Do you know what is a great song? Love my Way by the Psychedelic Furs.
In a new Romantic melodic way of course. I haven't heard for ages and it came on a playlist after I had been listening to Pretty in Pink, and in the great tradition of getting old, I had forgotten how cool it is.
The aforementioned Pretty in Pink has been a favourite of mine for many many years. It is also a great song.
Apart from that , there isn't a lot of their material that I really warm to. Heaven is alright, is a bit repetitive. I know I have written a bit about this before but, there does appear to be some artists/bands who have a couple of great songs and that's it. Frankly I would of course be very happy to have a couple of pieces out there as good as the two above.
It must however be difficult, as you continue to try to find that formula or muse or what ever it was that enabled you to write those couple of high points and struggling. Or at least struggling to get other people to see why they are as good as what you have done previously. Then touring and people only asking to hear those great moments.
If you have read much of my Blog over the past few years you will note that there is not a lot of love for U2 around here. In fact it would not be a stretch to say that for all the ying goodness I am so happy to discuss for bands and artists I like, the yang is mostly reserved for U2.
I do not wish to imply that , by bringing in concepts of ying and yang , that there is some sort of balance to this. Balance implies a certain premeditated desire to attribute an even distribution of good and bad so that the end result is not weighted in one way or the other. it can also mean that there is some sort of rationality to the whole thing.
There isn't. To be a fan of music you need no rationality nor should you be concerned in any way if you are not able to find it in your decision making. You like what you like. That is why I am always perfectly comfortable in declaring my unending admiration for the diversity of music I hope that you find on this site.
It also explains away quite succinctly the rest of this post.
U2 have a new album out. you may have heard about how well it went? smirk.
As a long time detractor of that band it has given me a great deal of joy to see that not only have the band stripped bare their festering rancid corporate soul, but that some of the biggest outcries were from people who did no know who they were. Which is fantastic, whilst not exactly bringing hope to the world that people are so devoid of knowledge about the history of music, at least they are yet to be defiled.
I had been asked by a couple of friends what I thought about the album and so I thought I would do a first listen review. Much the same as I did for Justin Beiber - for those of you who want to know how that went please read HERE.
Before I get to the actual album, I want to rant about the Ad that was shown in London.
So, the band and their Corporate sponsor think it is appropriate to put images of The Clash, The Ramones and Patti Smyth in black and white inside the image of the band players. It is an interesting visual effect. offering a juxtaposition against the colorful images on the white back ground. Seriously though, some of the punk protagonists put there as an image for U2 and Apple? How punk, how very alternative and anti establishment they really are. . . it is truly a fucking disgrace and the owners of those images should be ashamed of themselves for selling themselves out.
As for the edge smashing his guitar at the end in an attempt to imitate Joe Strummer, it is laughable how contrived and how out of touch he is to think that we would fall for that. I subsequently learn that the song is called The Miracle (of Joey Ramone) and wonder therefore what the smashing of the guitar has got to do with the Ramones? or Joey?
Just as point as well. Bono keeps losing his guitar throughout the clip. he has it, he loses it completely, he gets it back. its gone again. Great editing and continuity . . . .
So what is the album actually like?
Well, the first song is apparently a tribute to Joey Ramone. It is extremely hard to tell if it is the writers view point or supposedly Joey's. The Chorus is clearly from the song writers and it is about the waking up moment of hearing a beautiful sound. The song is catchy. Not good, but catchy. As per most U2 stuff it has a wall of noise quiet loud quiet loud idea. Where the singer comes in at a quiet point, and there is a large amount of woo's and waa's and ohh's during the loud chorus bits. It is pretty forgettable stuff frankly. perhaps aimed at the singing into a hairbrush teens than the actual U2 audience.
The next song is called every breaking wave, and it is undoubtedly U2 - so derivative. Actually I think it sounds like a Coldplay song, maybe, I don't know much of their stuff, but it seems very naff. lyrics comparing people to the ocean. The music is a bit like everything and nothing at the same time. Like a sped up version of with or without you, but with some melodies added.
I have had to take a break, actually the break lasted for a few months as you can probably tell from now how much the U2 album has become part of all of our lives. . . or not as I quite happily note. In all serious though, I knew I had this still to write for a while and I am a little disappointed in myself that I only lasted for two songs. I hope that I never have to endure a torture situation as i have decreasingly feeble hopes for lasting it out without providing information.
The truly distressing part is that I have 9 songs to go. Next Song, California (There is no end to love) , not much to write, lots of whoahwooawhoahs and quite loud type of stuff again.
Song for someone - a new try at the heart felt ballad.
