Watching U2's November 2004 appearance on Saturday Night Live, they really took the place over. It was not just deference to their legend, but pure overwhelming charisma and stage presence. Obviously these guys can play. Even more obviously, Bono knows how to work a crowd and a camera.
Yet really, it was only in the closing segment that they completely took it over the top, and broke on through to the other side, playing the classic "I Will Follow." It took all that accumulated power of presence to halfway sell the songs from How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, cause this album pretty well sucks. It's a boring excuse for songwriting.
"Vertigo" was a big hit, and has helped them sell several million copies of this stale rehash of past glories. The power of their legacy, and endless drilling in of the main hook in those damned Ipod commercials fired up the buying button in the consumers. I'm glad I downloaded my copy from the internet though, cause I'd have been cheesed to no end if I had actually spent cash on this crapola.
The song "Vertigo" is ok. However, it really doesn't have much lasting power. It's like they set about writing a "rousing U2 rock song." It's a minimally competently composed song, but sounds much more like an exercise than the result of having anything actually to say. I doubt anyone cares about this song a year or two from now.
Also, it's not really even all that well written. I find the flat, utterly non-melodic chanting of the verses just annoyingly weak. This only exacerbates the weakness of the words, which vaguely seem to describe some indefined state of being disoriented.
Lights go down it's dark
The jungle is your head - can't rule your heart
I'm feeling so much stronger than before
Your eyes are wide
And though your soul it can't be bought
Your mind can wonder
Like much U2 and certainly like much of this album, these words are supposed to look profound. However, real profundity in a pop song needs to come from the MELODY, which is sadly lacking.
At that, "Vertigo" is WAY the best song on the album. If you dig it, download the single onto your damned Ipod, and don't waste money. Give it to tsunami victims instead. I'm sure Bono would approve.
The other song they played from this album on SNL was "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own." Being generous, this song might be considered marginally listenable. It does have at least a minimally decent hook, with the falsetto "And it's you when I look in the mirror."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Tom Johnson
Well, lyrically, I agree - it's pretty weak, but musically I enjoy the album a great deal. And I also think that "Vertigo" is not one of the highlights of the album, as it simply sounds like it's trying to be "Elevation II," but can't quite reach the heights of stupid fun that song was. I like the new single, "All Because Of You," even less than "Vertigo." I like pretty much everything else on the album a lot more, however. It's the most even album they've made since Achtung Baby, but it doesn't quite reach the heights, emotionally and musically, that All That You Can't Leave Behind, even if it is a more solid listen. But yeah, the lyrics are pretty bland and noncommittal, which is a shame because it's an unfortunate waste of talent making sure not to offend anyone.
2 - Eric Olsen
oh Al, and you were on such a roll. I think there are great songs and lyrics on the album and they are anything but played out - review pending in my top 10 list
3 - DJRadiohead
I am with Eric here... I think the album is lyrically strong and sonically interesting (even if it is not sonically groundbreaking).
I already named it my Top Album of 2004 (also available HERE). 25 years in and they still deliver.
4 - Mark Saleski
tin ear.
5 - Distorted Angel
While I don't dislike this album nearly as much as Al does, it's not on my list of favorite things, either. Prior to its release, when everyone was running around yelling about U2 returning to their roots, I was kind of hoping for another War. Imagine my disappointment. This album isn't awful, not by a long shot. It's better than All That You Can't Leave Behind, but it's no Joshua Tree, although I hear echoes of both within. I think "Vertigo" is a good song, and my second favorite would be "Love and Peace or Else". I think that U2 has joined the small number of bands in the rock pantheon that have a secure place in music history and can still burn up a stage -- think Springsteen and the Stones, for example -- they're incredible performers, they work very hard at what they do, they are mostly without equal in some respects -- but they're probably not going to spring any surprises on us anytime soon, and I think that's too bad.
