Liverpool FC Forum

[Emerald Red]

Was leaked earlier on yesterday and is now all over the internet. I've just listened to it, and I gotta say, it's the best thing U2 have done since Achtung Baby and is probably up there with that album, which is seriously high praise. Just Amazing for U2 to be going for almost 34 years and still come up with material as good as this. I always hear people moan how U2's newer stuff isn't as good as their old stuff. Well, that notion can be dispelled because they've went back to their roots with this one and created something different for them once again. The song "Magnificent" (they got the name right there) is an instant U2 classic that sounds like it came from The Unforgettable Fire and War era, absolutely stunning track, and the song's "Unknown Caller" and "Moment of Surrender" just have to be heard regardless if you're a U2 fan or not. "Breath" is another stand out song on the album. All in all, it's amazing stuff from the band. They've gone and wiped the floor with the competition with this one. Download it, then buy it. 

[red37]

Will give it a listen.  But parallels with Achtung Baby    - interesting.

Still growing out of my KOL phase at the minute - glad to see they picked up a few gongs last night as well. U2 will always have a place in my library though (yes, even Pop!)

[ConnO'var]

Haven't heard it meself ER.... but as good as Achtung Baby and Joshua Tree?
High praise indeed.

The album's not out yet...... so how do I get a quick listen mate? I googled it and came up empty.... must be doing something wrong...

[Bad Bob]

I'm intrigued as well but I'll wait to hear it before I start believing that it's anywhere near Achtung Baby or Joshua Tree.  Let's face it, the band's been well below their best for approaching 20 years now and it'll be a huge ask for them to recreate the brilliance of their youth.

[red37]

Just had a shufty - to be honest its nothing special. Especially against those mentioned above. Very few highlights for me.

It does have one or two raw/edgy tracks that hark back to that iconic 'bleak' U2 soundscape which are nice

But the rest is a bland/vanilla pastiche made up of a curious mix between syncopated shuffle - almost jazzlike beats, the occasional driven rock break interspersed with the odd wistful meander through a storytellers monologue complete with ubiquitous soft pad mood shapers and predictabe drifting chord progressions. Nothing that intoxicates the listener along the journey beyond average - its quite hard work at times.

U2- 80's (hell even 90's) it aint....its clearly a mellowed/accessible - 'required' offering for an age where achieving a notch above mediocrity is a 'benchmark' - Heck knows its easy enough for anybody to 'knock one out' nowadays, given the availability and low cost for producing music outside a professional studio. And of course, not forgetting....the fellas have been around for eons, its bound to have an evolutionary cycle as a product. Their old sound has nigh on disappeared...their writing, as off the mark as it ever might get away with being, deliciously used to be - now constricted to matters less political and confrontational. A mirror for the 'naughties' ethic and its nervousness for upsetting the apple cart

Obviously this scores highly on production - no doubt the team have done a stellar job. Likewise the marketing machine will too....

But the bands direction? (not just THIS band) Where have the days gone where a credible artist(s) poured out his/her/their hearts and struck a collective, resonant chord with its audience - when they had them in the palm of their hands and temporarily answered most of their questions about life and all its angst ridden obstacles with real, meaningful music (heck it even went deeper beyond that didn't it?)......not any old s.*i*e churned out 'cos its... 'by them'.

Which after a full listen (and three or four individual) takes over certain tracks....just to make sure - sad to say, its not that far off.

Not a classic.

[Bad Bob]

Just had a shufty - to be honest its nothing special. Especially against those mentioned above. Very few highlights for me.

It does have one or two raw/edgy tracks that hark back to that iconic 'bleak' U2 soundscape which are nice

But the rest is a bland/vanilla pastiche made up of a curious mix between syncopated shuffle - almost jazzlike beats, the occasional driven rock break interspersed with the odd wistful meander through a storytellers monologue complete with ubiquitous soft pad mood shapers and predictabe drifting chord progressions. Nothing that intoxicates the listener along the journey beyond average - its quite hard work at times.

U2- 80's (hell even 90's) it aint....its clearly a mellowed/accessible - 'required' offering for an age where achieving a notch above mediocrity is a 'benchmark' - Heck knows its easy enough for anybody to 'knock one out' nowadays, given the availability and low cost for producing music outside a professional studio. And of course, not forgetting....the fellas have been around for eons, its bound to have an evolutionary cycle as a product. Their old sound has nigh on disappeared...their writing, as off the mark as it ever might get away with being, deliciously used to be - now constricted to matters less political and confrontational. A mirror for the 'naughties' ethic and its nervousness for upsetting the apple cart

Obviously this scores highly on production - no doubt the team have done a stellar job. Likewise the marketing machine will too....