Iris (hold me Close) - this has almost the exact same guitar riff as Where the streets have no name. Really it does, I think that the more I listen to The Edge's playing ids that he is very keen on the chugging type of guitar riff. I think this is what gives U2 their signature sound. It is an interesting effect. I think I write before that it provides a song with movement. Lots of notes repeated and put together in close time signatures. i.e. not held for more than a beat, but repeated.
I cant do it guys. I am sorry , I tried, but I write this as a man defeated. Every time a new song comes on I think of songs I would rather be listening to. Mainly this actually.
Search good music people. The interesting stuff does not come from a combined Apple U2 launch and it never will. Deep down you knew this already . .
I have taken this concept from another writer but I thought it would be interesting place to start
So, things that I think I think.
1. All music fits into three categories in my mind
a. great music by talented people
b. music I don't really get but the people that do it are very talented
c. the dirge and waste by a collection of people including singers, writers, producers that may be talented individually but produce rubbish
2. There is no best song or best album ever. There are not even favourites over a reasonable length of time. It changes so much and so constantly that it has to be broken into categories over time periods.
3. What is modern R&B? to me R&B was fantastic songs by people with amazing voices and was similar but slightly different to the Motown pop sound. Modern R&B is just pop music , and not very good pop music either
4. Pop music isn't always bad. but mainly it is.
5. When Taylor Swift announced she was leaving Spotify it made me quite happy for some reason.
6. U2 managed to shoot themselves in the foot so badly over the Itunes thing that when I am having a bad moment I think about it to cheer myself up
7. As we go through a northern hemisphere Autumn, there is nothing better to listen to than prog metal or rock. It fits that mood extremely well and I am always amazed by how much of it I just don't know.
8. I still don't get Jazz, which seems incongruous with # 7, but actually it is completely valid because of brass instruments used far to much
9. In power metal there is only Iron Maiden, everyone else is only there to show us how good Maiden are.
10. I feel bad for KISS. They should have stopped when the 70s ended. When they released 'I was made for loving you' it was in effect the end of them anyway. When I started school, the KISS logo was carved into almost every desk that I can remember sitting at. We went to birthday parties in KISS make up a couple of times. They are terrible, sad parodies of band now and they should just stop. They should have just stopped 34 years ago.
Hello dear reader, I hope that you are well, have you heard any good music recently? If you have I would also love to hear it. Please let me know what it is.
I was at a party recently, you are possibly stunned to hear that news, but yes it is true, and in an even larger surprise I was talking about music. Indeed, I was being brought to heel about my post 'I HATE U2'. I was even told that The Joshua Tree was the best album of the 80s.
Well, as you can imagine, I took a little umbrage to this , and given I have this medium to detail a response I thought I would use it. So, was The Joshua Tree the best album of the 80s?
Well I thought about it, for all of roughly 2 seconds and came up with the somewhat surprising answers of - no it wasn't. It wasn't even the best album in the year it was released. 1987. Here right now, I am going to prove it. This is something I thought may have been ridiculously easy. You know what, it is. As it turns out, 1987 was a pretty good year for music. A pretty good year indeed. A lot of actually great albums were released. None of them by U fucking 2.
Let's start in indie and alternative.
There was Substance by New Order, that album has, True Faith, Bizarre love triangle and Blue Monday.
I know it is a compilation, but for me, that was one of the first times I had heard a lot of the songs on it, and frankly, they are simply fantastic. I run out of words when I talk about New Order. There is very little else out there like them. Except for this song that also came out in 1987
Given where I am able to go in this post, this is an odd place to start. However, the purpose of it is to show that , unlike U2, there is music that can be mainstream but still has a heart, some passion, something a little more real to it.
Anyway, this came out by the mighty Pixies from the album Come on Pilgrim
Sonic Youth also put out Sister. Quite a good album, a lot of peoples favorite album. One they were able to tour with simply playing the tracks from that album 20 years later.
1987 was also a great year for Hip Hop or as we called it back then, rap. A great year. We had the seminal album Paid in full by Eric B And Rakim.
Not to mention, Rhyme Pays by Ice T, which has the song that basically started gangsta rap
I have no idea if you like this genre or not. But the two tracks above had a huge impact on my world and even though the production on the ice T track lacks a little, it is a great track. i saw a great documentary called ' Something out of nothing' which was hosted by Ice -T. In oit, basically every rap artist from this time period says, well we heard 6 in the morning and we wanted to do something like that. We wanted to show that we could do it to. hard to think of a bigger accolade for people to pay.
