U2 new album

[Ben the Gooner]

While I haven't read the Bono/Chris Martin articles, am I the only one that noticed that the lead guitar in "Magnificent" sounds EXACTLY like the Coldplay song "Talk"?

Nope. Sorry.

Not a huge fan of that version of Breathe either. The album version is brilliant, but that version takes away from the Dylan-like lyrics IMHO.

 

[Suspense]

Which bands that you rate have been slammed by Pitchfork and have effectively died?

Considering I don't buy into the notion of such hype, none. But there are plenty of bands who have had their hype destroyed by a bad pitchfork review. I would like to know, however, how they gave Zaireeka 0.0 when it was essentially the creative turning point for the band that would result in The Soft Bulletin, which they gave 10.0.

Of course they are indie biased, but as I have shown, U2 has pretty much averaged about an 8 for all of their releases, plus the Veronicas were in the best songs of 2008 and Justin Timberlake won the best track of 2006 (it sucked balls, but meh!). Rihanna got a good review, as did Opeth.

Indie biased? By bias, I mean bias towards their favoured sub-genres and favoured bands. They will praise almost anything neo-psych, yet dismiss any up and coming post-rock group by simply calling it derivative to GSY!BE or Mogwai.

As for that Opeth review, like almost all of their metal reviews, it was embarrassing at best. Where are the 10.0's for My Arms, Your Hearse and Still life? God knows why they praise bands like Protest the Hero when there are thousands of bands out there doing the same thing much better. They praise the latest Nachtmystium, stating it as "metal at its best", when there were easily at least more then twenty better black metal albums released just in that year. They have NFI...

Also, they had the Veronicas in the best songs of 2008 ?

 

[FIGJAM]

Indie biased? By bias, I mean bias towards their favoured sub-genres and favoured bands. They will praise almost anything neo-psych, yet dismiss any up and coming post-rock group by simply calling it derivative to GSY!BE or Mogwai.

Fair enough. In the context of the thread (being that of U2) I took it to mean a common Pitchfork are anti-indie sulk (as already stated by someone else).

Anyway, let the thread go back to the topic...

 

[Arcadion]

Nice to hear that Magnificent is being played before Coldplay take stage Chris must be really upset with Bono!

Anyone see the magnificent performance on Letterman?
What an awesome song, perhaps in my Top 10 U2 songs. Love that chord progression.

 

[johnnyhoward]

I think it sounds almost exactly the same. I played it for someone at work today and asked them what song they think it sounds like, they said Talk also.

The Talk riff was stolen from "Computer Love" by Kraftwerk, fwiw.

I'm surprised Pitchfork gave Atomic Bomb a decent rating. I don't agree with the NLOTH review, but it raised some interesting points - more constructive then their review of Shine On by Jet.

 

[Poptart]

The Talk riff was stolen from "Computer Love" by Kraftwerk, fwiw.

I'm surprised Pitchfork gave Atomic Bomb a decent rating. I don't agree with the NLOTH review, but it raised some interesting points - more constructive then their review of Shine On by Jet.

If this pitchfork group whoever they are gave Bomb a better review than Horizon, then you know not to take them too seriously, don't get me wrong, i loved the last album more than most, and was probably my favourite since Achtung, Zooropa didn't do much for me, it was a leftovers record from Achtung Baby, the songs in Pop aren't as strong as they could have been, ATUCLB was a solid album, very good moments on there.

But Horizon has so much more substance in them, the lower moments of the album are the Bomb styled songs - Boots, Stand Up & Crazy Tonight.

However, songs like Magnificent, Breathe, Moment Of Surrender, NLOTH take them to another level again, and the live version of Magnificent kind of reminded me of New Years Day, not so much the album version, but what they do with it on the stage.

 

[Poptart]

Exclusive: Paul McGuinness on U2's World Tour

Paul McGuinness has been talking to Hot Press about the imminent announcement of U2's world tour, which is likely to include three Croke Park stop-offs in July.

Hot Press, March 04, 2009




"This is going to be a very big tour, the biggest shows we've ever done," he reveals. "We're going to play stadiums only. Football stadiums. That excludes, for instance, baseball stadiums because the production that we've designed is 360 degrees. It's a stage with the audience on all sides."

Will the stage be in the centre of the arena?

"Not quite in the centre, it will be towards one end of the field in a typical football stadium, so the places we're playing will be tiered football stadiums; no flat fields, no festivals, no baseball stadiums. Only big, tiered stadiums."

As with previous U2 productions, there's a heavy emphasis on new technology.

"Well, yeah. I mean the engineering to do this, obviously it has to be a freestanding structure that has to support sound, lighting and video. And that's never been done before. Some people have performed in the middle of a field or maybe in a stadium on a one-off basis, but this is a touring production designed by Mark Fischer and Willie Williams, as usual. We've been talking about it for years, and this is the time we're going to do it. It will be necessary to tell people a bit about the production before the tickets go on sale because otherwise they're going to say, 'hold on, that seat is behind the stage'. Now, it's not behind the stage. There is no behind. So we'll be playing to very large capacities and that gives us an opportunity, or we think it's an opportunity, to scale the house in quite a radical way. So I think, when the tour is announced, which will probably be on March 9th, certainly we are going to start in Europe, and basically do six weeks in Europe, take a logistical break and then six weeks in North America. The large capacities give us an opportunity to scale the house and have some seats at very low prices, and there will be higher prices as well. But the breadth of the scaling will be wider than anyone has ever done in our business. That's kinda news."