But the bands direction? (not just THIS band) Where have the days gone where a credible artist(s) poured out his/her/their hearts and struck a collective, resonant chord with its audience - when they had them in the palm of their hands and temporarily answered most of their questions about life and all its angst ridden obstacles with real, meaningful music (heck it even went deeper beyond that didn't it?)......not any old s.*i*e churned out 'cos its... 'by them'.

Which after a full listen (and three or four individual) takes over certain tracks....just to make sure - sad to say, its not that far off.

Not a classic.

Red, pack that off to your local paper, mate, and you can be their new music critic.

Not going to pre-judge, as I haven't heard it yet and it always takes me a half dozen or so proper listens before I fully decide how much I like an album (some songs just need to "work a bit" inside your head before they truly resonate).  With that said, I doubt I'll be blown away.  In my experience, most great bands--and make no mistake, U2 was a great band--have a 3-5 album window of absolutely top notch, mind-altering stuff.  The true legends might do it over 5-7 albums, esp. if condensed into a tight time period (like the Beatles) but these bands that have been around for decades churning out albums have gone well past their sell by date, IMHO.  Most of the new material is either a thinly veiled recycling of their past stuff or an awkward and usually underwhelming attempt at taking things in a new direction.  I applaud the effort but it rarely comes off.  Times change and bands just don't--at least not very effectively.  The shifting zeitgeist demands new artists, with new sounds making new musical statements and even the most successful artists end up on the scrap heap in time.  Such is the nature of cultural evolution, I'm afraid.  Fair play to U2 for refusing to go quietly into that good night and, to their credit, they do still manage to churn out a catchy tune or two per album.  But, by and large, they're yesterday's men and that's as it should be.

[red37]

it always takes me a half dozen or so proper listens before I fully decide how much I like an album (some songs just need to "work a bit" inside your head before they truly resonate).

I used to be like that....many of my favourite songs have emerged as a result of almost hastily dismissing a project as 'naff' from the get go. I should know better.....

But i think thats an (unfortunate and critical?) byproduct of working with hundreds upon thousands of 'patches' presets and the like inside dozens of software apps over the years. You quickly adapt to skimming over the dross in search of the odd gem or three in what is a laborious process...your ears become 'blinkered'

(thats a new one!)

I did give it a full listen through and ive still not changed my mind. Slightly above average (due solely to who it is more than the content) Though that shouldn't be the definitive factor...

Like they say - every dog has its day. U2 (the real U2) - belong in the mists and annals of time as one of the seminal bands that helped shape a sound and 'bite' all of their own. - Bloody good one it was too. All things being equal, what can you realistically hope for out of a spent force?  Its listenable, i'll say that.

7/10 

edit - bleedin' spellings getting worse!

[andy_g]

for all those who doubt a band can remain meaningful, poignant, inventive and able to churn out quality music for over 30 years - i give you the Fall. mind you, mark e smith had to rotate even more than rafa benitez to keep it working. and mine you again, their last album was pretty weak.

personally i think its high time mark e smith and bono squared up to each other in some kind of celebrity death match and bono ends up with his smug midget's face getting righteously battered.

[Emerald Red]

Just had a shufty - to be honest its nothing special. Especially against those mentioned above. Very few highlights for me.

It does have one or two raw/edgy tracks that hark back to that iconic 'bleak' U2 soundscape which are nice

But the rest is a bland/vanilla pastiche made up of a curious mix between syncopated shuffle - almost jazzlike beats, the occasional driven rock break interspersed with the odd wistful meander through a storytellers monologue complete with ubiquitous soft pad mood shapers and predictabe drifting chord progressions. Nothing that intoxicates the listener along the journey beyond average - its quite hard work at times.

U2- 80's (hell even 90's) it aint....its clearly a mellowed/accessible - 'required' offering for an age where achieving a notch above mediocrity is a 'benchmark' - Heck knows its easy enough for anybody to 'knock one out' nowadays, given the availability and low cost for producing music outside a professional studio. And of course, not forgetting....the fellas have been around for eons, its bound to have an evolutionary cycle as a product. Their old sound has nigh on disappeared...their writing, as off the mark as it ever might get away with being, deliciously used to be - now constricted to matters less political and confrontational. A mirror for the 'naughties' ethic and its nervousness for upsetting the apple cart

Obviously this scores highly on production - no doubt the team have done a stellar job. Likewise the marketing machine will too....

