Sunday, November 28, 2004

New U2 Review For You

*extends arm forward, palm down, fingers spread, tilts hand left, then right, repeats*

It's fine. It's alright. It's about 20x better than my Thanksgiving break. I felt a slight bit disappointed after my first couple listens to "All You Can't Leave Behind", too, and it grew on me. We'll see if this album is the same way.

Favorite tracks thus far:

#4 - "Love and Peace or Else" - I shuddered when I saw the title. Then I threw up. Then I saw my puke and threw up again. Then some splattered on my shoe and I screamed in agony. Then I threw the awful shoe as hard as I could down the sidewalk. It landed on a toddler, but the kid was O.K., just a little bump, and the cycle of pain and anguish was broken. So, yeah - the song is pretty good. Kind of reminds me of their BB King collaboration "When Love Comes to Town". No BB King this time around, though - he and his stupid diabetes are nowhere to be found.

#6 - "All Because of You" - Very solid track, save for the unbearable shriek of feedback The Edge inserts before the song begins in earnest. (What if the song began IN Earnest? How would that even happen? What a mindjob!) Hey, The Edge - no need to shock us with the sudden swell! Who do you think you are, Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn? Is this "All Because of You" or the infamous "Surprise Symphony"?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's my quick review:

Much better than All That You Can't Leave Behind...much better. That album now looks like it was just demos for this album.

Best tracks? Miracle Drug, Original of the Species & City of Blinding Lights. I like Love Peace or Else. It's the only track produced by long time producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. As much as I've been waiting for Acthung Baby 2...this 90s re-hash sounds old to me. I've also read a lot of reviews saying the second half of the album is no good...bullshit. A Man and A Woman, Yahweh...all strong tracks.

The biggest surprise for me is that this album was finished a year ago...with just one producer, Chris Thomas. As part of the 400+ songs on Apple's "Complete U2" they have several of the songs from that version of the album including "Native Son" which would become Vertigo. It would not only have been the most hard rocking U2 work ever but would have made all those other garage rock, lo-fi, indie bands look like babies. I can't understand why it didn't get released.

Summation: Best U2 album since POP


phil

dn said...

So you're saying that "Native Son" is available on I-Tunes? That sounds like one hot track!

Anonymous said...

That's exactly what I'm saying. There's a ton of stuff on there but they have some alternate [one's from last year] versions of the songs on this album. I think it's just Native Son, Yahweh, and Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own. Good stuff.

Also, I forgot...on the collectors edition CD/DVD there is a bonus track called 'Fast Cars' [not the Tracey Chapman song] which is pretty cool. The alternate version of it on iTunes, called Xanax and Wine...is pretty punk rock.

Am I buggin' ya? Didn't mean to bug ya.