GEN
Active topics
  1. Originally posted by dylbagz:This thread should be about songs of innocence and then experience by association.

    If you're going to force an album to be downloaded onto every ios product in the world, why use an album that has no meaning to anyone but u2 and the people who know their history? None of those songs resonate with the public because of it. They should have forced a real album on people.
    The ideas resonated with a lot of people who have an average level of intelligence the only ones complaining were the self absorbed millennials who only listen to brainless music by manufactured Karaoke singers .
  2. Yeah well they fucked up with the SOI release after the trial run of the free Invisible release.

    NLOTH showed a lack of direction, they wanted to do something different but then they got nervous and GOYB was on it and was the first single.
  3. It’s finding SOI so easy to connect with that made it one of my favourites. Yes its a personal album to the band, to Bono in particular perhaps but like a lot of great u2 songs you can have your own interpretation of them that makes them mean something more to you. Even in the songs though like cedarwood road and raised by Wolves which I can’t really relate to my life I’m completely into the vibe of they songs, what they mean to the band and I think musically they just sound great anyway. NLOTH however just doesn’t mean anything to me, I like listening to it occasionally I think highly of a few songs from it but they don’t really do anything to me. I used to put that down to the lack of an emotional attachment but I don’t think it is just that. An emotional attachment can help but it isn’t everything. Take Achtung baby my favourite album I don’t love zoo Station or the Fly because of there sentimental value I love them because they just sound incredible. When I listen to they songs I want to be physically playing them or singing them (if I could do either well enough) you can almost feel the music flowing through your veins, that’s not there in NLOTH, I can enjoy certain songs but nothing more than that. NLOTH falls short of u2 standards in both emotional attachment and/or just sounding great. I also don’t think the band really committed to NLOTH they were confused with what they wanted to do and it shows. Btw still think it’s a decent album in general but below par for u2 standards.
  4. Originally posted by Welsh_Edge:Yeah well they fucked up with the SOI release after the trial run of the free Invisible release.

    NLOTH showed a lack of direction, they wanted to do something different but then they got nervous and GOYB was on it and was the first single.
    Yep. NLOTH's erraticism is mainly due to them being scared of straying too far off the "blockbuster path". A full-on experimental and anti-mainstream album a la Fez/BB or Cedars would have been much more welcomed among fans and would have morally enabled them to go full-on commercial again in the next cycle. But they chickened out and NLOTH didn't fully satisfy anyone, it was in the middle of every and nowhere, and all over the place actually.
  5. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]
    Even if we're off topic: this is a very valid point, hadn't though of it that way. They should have chosen a less personal and more wide-scope album to force it down 500-million's throats. It would have been better received I guess (or at least, less bashed).
    It wouldn’t have mattered what the released. They could’ve done The Joshua Tree and millions of people still would’ve hated it, millions of people still would’ve loved it, U2 would’ve still jumped back into the top 200, and every daytime talk show host and hip kid of twitter would’ve bashed them and every nighttime talk show host and old-time music writer would’ve praised them.

    That said, I think SOI was a very accessible — it’s rewarding to know the history but I think it’s also an easy to get into album.

    Anyway this is off-topic...

    Why NLOTH? I imagine they just wanted to experiment. By the way they talk it was an album that really was going to be totally out of left field. BUT — as was established at the beginning — they were still feeling burned by Pop and had seen very widespread and public success with the preceding two albums and tours. They realize they’ve got an odd atmospheric record with no hits and no obvious live staples, and they feel they need to balance it. I’d expect that at the time of the album’s release, they felt that putting all the “radio” songs right there in the middle in a block made it an aspect of the album’s overall arc, and that adding those songs balanced the album out, not fractured it. Now, I really like NLOTH, poppy stuff included, but it’s definitely a weird dynamic with those songs sat in there. The Daylight and Darkness EPs route probably would’ve been better...

    (Also, the album was widely disliked by fans, mainly on account of tracks 5-7, but how widespread was this? How many people didn’t like the album because it had too many weird ambient experimental excursions like Unknown Caller, Fez, or Cedars?)
  6. If they wanted to do a follow-up to HTDAAB with similar success, they should have released the material they recorded with Rick Rubin.
  7. I've always thought that the problems with this album can be traced back to Bono being too distracted by his advocacy work. His lyricism reached its peak with AB, although Pop almost matched it. But from there it went downhill and reached the bottom with his album.
  8. Originally posted by TheRealEdge:I really like 75% of this album, but why did they make it?