But the bands direction? (not just THIS band) Where have the days gone where a credible artist(s) poured out his/her/their hearts and struck a collective, resonant chord with its audience - when they had them in the palm of their hands and temporarily answered most of their questions about life and all its angst ridden obstacles with real, meaningful music (heck it even went deeper beyond that didn't it?)......not any old s.*i*e churned out 'cos its... 'by them'.

Which after a full listen (and three or four individual) takes over certain tracks....just to make sure - sad to say, its not that far off.

Not a classic.

Ah, but this is the thing, Red: you're making all the same assumptions that people made when they first heard Achtung Baby. For them, that album ventured into a different plain of experimentation and most proclaimed that it wasn't a U2-sounding album at all. It took the album several years before people finally "got it" and since then it's grown to be probably their best album to date. NLOTH is no different to what they attempted with AB. It's certainly different to any other U2 album. It's nowhere near as accessible as HTDAAB or ALTYCLB, their previous two albums, which to be fair to them were decent, but not that great by their standards, yet still fairly solid albums.

I don't understand this notion people seem to have that U2 haven't been at their best for the better part of 20 years. Most people simply want them to continually rewrite the Joshua Tree. If they did this, they'd have faded out a long, long time ago. They continually change their sound, and more often than not this displeases people who liked U2's more iconic sound of the 80's. Imagine if 80's style sound tried to come back into the mainstream these days. It wouldn't work. It would die with a whimper. It's 80's because it belongs in the 80's. What U2 have done so well down the decades is stay relevant to the times by taking risks. NLOTH is a risk unlike their previous two mainstream pop/rock albums, and a lot unlike Pop, which to be honest wasn't the worst album in the world, it was just weird and really didn't work out well for them. Their weakest album by far, though it did still contain some really decent tunes.

The new album takes a good few listens to really start to get the feel of it. The first four tracks for me are arguably as good as any of a first quartet of openers of any album made by them. "Magnificent" is just a straight throwback to 80's U2, and had that track came out then, it would be regarded today as one of their greats. "Unknown Caller" and "Fez - Being Born" are very Pink Floyd/Led Zepplin-esque, something which I thought I'd never say about any U2 song, and it's certainly not a bad thing either.

If there is a low point in the album which can be considered as nothing special or mediocre, it's the tracks "White As Snow" and "I'll Go Crazy". Not because they are bad tracks, it's just that they in themselves sound like they were tracks that didn't quiet make the cut for either Atomic Bomb, or ATYCLB. Everything else on the album is a step in the right direction, and in the years to come, I've no doubt that people will regard it as being a classic album by them and not "mediocre", because it's anything but that.

[Emerald Red]

Haven't heard it meself ER.... but as good as Achtung Baby and Joshua Tree?
High praise indeed.

The album's not out yet...... so how do I get a quick listen mate? I googled it and came up empty.... must be doing something wrong...

It's not as defining as those two albums as far as anthems go. Structurally, it's almost as good as Joshua Tree and Achtung in the sense that it's a proper old fashioned album, which in these days, not many bands seem to be capable of making. You feel compelled to listen to the whole thing, which is something I haven't done in a while with any other group. Sure like any album, it has it's weakness's, but there are at least 6 monster songs on it that will grow on you, and that by any album standards is enough to be deemed as brilliant, or even potentially classic. It's hard for me to single out what the stand-out track is on it. The ones that are very good all sound uniquely different to one another, yet equally addictive. The opening track "No Line On The Horizon" sounds strange at first, but it grows on you. It's very different and a very interesting sounding song for them, and then it's swiftly followed by the brilliant "Magnificent", which IMO is the best sounding song U2 have done in over 16 years, so I'd say that's probably the standout track on the album. It's a matter of opinion of course.

As for the album being leaked, you can find it on the torrent sites. I'd point you in the right direction, but I don't think it's allowed on here.

[7_Kewell]

i'm a big U2 fan and have been following then since the mid 90s when i bought Pop, which is one of my favourite albums.

I really liked How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb because i was glad to see them move back into creative territory after the rather plain All That You Can’t Leave Behind. OK, Beautiful Day was a great track, but the rest of the album was wishy washy and quite disappointing.

