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 26 August 2002 14:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Early U2 is kind of fantastic. I have a special place in my heart for _Boy_, _October_ and _War_.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 August 2002 14:08 (twenty-three years ago)

pioson rock u r all gay

― haha actually i am 13 dont make asumptions (mark s), Monday, 26 August 2002 14:08 (twenty-three years ago)

Pah. Simple Minds walk all over U2 IMO. This is because of their albums "New Gold Dream" & "Sons and Fascination", utterly, utterly wonderful, and even thee rubbish stadium pomp they came out w/later cannot detract from these rekkids luverly-ness. U2, otoh, MEH, y'know? once in a while they come up w/something listenable, but NEVER actually "stunning" to me. I have seem both bands live, and they were both bloody awful. I do not give a fux0r abt ILE cliche yadda yadda. I thought the clash = sux0r years before I came upon this forum so pttthrrrrpttttt. Custos, I think you should buy "New Gold Dream" as soon as you possibly can.

― N0rm4n Ph4y, Monday, 26 August 2002 16:30 (twenty-three years ago)

U2, of course. Simple Minds are horseshit.

― M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 26 August 2002 18:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, perhaps I hung out with the wrong people in 1987, but I never saw the glam bands being praised outside the obvious "13-16y" demographic (hey, more Nu-Metal similarities!). Was this different in the US?

― Siegbran Hetteson (eofor), Monday, 26 August 2002 18:11 (twenty-three years ago)

U2, otoh, MEH, y'know?7
No, we don't know, Norman, Please elaborate...

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 18:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Wot I mean, yer lordship, is that when I hear their hot p00p on thee radio, I am not especially troubled by it. Nor do I ph33l much n33d to buy any ov their rekkids. I suppose that at the time they released "The Joshua Tr33", their angsty portentiousness was sort of irritating. However, I though a coupla their singles in thee intervening years were sort of not bad. 3y3 cannot really get too bothered about them. OTOH, I cannot imagine ever *not* having a copy ov "New Gold Dream" around somewhere. I may go and listen to it now.

― N0RM4N PH4Y, Monday, 26 August 2002 18:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmmm. I can respect that.
At least its not the same old U2 SuXor nonsense.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 26 August 2002 18:55 (twenty-three years ago)

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