    U2 had had a rebirth of popularity at the beginning of the 2000s after their POP experience.

    Beautiful Day is a cracking pop/rock tune and Vertigo is a masterful - if not simplistic - rock track, and theses 2 songs definitely hit a chord with the public and not just U2 fans.

    They also had an emotional series of post 9/11 concerts and a Super Bowl performance to be proud of, which brought them a whole new legion of fans - as well as later Vertigo seemingly being played ad infinitum.

    The guys had been kicked in the nuts after POP - even though it's a masterpiece - so why risk it all again releasing NLOTH when they were riding the crest of the popular/relevant wave that they had been seeking?

    There was no need to try and be experimental again especially after gaining new fans, a new popular era for the band and sold-out tours too.

    Suffice to say that the album wasn't as commercially successful as they'd hoped - even though the tour was - and this is reflected with many of the NLOTH album tracks being removed from the setlists (I think they went down to as low as only performing 4 tracks from the touring album!).

    It seemed that POP had happened to them all over again.

    And now over the last few tours it seems that the album is getting the POP treatment regarding setlist appearances.

    We know the band do not like to take risks post POP and I applaud them for releasing NLOTH but were they delusional?
    I think this is a good question.

    With the perspective now of SOI, SOE and SOS, No Line looks even more odd in hindsight.

    I saw an interview with the band from 2009 where Bono described it as the band's "White Album" but I'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean. The word "experimental" appears in a lot of interviews. But U2's experiments usually result in uplifting melodies. The melodies on No Line seem like downers to me. I think that's why I never got into this album although the song "Winter" which appears on "Linear" might be one of their best.

    I've also never heard anyone say that No Line is their favorite U2 album of all time, the way we often hear people talk about off-kilter albums like Zooropa and Pop.

    In this thread some people have talked about the fact that it took the band 5 years to make this album in between peak advocacy trips by Bono for his various activism initiatives. So perhaps they set a deadline for release to force an outcome and then ended up stuck with an undesirable result that they had to tour with. I feel like there was an interview with Steve Lillywhite a few years ago where he suggested as much but I can't find it.

    For a band that considers every step so closely it is surprising to me that this album appears through the rearview mirror to be their biggest failure.
  9. Mmm i've always liked the album,when i first heard it i thought it was way too ambient to enjoy but it's a grower.
    The 360 concept seemed like it was screaming out for a rock show and again i did (and still do) love that tour,it was a bit wierd having this monster of a rock stage and them playing stuff like Breathe and Unknown Caller.
  10. Perfect example of U2 making an album that didn’t match their commercial touring ambitions.

    As mentioned it seems they got scared and felt they had to jam “radio friendly” tunes onto the album and the record lost its identity. Moody and atmospheric wasn’t going to fill stadiums around the globe in U2’s mind.

    I think NLOTH has some very high highs and some real crap. Maybe partly why I like Pop better than NLOTH. Band ran out of time to mess Pop up any more….only Miami is a real dog and at least that tune is way out of the box for the band and tries to be unique unlike the middle tunes of NLOTH.
  11. Why do people hate Miami so much? Is it the lyric; the my mammy thing? I’ve always wondered. Whatever about No Line and perceived ‘experimentation’, Miami is a genuine brave departure. The murky sounds, the choppy rhythm, the menacing guitar, it’s great. What is it that bugs people? Just coz it has no chiming Edge or soaring Bono over emoting vocal?
  12. Originally posted by TheRefugee:Why do people hate Miami so much? Is it the lyric; the my mammy thing? I’ve always wondered. Whatever about No Line and perceived ‘experimentation’, Miami is a genuine brave departure. The murky sounds, the choppy rhythm, the menacing guitar, it’s great. What is it that bugs people? Just coz it has no chiming Edge or soaring Bono over emoting vocal?
    It's got it's moments but for me Miami just isn't a particularly good song and that's it.