Where The Streets Have No Name / The U2 Thread

[liebzz]

Rattle and Hum

I get that this was sort of playing the dual role of long form music video and quasi- album release. As an album, it’s sort of frustrating because there’s plenty of good music, but they should have committed to a studio album with this stuff, maybe with a live album soon after. Presenting the release like this makes it feel bloated and much of it unnecessary. The live renditions here worth note are Silver and Gold, and Bullet the Blue Sky (which is fine on its own and nearly criminally terrible to splice Star Spangled Banner - played by Hendrix no less - as sort of an intro). The rest of the live stuff is fine but it makes the whole effort over-wrought. Buried in all that is a very good studio album. Desire, Hawkmoon 269, Angel of Harlem, God Part II, When Love Comes to Town cover, and All I Want Is You are all great additions to their catalogue. They end up buried in a mishmash of different ideas.

[surfndestroy]

Rattle and Hum

I get that this was sort of playing the dual role of long form music video and quasi- album release. As an album, it’s sort of frustrating because there’s plenty of good music, but they should have committed to a studio album with this stuff, maybe with a live album soon after. Presenting the release like this makes it feel bloated and much of it unnecessary. The live renditions here worth note are Silver and Gold, and Bullet the Blue Sky (which is fine on its own and nearly criminally terrible to splice Star Spangled Banner - played by Hendrix no less - as sort of an intro). The rest of the live stuff is fine but it makes the whole effort over-wrought. Buried in all that is a very good studio album. Desire, Hawkmoon 269, Angel of Harlem, God Part II, When Love Comes to Town cover, and All I Want Is You are all great additions to their catalogue. They end up buried in a mishmash of different ideas.

I feel at this point you should listen to listen Live at Point Depot, December 31, 1989. It is the most beautiful wrap to this era of U2.



As they said the previous night....

"We've had a lot of fun over the last few months, just getting to know some of the music which we didn't know so much about -- and still don't know very much about, but it was fun! (Pause) Anyway, thanks for coming along. It wouldn't have been the same without you. (Applause) Some people have traveled a long way to come here tonight. (Applause) This -- I was explaining to people the other night, but I might've got it a bit wrong -- this is just the end of something for U2. And that's what we're playing these concerts -- and we're throwing a party for ourselves and you. It's no big deal, it's just -- we have to go away and...and dream it all up again."

I'll leave it to you to determine how the dream went.

[liebzz]

Listened. That was a fantastic show. From just reading the set list I thought the encore would drag but it was pretty awesome. Definitely felt like the end of an era - also not a souped up legacy performance like you hear more recently when you see live clips. Thanks for the recommendation!

[liebzz]

Achtung Baby

Knowing primarily the hit songs on this album, I wasn’t sure what I was going to make of this album. One is iconic for them of course, and Mysterious Ways is sort of the world’s introduction to a reinvented U2, but as a youngster I never really took to it. On this listen, I have not just much more appreciation for it than I did, but the album as a whole is their best to date to my ears. Without completely ditching the elements of U2 that made them megastars, they manage a highly successful restart that also brings their sound to the next level. Even Better Than the Real Thing, The Fly, Ultra Violet, and Acrobat bring much needed groove to the aggression, while songs like Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses and So Cruel feel like templates for the sounds that would dominate the second half of the nineties. This is my favorite so far.

[VinylGuy]

Achtung Baby is their masterpiece yes. Not only in the quality of the songs but in the way they transform themselves, musically and visually. They went for it and grabbed everything.

I remember watching those videos, or pics from the zoo tour and being blown away.

[liebzz]

Zooropa

This is yet another fantastic album. While it does quite match the magic happening in Achtung Baby, it still packs some great stuff especially appreciating their efforts to play around and try new things. Numb ends up being the perfect single for this release as it very encapsulates what’s going on here. Bono’s vocals are much less soaring than on other albums and they really seem intent on focusing the listener with the melding of electronic soundscapes with their existing rock band structure. There’s the run from Numb, then Lemon, then Stay (Faraway, So Close!), then Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car where they deliver to perfection. The closing of Dirty Day and The Wanderer with Johnny Cash that is one of my unexpected favorite moments so far. A much better album than they get credit for.

