Red Mosquito

I hate "Walk On" so much

Kevin Davis wrote:I'm going to join you on your last leg of this journey, liebzz -- I haven't listened to some of these albums in years. Looking at the tracklists for most of these, I am inclined to think I like all of them better than I would be inclined to rate them from memory. Queueing up ATYCLB now!

So, I enjoyed this way more than I expected to -- kind of loved it honestly. No doubt, part of it was not having listened to the album for a really long time, but I definitely found the strengths sticking out to me more than the weaknesses (many of which have been well documented here and all of which are fair). In a lot of ways this is like PJ's self-titled album for me, where I resent it in my mind for what it signals a shift away from more than I really dislike the music on its own terms. But as much as I love their more adventurous '90's music, this does feel like, to borrow their own words, a sort of homecoming; if this had ended up being their last album, it would have felt like it. The second half flounders and "Peace on Earth" is arguably the worst song of their career, but I'm glad I went back and listened to it. The stretch in the middle of "Kite," "In a Little While," and "Wild Honey" is especially nice.

Interesting - if there was one song I would walk away from that album with that I enjoyed the best it was Wild Honey. It felt much looser than the other material - almost like hearing a b-side and wondering why they didn’t go in that direction all along.

I would also say that it sounding like a homecoming is fair but it’s also much more different than meets the eye. 80s U2 is to me driven thematically by an agenda that is urgent (a lot of the time political even in disguise) and largely propulsive and built on the backs of the rhythm section. Achtung Baby and the next two albums are maybe more experimental, but they still built off that structure and still had something to prove.

This album we are talking about is half ballads, half rockers focused on Bono’s voice and Edge’s riffs. The rhythm section is besides the point. There’s no clear agenda to me other than some vague commentary. It seems like the teen movie version of U2. The drama is there but it doesn’t serve a compelling purpose. They sound like a band that wants to sound like U2.

Rather than compare it to the self-titled Pearl Jam record it reminds me more of Lightning Bolt. All the elements seem physically present but something’s missing. For both albums, it’s that urgency and sense of purpose.

hating this one as much as i do, Atomic was so good. Loved it when it came out, and i saw them on that tour and wow.

liebzz wrote:Interesting - if there was one song I would walk away from that album with that I enjoyed the best it was Wild Honey. It felt much looser than the other material - almost like hearing a b-side and wondering why they didn’t go in that direction all along.

I would also say that it sounding like a homecoming is fair but it’s also much more different than meets the eye. 80s U2 is to me driven thematically by an agenda that is urgent (a lot of the time political even in disguise) and largely propulsive and built on the backs of the rhythm section. Achtung Baby and the next two albums are maybe more experimental, but they still built off that structure and still had something to prove.

This album we are talking about is half ballads, half rockers focused on Bono’s voice and Edge’s riffs. The rhythm section is besides the point. There’s no clear agenda to me other than some vague commentary. It seems like the teen movie version of U2. The drama is there but it doesn’t serve a compelling purpose. They sound like a band that wants to sound like U2.

Rather than compare it to the self-titled Pearl Jam record it reminds me more of Lightning Bolt. All the elements seem physically present but something’s missing. For both albums, it’s that urgency and sense of purpose.

All of this is totally understandable, and I would probably feel differently about it if I was just going through the catalog for the first time today. I will say that 80's U2 -- especially the really early stuff, like pre-Unforgettable Fire -- isn't particularly special to me, and I've never really heard or felt that same "youthful energy" that people often describe in that music; to me they sound kind of like a musically underdeveloped band whose talents hadn't caught up with their sound, so even when the individual pieces manage to jell there's something about the whole enterprise for me that just doesn't. Apart from a handful of songs, I don't revisit that period very often (in fact, despite your lukewarm review of it, I probably return to Under a Blood Red Sky more than I do to any of their first three albums, just because as you says it distills and then amps up all the best tracks from that period), so when I talk about the record feeling like a sort of homecoming, I guess I am talking about a return to things like of The Joshua Tree, "Pride," etc., music that may embody the same rhythmic virtues you mention but is ultimately recognizable for its soaring choruses, over-the-top emoting, immediate melodies, etc. I think that's the sound, and more significantly the sense of anyone-can-enjoy-this appeal, that they were trying to "return to" on this album, more than some kind of full circle loop back to their roots in early '80's new wave or post punk or whatever label they managed to earn for themselves at that time.

I'll also say that, at the time I was getting into U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind felt almost bloated with "purpose" -- or perhaps re-purpose, as so many of those songs had been adopted as unofficial post-9/11 anthems (I seem to be the only one that remembers this, but there was a period of time immediately after 9/11 where rock radio stations were playing versions of popular songs overdubbed with snippets of George W's "we will not tire, we will not falter" speech -- for some reason they made one of these mish-mashes incorporating "Peace on Earth," which seemed like an odd pairing for a speech whose goal was to rally support for a war). I can certainly understand where, now, the songs would sound like empty greeting cards divorced of that context, and there is probably an argument to be made that, given that the album was recorded and released well before anything it would become tied to historically ever happened, empty greeting cards is exactly what they are. But even apart from that I think there are at least half a dozen very good U2 songs on this album, with some great vocal performances ("Stuck In a Moment" is a great example of a schlocky song that I think Bono sings really, really well, especially the outro). But again, I can definitely understand every criticism that has been leveled at it in this thread. It's an album I suppose I enjoy in spite of itself.