I’m pleased to see the positive reports on the new album and i like the new track. I think U2 maintain their edge (no pun intended) because they see each new album as a fresh challenge. They understand that it only takes one bad album to destroy a band’s reputation and Bono is quite open is admitting how this is their greatest fear and each new record they produce is like the first....they give it 110%.

[Bad Bob]

Just had a shufty - to be honest its nothing special. Especially against those mentioned above. Very few highlights for me.

It does have one or two raw/edgy tracks that hark back to that iconic 'bleak' U2 soundscape which are nice

But the rest is a bland/vanilla pastiche made up of a curious mix between syncopated shuffle - almost jazzlike beats, the occasional driven rock break interspersed with the odd wistful meander through a storytellers monologue complete with ubiquitous soft pad mood shapers and predictabe drifting chord progressions. Nothing that intoxicates the listener along the journey beyond average - its quite hard work at times.

U2- 80's (hell even 90's) it aint....its clearly a mellowed/accessible - 'required' offering for an age where achieving a notch above mediocrity is a 'benchmark' - Heck knows its easy enough for anybody to 'knock one out' nowadays, given the availability and low cost for producing music outside a professional studio. And of course, not forgetting....the fellas have been around for eons, its bound to have an evolutionary cycle as a product. Their old sound has nigh on disappeared...their writing, as off the mark as it ever might get away with being, deliciously used to be - now constricted to matters less political and confrontational. A mirror for the 'naughties' ethic and its nervousness for upsetting the apple cart

Obviously this scores highly on production - no doubt the team have done a stellar job. Likewise the marketing machine will too....

But the bands direction? (not just THIS band) Where have the days gone where a credible artist(s) poured out his/her/their hearts and struck a collective, resonant chord with its audience - when they had them in the palm of their hands and temporarily answered most of their questions about life and all its angst ridden obstacles with real, meaningful music (heck it even went deeper beyond that didn't it?)......not any old s.*i*e churned out 'cos its... 'by them'.

Which after a full listen (and three or four individual) takes over certain tracks....just to make sure - sad to say, its not that far off.

Not a classic.

Ah, but this is the thing, Red: you're making all the same assumptions that people made when they first heard Achtung Baby. For them, that album ventured into a different plain of experimentation and most proclaimed that it wasn't a U2-sounding album at all. It took the album several years before people finally "got it" and since then it's grown to be probably their best album to date. NLOTH is no different to what they attempted with AB. It's certainly different to any other U2 album. It's nowhere near as accessible as HTDAAB or ALTYCLB, their previous two albums, which to be fair to them were decent, but not that great by their standards, yet still fairly solid albums.

I don't understand this notion people seem to have that U2 haven't been at their best for the better part of 20 years. Most people simply want them to continually rewrite the Joshua Tree. If they did this, they'd have faded out a long, long time ago. They continually change their sound, and more often than not this displeases people who liked U2's more iconic sound of the 80's. Imagine if 80's style sound tried to come back into the mainstream these days. It wouldn't work. It would die with a whimper. It's 80's because it belongs in the 80's. What U2 have done so well down the decades is stay relevant to the times by taking risks. NLOTH is a risk unlike their previous two mainstream pop/rock albums, and a lot unlike Pop, which to be honest wasn't the worst album in the world, it was just weird and really didn't work out well for them. Their weakest album by far, though it did still contain some really decent tunes.

The new album takes a good few listens to really start to get the feel of it. The first four tracks for me are arguably as good as any of a first quartet of openers of any album made by them. "Magnificent" is just a straight throwback to 80's U2, and had that track came out then, it would be regarded today as one of their greats. "Unknown Caller" and "Fez - Being Born" are very Pink Floyd/Led Zepplin-esque, something which I thought I'd never say about any U2 song, and it's certainly not a bad thing either.

If there is a low point in the album which can be considered as nothing special or mediocre, it's the tracks "White As Snow" and "I'll Go Crazy". Not because they are bad tracks, it's just that they in themselves sound like they were tracks that didn't quiet make the cut for either Atomic Bomb, or ATYCLB. Everything else on the album is a step in the right direction, and in the years to come, I've no doubt that people will regard it as being a classic album by them and not "mediocre", because it's anything but that.

Well, I'm intrigued enough to give it a proper listen a few times over.  We'll see how it goes but I still contend that U2 have been unremarkable since Achtung Baby and that came out 18 years ago! 