[liebzz]

Pop

On this really most electronic of their albums, I would say you have about 2/3 of a great album. Like many other U2 albums, this one is top heavy and its in the front half that U2 gives you their propulsive best while giving you something you haven’t heard from them before. Discotheque, Do You Feel Loved, and Mofo are the perfect opening blasts. Staring at the Sun, Last Night on Earth, and Gone have some great writing and thinking behind them. But as this flips to the second half, it slogs a bit until the strong finish with Please and Wake Up Dead Man. They might have been best served with a slightly shorter album with the songs I noted - I might even prefer that list to Zooropa - but in the age of long albums, they maybe put too much into the pot. A very solid album nonetheless.

[burl jam]

Pop

On this really most electronic of their albums, I would say you have about 2/3 of a great album. Like many other U2 albums, this one is top heavy and its in the front half that U2 gives you their propulsive best while giving you something you haven’t heard from them before. Discotheque, Do You Feel Loved, and Mofo are the perfect opening blasts. Staring at the Sun, Last Night on Earth, and Gone have some great writing and thinking behind them. But as this flips to the second half, it slogs a bit until the strong finish with Please and Wake Up Dead Man. They might have been best served with a slightly shorter album with the songs I noted - I might even prefer that list to Zooropa - but in the age of long albums, they maybe put too much into the pot. A very solid album nonetheless.

I couldn't agree more, when this thing bounces it's great, but there are way too many missteps in the 2nd half.

[surfndestroy]

Please watch the Popmart live video. It’s pretty masterful.

[VinylGuy]

Pop is an absolute masterpiece. The last great masterpiece they did. Popmart was also a fucking incredible tour.

[liebzz]

Pop is an absolute masterpiece. The last great masterpiece they did. Popmart was also a fucking incredible tour.

It always seemed that the consensus on this album was that it was a flop. I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece (for me anyway), but a lot of it is great and none of it is bad. Just a period after Gone but before Dirty Days where I was kinda over it.

[VinylGuy]

yeah, it has such a huge backlash i think it was one of the reasons the band tried they back to basics rock and pop move with the next one. Which is a shame, because Pop is wonderful. Its such a great fuck you to any kind of expectation of U2.

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

[96583UP]

but the happy meal toys were dope

[VinylGuy]

I hate Pop so much. The Batman song that preceded it was bad too. Awful era for them.

Pff one of their best. Top ten song.

[Rangi Guy]

I hate Pop so much. The Batman song that preceded it was bad too. Awful era for them.

[Kevin Davis]

[Kevin Davis]

It always seemed that the consensus on this album was that it was a flop.

I think relative to expectations, commercial and critical, it was -- I was only 13-14 when it was popular so I probably have a somewhat incomplete memory of the musical landscape at the time, but there was definitely still a stigma at that time surrounding the use of electronic instruments by rock bands (it's cheating, not "real music," etc. -- puritanical stuff that Kid A did a lot to overcome), and I remember that rhetoric bubbling up occasionally in conversations about this album. Groups like the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy were enjoying a lot of popularity but it seemed like maybe U2 didn't have quite enough overlap with that audience for a record like Pop to really land, at least not with the numbers that something like The Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby did, even though when you get down to it Pop is much more of a traditional U2 album than a pure "techno" record (the remixes, which in my opinion are an essential part of the story of this era, are a different story).

Artistically the band never recovered from it; All That You Can't Leave Behind is one of the most self-conscious "return to form" albums in recent memory, and while that album had some good songs and enjoyed a lot of right-place-right-time success, they've been more or less following its play-it-safe template ever since, to varying degrees of success.

I love the Pop era and, along with Zooropa, return to it more than any other era of the band. To me it is like Binaural and Riot Act, the sound of a band somewhat lost and willing to follow any muse to any logical or illogical end. I think the overall experience of the endeavor transcends any song-by-song analysis; it's just an enjoyable immersive exercise, the good along with the bad.

[liebzz]

That’s some really great perspective on this period for them.

[Kevin Davis]

That’s some really great perspective on this period for them.

I mean, I was a teenager living in Illinois, so take it with a grain of salt, but still