Also, that era was visually awful. Their promo pics, their videos, jesus that cover....

I know a lot of people were into it as speaking to 9/11 despite it being released and recorded pretty well before that (in much the way The Rising was associated with 9/11). As hard as I am being on this album, I will walk away with Wild Honey and Elevation at least as strong takeaways.

I don't think I've listened to any of their albums all the way through post Pop, and that one took me a while to click

liebzz wrote:I know a lot of people were into it as speaking to 9/11 despite it being released and recorded pretty well before that (in much the way The Rising was associated with 9/11). As hard as I am being on this album, I will walk away with Wild Honey and Elevation at least as strong takeaways.

The Ground Beneath Her Feet is the only great song from this period. But i also enjoy Beautiful Day and sometimes Stuck...and Elevation is fun live.

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

While by and large, the soundscape this album exists in has a lot in common with All You Can’t Leave Behind, there’s a slight shift here that makes the album much more palatable to me than it’s predecessor. In particular the first half of this album seems much more loose and airy. The themes less contrived - a band much more interested in rocking out and letting the chips fall where they may. U2 isn’t really capable of ever sounding tossed off, but this is the closest they seem to be a bit less self-conscious. For me, this works wonders. I have always liked the fun of Vertigo, and Miracle Drug, All Because of You add to this. Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own, Love and Peace or Else, and City of Blinding Lights also seem like strong highlights. The second half starts to resemble the last album a bit more, but A Man and A Woman and Crumbs From Your Table still hold up nicely. Maybe my favorite song here though goes to Fast Cars, which we finally that rhythm section making a dent for the first time in a while. I can’t place this among the stone cold classics of a prior era but I think this album finally finding a U2 that isn’t taking itself too seriously.

liebzz wrote:How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

While by and large, the soundscape this album exists in has a lot in common with All You Can’t Leave Behind, there’s a slight shift here that makes the album much more palatable to me than it’s predecessor. In particular the first half of this album seems much more loose and airy. The themes less contrived - a band much more interested in rocking out and letting the chips fall where they may. U2 isn’t really capable of ever sounding tossed off, but this is the closest they seem to be a bit less self-conscious. For me, this works wonders. I have always liked the fun of Vertigo, and Miracle Drug, All Because of You add to this. Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own, Love and Peace or Else, and City of Blinding Lights also seem like strong highlights. The second half starts to resemble the last album a bit more, but A Man and A Woman and Crumbs From Your Table still hold up nicely. Maybe my favorite song here though goes to Fast Cars, which we finally that rhythm section making a dent for the first time in a while. I can’t place this among the stone cold classics of a prior era but I think this album finally finding a U2 that isn’t taking itself too seriously.

Listening to this right now and really digging it. I played this thing into the ground when it was released in 2004, saw them on the tour in 2005 (with Kanye opening!), and really thought it was one of the best albums of the year at the time. The last time I played it (a few years ago now probably) it left me pretty cold, but I'm really loving it today.

I agree that "Fast Cars" is great -- but, not part of the original album!

Funny, it is an outlier on the album and doesn’t really “fit” with the rest of the sound, and doesn’t sound like a typical closer..:but it sounds great. Just a good easy song to like with a nice percussive thing going for it.

I really like the octave harmonies Bono sings with himself on "All Because of You" and "Yahweh" -- I've always liked the way he sounded in a lower register, it creates a nice effect on these songs.

That said, this album really takes a dive in its second half. This is the kind of generic midtempo mush that comes to mind when I think of late period U2.

Looking forward to doing No Line on the Horizon tomorrow -- that has long been my favorite of these albums.

I love Atomic...yes, it has a similar sound that the previous one, but they feel like the U2 of the 90s again, doing whatever they want...Miracle Drug is one of my favs from them from this late era, Yeaweh is fucking awesome and Bono's voice is great here. I feel both Atomic and No Line are great on how they experiment or expand their sound and at the same time, they are close to whatever the mainstream feel is U2.

Glad you dug this album liebzz. While ATYCLB has its place as one of my first U2 albums, Atomic is something else. I think of all their albums its the one where they stick the landing. Aside from the bonus track of Fast Cars, those last 3 songs are delightful.

The only slight tumbles are Crumbs, Man and A Woman, and All Because of You,but none of those outright suck. Probably my fave U2 album.

There's a part near the end of "All Because of You" where Bono comes in too early, and it always bugged me that the biggest rock band in the world, working with a top-tier producer, would leave a distracting error like that in. That's when they became dead to me!!!

But seriously, this was the last U2 album I listened to and definitely marked an end to my relationship with the band, which actually had reached a point of feverish fandom just before the album's release. It's not that the album was a letdown, I think I just grew in a different direction. Nowadays, I'm either indifferent or actively annoyed by most of the band's output, but there's still a little island of music in the middle of their career -- Achtung, Zooropa, and part of Pop -- that I really love. As for their post-Pop material, there's a handful of songs that I enjoy: "In a Little While," "Electrical Storm," "Original of the Species," "Window in the Skies"... maybe one or two others?

Come to think of it, this is very similar to my relationship with Pearl Jam