Asked about all the Croke Park speculation, McGuinness says: "It's always best to know when you are going to announce it, because there are so many things affected by this, like hotels and airlines, and there's speculation on those commodities which have nothing to do with us. So we try to be disciplined about it, otherwise there can be unforeseen circumstances. Also, sometimes with sports facilities that we are looking to use around the world, we have to wait for sports leagues to resolve. Sometimes if a team loses, such-and-such a stadium becomes available. And all those things are a part of the planning so it's better to build up to it."

It's Hot Press' understanding that U2 will initially announce two Croke Park shows on July 24 and 25, with the option of a third on July 27 if, as expected, those sell-out.

Fans hoping for something a little more intimate will be heartened by McGuiness' observation that: "The new O² in Dublin is not what I would call an arena, it's an amphitheatre in layout, but it has the same capacity as an arena, and it's an amazing facility. And this tour is exclusively outdoors, there will be no indoor shows, but I look forward to a tour when we will be indoors again."


© Hot Press, 2009.

 

[Poptart]

The U2 top ten on Letterman.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2kcktIbjpE

 

[johnnyhoward]

The U2 top ten on Letterman.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2kcktIbjpE

Gotta love Larry's "Even my family asks: are you Larry or Adam?"

Last night they performed "I'll Go Crazy" which was a nice performance. You have to say they've still got it live - the "baby, baby, baby" bridge is vintage U2.

[youtube]msCCBPy8iCk[/youtube]

 

[Arcadion]

Wow how much better are some of these songs when played live? I wonder how many of these 'relevant' bands would get 5 nights in a row on Letterman?

 

[Arcadion]

Haha a U2 hater gives it 9.5/10!!
http://www.craveonline.com/articles/music/04653159/u2_no_line_on_the_horizon.html

 

[XFactor1979]

Wow how much better are some of these songs when played live? I wonder how many of these 'relevant' bands would get 5 nights in a row on Letterman?

you dont need to be relevant to be on letterman

 

[johnnyhoward]

Night 4 and they work in an older track - Beautiful Day. Bono struggles to hit the high notes which is a shame.
[youtube]Mphi30pMAZg[/youtube]

I hope they don't close their run with Get on Your Boots.

 

[DIG]

I really laugh at people who have so much interest in something that they have no real interest in, whats the point?

lol, totally agree.

Love Unknown Caller btw, great song.

 

[Poptart]

Night 4 and they work in an older track - Beautiful Day. Bono struggles to hit the high notes which is a shame.
[youtube]Mphi30pMAZg[/youtube]

I hope they don't close their run with Get on Your Boots.

You may be disappointed then, they have already filmed the Boots performance from night 1 to be aired on night 5.

They also played Elevation after Beautiful Day, but that was JUST for the audience.

They played 6 songs live on stage on Good Morning America this early morning, 4 of them being aired - Boots, Magnificent, Crazy Tonight & Beautiful Day, whilst Breathe & Vertigo were a bonus for the crowd.

 

[johnnyhoward]

You may be disappointed then, they have already filmed the Boots performance from night 1 to be aired on night 5.

Fair enough, I suppose they had to do their lead single

 

[KingCJ]

Well I've heard the new album, it does have a couple of average songs, but U2 still seem to have it.

 

[Sir Vlado]

Apparently U2 have changed the name of the tour, it was called "Kiss The Future tour" but now it is simply called "U2360".

I just bloody well hope they come to Australia.

 

[xamol]

Dont count on it SV.

The cost of coming here is enormous. The Vertigo tour was a logistical nightmare for them. Edge's daughter being sick didn't help either.

 

[soupaman]

Dont count on it SV.

The cost of coming here is enormous. The Vertigo tour was a logistical nightmare for them. Edge's daughter being sick didn't help either.

I've always been interested in the various costs for bands to come out here.

Now by my calculations, for each of their Docklands concerts there was 60,000 people in attendance at an average expenditure of about $120 a ticket (taking into account the varying ticket prices, plus the cost of merchandise).

Now that works out to be $7,200,000 revenue for the night. Thats $14,400,000 revenue for two nights of shows at Telstra Dome. Adding that to the revenue gained from the other shows round the country surely that more than meets the costs of bringing the tour out here.

Unfortunately this show sounds like it's stage is going to be absolutely ridiculous, which would make it more expensive to bring out here.

 

[JimmyHird]

It always pisses me off when bands don't tour Australia because it won't provide a certain level of profit. You have hundreds of thousands of fans here who buy your albums, open your fat ****ing wallet and show your fans some respect by touring.

 

[Sir Vlado]

Dont count on it SV.

The cost of coming here is enormous. The Vertigo tour was a logistical nightmare for them. Edge's daughter being sick didn't help either.

I believe it had to be post poned then.

So they are starting in Spain and will play stadiums in the US.

They should announce the tour dates very, very soon (only a matter of hours) and if they'll come it will be in 2010.

It always pisses me off when bands don't tour Australia because it won't provide a certain level of profit. You have hundreds of thousands of fans here who buy your albums, open your fat ****ing wallet and show your fans some respect by touring.

They still might tour though... Nothing has been confirmed yet.

 

[driver 8]

I dont think they'll come here.

They almost didnt with Vertigo because they wouldnt make any money.

They didnt for the tour before cause they wouldnt make money.

They're a commercial band these days

 

[driver 8]

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/u2/nolineonthehorizon

good sum up of different publications reviews

 

[Sir Vlado]

Yeah whatever.

Some tour dates have just been announced, the end of June the tour starts.