[7_Kewell]

disagree with you there Bob..Zooropa and Pop were very good albums. They also recorded the passengers album which included Miss Sarajevo...which is one of their best songs.

[Emerald Red]

disagree with you there Bob..Zooropa and Pop were very good albums. They also recorded the passengers album which included Miss Sarajevo...which is one of their best songs.

See, this is the thing. Personally, I thought Pop was OK, but it was fairly weak. Zoopropa was a little odd, but it was a creative stroke in U2's creative era that was the early to mid 90's. I think the reason why people started to dislike their new sounds was because that they were too heavily being influenced by the mainstream and what people were listening to. Joshua Tree was a landmark album and defined their sound in the 80's. Achtung Baby did the same in the 90's, though it was a slow start doing so and took time for it to grow into what is now regarded as their best album by many. Zooropa was a departure and came really out of nowhere. It was very trippy, but contained hidden gems like Stay, Lemon and The First Time. Forgotten classics, really, and as good as anything they've done. Still, because it was a departure from their famed sound that made them megastars with Joshua Tree, most of the mainstream listeners just dismissed it. What U2 were doing with Zooropa was probably a bit too far outside the mainstream, but IMO it was better than what any other band was doing at the time, and a lot more inventive. The Zoo TV tour proved that.

For me the last two U2 albums have basically been cookie cutter commercial albums geared towards just getting them back into the spotlight after Pop, which most people thought was too much of a departure outside their sound. Those last two albums contained a litter of safe mainstream radio pop/rock songs that were nothing too extraordinary or different. Just good rock stadium fillers to get people interested again. All That You Can't Leave Behind had Beautiful Day as it's stand-out single. Great tune, but nothing too inventive for them. The rest of the album was filled with more relaxed and downbeat efforts, with maybe the exception of Kite as being one of those non-commercial U2 gems. Everything else on the album was just old fashioned soulful song writing that was neither amazing nor bad. Just decent enough. Fillers.

HTDAAB was much of the same, but this time it contained more anthems a'la Beautiful Day. There were three or four half decent radio friendly commercial songs on it that were aimed at pleasing the average joe public. When I first heard Vertigo, I didn't think it was U2 at all, and I didn't like it. It later grew on me. City of Blinding Lights was probably the stand-out track, with Sometimes You Can't make it being the obvious tear-jerking single that most people, regardless if they are a U2 fan or not, could relate to, so it did really well, getting to #1. Though a success the album was, getting them back to #1 band in the world status, it was not the creative and daring U2 of the early 90's.

However, the first thing upon listening to No Line was that this was U2 of old. It was different. Most people in the mainstream will not like this album, though it will please U2 enthusiasts because they are back to taking risks again with daring new sounds and sometimes odd, but fascinating lyrics. Listen to Unknown Caller and you'll see what I mea: "Restart, and reboot yourself, you're free to go/ shout for joy if you get the chance/ password, you enter here, right now/ you know your name, so punch it in.". Very odd but brilliant lyrics that just fit the mood of the song somehow. Very reminiscent of Pink Floyd. The opening track "No Line On The Horizon" sounds like it could have been lifted straight off Zooropa or Achtung. Trippy sound synths and grungy guitar rifts, coupled with Bono's raspy vocals reminiscent of "Lemon" and "The Lady With The Spinning Head". A lot of people just won't get this album yet, but it's a step in the right direction. It's progressive and back to U2 at their best in the sense that they are being inventive and trying to redefine themselves once again.

[7_Kewell]

i wasn't brought up on the early U2 stuff so it was only when i stubbled across Discotec on MTV that i started getting into the band. I thought Pop was a good album, and i liked it all the more when i heard their old stuff because it was so very different.

Bono has openly said that they could have carried on on the same format as the Joshua Tree and carried on being sucessful, but they took a risk and took the whole thing in a new direction. I think the Popmark tour was amazing and wish i'd had the chance to go. Sadly, i have to make do with a DVD of their gig in Mexico city, but its a fantastic overload of 90s pop culture.

Agree with your sentiments on All That You Can't Leave Behind, but thought HTDAB was a step toward the more creative. I saw U2 live in Mancheste rand Vertigo is a great live track as is Love & Peace Or Else.

I've placed my order for the new album (been suckered in for the limited edition box set DVD thing) and am looking forward to hearing it in full