Also in rap in 1987, you had Yo! bum rush the show, by Public Enemy, Bigger and Deffer by LL Cool J, how ya like me now by Kool Moe D, NWA and the posse by NWA
Mainly, for me, 1987 was the year when The Cult released Electric and Guns and Roses released Appetite for Destruction. I have written here, about how Appetite changed a lot of my perception of music. It still sounds good, to my ears it always will.
I love that song and love that album. I don't think I even need to go into why it is a better album than The Joshua Tree. you know it, I know it - everyone knows it, no need to say it.
I also love Electric by The Cult. For people of my age , i.e. a little, but not too much, too old, Electric is a milestone. A maker that is used to show our generational links. My favorite song on it is the following
Really though, it was a great time for Dark pop as I like to call it.
We had, Music for the masses by Depeche Mode, Strangeways here we come by The Smiths.
Kiss me kiss me kiss me by the Cure,
(1987 not a good year for Robert Smiths dancing however)
Document by REM.
These bands, along with new order and The Pet shop boys, for me , define this unusual time in music better than anyone else. This was a time when it was still acceptable to have a synthesizer , but rather than just write a little ditty, to do something interesting with the noise it made. Put it to some real emotions and in a band like The Smiths, move to a place that can be described as almost an alternate universe of music. One where everything wasn't so great, but it was a lot more interesting.
You have enough music to listen to. But please remember that also this year, Prince released Sign o the Times, INXS released Kick, Dinosaur jr released You're living all over me and of course Diesel and Dust by Midnight oil.here is my favourite track from that album.
I feel I have given you a huge amount of examples of the good music that was around in this year. It is true that many of the above albums are not considered to be the best of the artists. Many went on to better things and many had better things behind them . I have looked at a number of the Top ten albums of the year and see that The Joshua Tree makes most of the main stream lists. None of the non mainstream ones though. Why? Well if I look at the track listing I get the following songs on the first side.
Where the streets have no name
I still haven't found what I am looking for
with or without you
Bullet the blue sky
running to stand still
people only ever listen to this side. they never listen to the next tracks
red hill mining town
in Gods country
trip through your wires
one tree hill
exit
Mothers of the disappeared.
Why do people like the first 5 tracks so much? I have genuinely given this a lot of thought and have even listened to them again in order to write this piece. This was not an easy thing for me to do and will no doubt now mess up my Google history, giving me options that will probably be associated with the masses. The things I do for you.
I think what appeals to people is two fold. Firstly, the lyrics are very basic and repeated endlessly. However, not necessarily repeated in order and as such create the impression that more is being said than it actually is. Listen to Where the streets have no name, 'love turns to rust' and 'blown by the wind' come up about 10 times each. The lyrics are also what I would call pseudo epic. What I mean by this is that they elongate the vowel sounds and as such make them better for arena type singing (or more likely, drunken BBQ). The lyrics are also , as I have described before, fortune cookie philosophy. ' I still haven't found what I am looking for' relates to anyone in a sentimental mood. Very few people don't have something they feel this about. With or without is just about difficult periods of relationships. Everyone has that and he is not saying anything, but it could apply to everyone. Like a fortune teller saying, I see you have had some difficulties before. It means nothing, he isn't talking about himself, rather trying to appeal to you.
Secondly, the music itself is very straightforward. It has a simple four four beat drum with a similar base line. With the base being played a lot of the time on the partial off beat of the drum. The overlay for the guitars is done at the reasonably standard, two to three octaves higher, and while played in a four four blues beat, is done on every four bar with repetitive notes. First done about 200 or so years ago, it is very effective at creating atmosphere. (the effect, obviously not the four four blues beat). The songs generally have an increase in intensity, rather than speed, and then tail away towards the end. Meaning that the music and lyrics don't change, but they play or singer louder. Also there is a lot of doubling up of the recording of the instruments to give a fuller sound. This is not criticism as most bands do it. Just an explanation.
This album really made U2 a big name in the US . it is easy to see why given all of the US imagery involved in it. There is nothing wrong with this, they aren't exactly hiding it by calling the album Joshua Tree are they? One wonders where this comes from though, up until this point they were a very Irish band, almost a political band in many of their songs which can be , very loosely , claimed to be protest songs. I am cynical about this mainly because it is a remarkably obvious ploy for album sales.
So what does this all mean? Well, it means the songs are sentimental, easy to sing along to, and basic in their construction. Occupying a place that allows people to listen without really being challenged.
This is acknowledged as the bands high point. As you can see from the above, their high point doesn't even really compare with the secondary or maybe tertiary works of other bands. I know that my opinion of this will not make any difference to you putting it on at 11:30 after a few drinks and singing along.
