tragabigzanda wrote:whoa whoa whoa now you're making it sounds like they are good people
It’ll change when bono dies. Then you’ll see him mourned nationally and the disgusting ‘they did so much for our country I always loved them’. That’ll actually happen. And it’s appalling.
They actually did a ton for us against all odds or realistic expectations they put us on the map in many ways in the 80s and 90s. I love them as a band personally and like with pj they frustrate the living shit out of me more often than not but they put on amazing live shows, Bono’s the only one I’ve met and he was gracious and generous and affable and they’re still capable of making good if not great music but what can you expect. Top achtung baby 20 years later? Never gonna happen. They should stop that approach and realise they’re good when they’re doing work that isn’t overthought to death and pasteurised sucking all the life out of the songs
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 5:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
tragabigzanda wrote:whoa whoa whoa now you're making it sounds like they are good people
It’ll change when bono dies. Then you’ll see him mourned nationally and the disgusting ‘they did so much for our country I always loved them’. That’ll actually happen. And it’s appalling.
They actually did a ton for us against all odds or realistic expectations they put us on the map in many ways in the 80s and 90s. I love them as a band personally and like with pj they frustrate the living shit out of me more often than not but they put on amazing live shows, Bono’s the only one I’ve met and he was gracious and generous and affable and they’re still capable of making good if not great music but what can you expect. Top achtung baby 20 years later? Never gonna happen. They should stop that approach and realise they’re good when they’re doing work that isn’t overthought to death and pasteurised sucking all the life out of the songs
*top Zooropa 20 years later? Never gonna happen.
Thats such a fantastic record. Such a brilliant idea to stay I can that space.
Are any two albums more twinned and Connected and complimentary in their catalogue? Or any bands?
I need to hear these two again. Weird the way you adore certain records and don’t go to them anymore
That doco they made ‘from the sky down’ about the making of achtung, is a fantastic watch if you Havent seen it. Really brilliant and somehow really doesn’t get the credit it deserves.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
tragabigzanda wrote:also, from the wiki page for Achtung Baby:
The band believed that "domesticity [w]as the enemy of rock 'n' roll" and that to work on the album, they needed to remove themselves from their normal family-oriented routines. With a "New Europe" emerging at the end of the Cold War, they chose Berlin, in the centre of the reuniting continent, as a source of inspiration for a more European musical aesthetic.[3][18][25] They chose to record at Hansa Studios in West Berlin, near the recently opened Berlin Wall.
Man, i wish PJ would do something like this.
They kinda did tho. No code was recorded all over the place wasn’t it?
Or was it vitalogy?
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
tragabigzanda wrote:also, from the wiki page for Achtung Baby:
The band believed that "domesticity [w]as the enemy of rock 'n' roll" and that to work on the album, they needed to remove themselves from their normal family-oriented routines. With a "New Europe" emerging at the end of the Cold War, they chose Berlin, in the centre of the reuniting continent, as a source of inspiration for a more European musical aesthetic.[3][18][25] They chose to record at Hansa Studios in West Berlin, near the recently opened Berlin Wall.
Man, i wish PJ would do something like this.
They kinda did tho. No code was recorded all over the place wasn’t it?
Or was it vitalogy?
yeah, but i mean today, in getting away from their familial routines with total focus on a record as an artistic statement of our time.
They definitely live in a bubble with a very firm ‘family’ set up/organisation around them even now I used to live in an apartment on Hanover quay just 50 metres away from their hq and you could hear them playing mostly bass and edge. Think it was no line they were making at the time. But to upsticks and go somewhere so drastically different politically and culturally is like Michael Jackson moving to Moscow in the 80s to record Thriller. It takes serious balls to do that
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sun January 11, 2026 5:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
