IT'S A THINKPIECE ABOUT THE GREATEST ROCK BAND IN THE WORLD STRUGGLING WITH ITS OWN MORTALITY IN THE HARSH FACE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY: Steven Hyden visits with U2 at the start of its latest global tour:
The encore was better — “City of Blinding Lights” into “Beautiful Day” into “Where the Streets Have No Name,” a trilogy of screamingly epic songs that evoke the sort of extraordinary, larger-than-life existence that’s only possible in the space of a U2 tune. The cynical music critic in me is supposed to scoff, but I wouldn’t even like music if I didn’t buy wholeheartedly into songs like this. I’m reminded of something Taylor Hawkins, the surfer-haired classic-rock true believer in the Foo Fighters, told me: “You go see U2 and you will see your life pass before your eyes.”
Maybe that sounds like a sales pitch. Nevertheless, it’s a sales pitch that belongs uniquely to U2, which as a band never stopped wanting to be the four-headed president of rock music. The encore is U2’s stump speech, which like all stump speeches is imbued with hopeful imagery that you kid yourself into believing in just one more time. U2 promises to tear down walls and touch far-off plains in order to take the audience to a secret, magical place that can’t be found on any maps. If that reads as silly or laughably romantic on paper, it doesn’t change the fact that I was surrounded by strangers suddenly united by their desire to go back to that place.
This gives me hope: "We have a very loyal, strong, intelligent audience. We might make music just for them in the future. We might not want to connect with other people.”
ReplyDeleteI used to have quite a long list of performers I wanted to see live. U2 is the only one left on the list that I haven't seen. I even saw Barbra Streisand! I may have to make the trip to Madison Square Garden this summer.
ReplyDeleteRead this earlier today based on Randy's mentioning it on Twitter, and I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't any half-hearted attempts to reevaluate Pop or Zooropa (which i maintain are the low points of their discography, but there's an interesting subset of good U2 fans that claim they're great albums and I just can't follow them there).
ReplyDeleteHey! That's me you're talking about!
ReplyDeleteThis is the quote that hit me. (Adam): "We have a very loyal, strong, intelligent audience. We might make
music just for them in the future. We might not want to connect with
other people.”
That the writer goes on to say that How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb was the album made most for "fans" to date, I found puzzling . . .
Just realized I had already shared that quote. Dummy.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think was both of you mentioning it, but sorry about that. And here's my take on HTDAAB being "made most for fans"....it does feel like a greatest hits album, like the songs are half recreations of older, better songs. It's a very cynical take by me on that album and I don;t think it's intentional by U2, but that's how that album feels to me.
ReplyDeleteNo - I was calling myself the dummy!
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree, but to me an attempt to ape the hits feels like a sop to the masses, not to the hard-core U2 fan. Not that I dislike HTDAAB, but it feels much lighter-weight than NLOTH.
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ReplyDelete