6 - Johno
Wrong again, Eric, Mark and Mr. DJ. Al, who's over the moon about so much, is dead right on this one. Fatuous and boring, if nicely produced.
7 - Eric Olsen
yes, the weight of always being right does grow burdensome from time to time; yet, with the best interests of the little people in mind, I must restate the obvious: those who disagree with me are either defective, evil, or misguided
8 - Al Barger
I can allow some for taste, but these songs are SO weak compositionally. Other than the two songs, I mostly can't remember how they go even while I'm actually listening to them.
9 - Johno
Ooh! I choose evil!
Just kidding, Eric. My previous hyperbole aside, I certainly accept that tastes differ, which is why there's both diet Coke and heroin. But I do love typing the words, "wrong, again."
Al, you do know the same criticisms could be levelled against "When I Wuz Cruel," right?
10 - Triniman
I found this to be a solid album, with several strong, distictive songs. It's their best work since Achtung Baby. I've listened to it a lot and haven't tired of it yet.
11 - Mark Saleski
there are many, many more ways to evaluate music than "is there a good melody?".
12 - Tom Johnson
Mark's right, and that's why I still really enjoy this album - the melodies are gorgeous. A lot of the lyrics leave me completely flat and, at times, embarassed. I mean, come on: "Some people get squashed crossing the tracks" (from "All Because of You.") They couldn't come up with anything else to sing there, something less clunky and ugly? Not to mention Bono's off-key singing of the chorus - that's painful. But "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" is a powerful song with moving lyrics, even before I knew it was about Bono's relationship with his dad - that just made it a little more powerful.
Overall, however, it's a really enjoyable listen, especially as a whole, and does indeed rank as one of the highlights of an already great year in music. Yeah, yeah, I know - I need to do my list . . . I'm a lazy bum.
13 - Phillip Winn
Easily one of the best albums of 2004. If you can't remember the hooks or the lyrics, the problem isn't with the album -- my kids and I sing nearly every song word for word and note for note.
Musically, not as strong as Joshua Tree, but lyrically, probably their best. album. evar.
Eric, as usual, is right. In fact, he's almost always right; it's a rare occasion that he disagrees with me. ;-)
14 - DJRadiohead
U2 finds themselves in God's Little Acre: east of the rock and west of the hard place.
Some people would crush them for making a record that doesn't sound appropriately different from everything else they have ever done. But they have been at this for 25 years, the same four guys. There is going to be a certain... carryover effect.
Then there are people who would crush them if they got too experimental and got too far away from sounding like the band people have grown to love.
That leaves a very small path down the middle that a band of U2's stature and history must navigate. How does a band stay interesting and fresh while still maintaining its identity.
HTDAAB and ATYCLB before it are two outstanding examples of a band coming to grips with its past and progressing at the same time.
15 - Distorted Angel
DJ, you're absolutely right about the rock and the hard place -- I guess I just don't see what they've done lately as progress. To me, it's more like maintaining the status quo. Granted, their status quo is better than most people's best efforts, but I guess I would prefer more experimentation at the expense of pleasing the multitudes.
16 - DJRadiohead
Distorted Angel:
Where I see the progress is in the songs. With the exception of the wretched Pop, I think the songs themselves have gotten better even if the band has not gotten more adventurous.
I think one of Pop's greatest flaws was that this was the sound of band trying too hard not to sound like itself. With ATYCLB, they gave themselves permission to sound like U2 again. BUT... they did so with a terrific group of songs. For me, I think they have been able to compensate for the lack of discovery by writing some great lyrics with some great melodies and have found these last two albums very engaging.
Was it as exciting as hearing Achtung Baby for the first time? No, probably not. And that sense of excitement is something I do miss, so I think I have an idea of what you are trying to say.
17 - Tom Johnson
I think what Pop deserves is the remix that was hinted at with Best of 1990-2000. (And I mean "remix" in the literal sense - the songs were re-mixed from the sources, not "remixed" for dancefloor purposes.) The examples of this remixing are cause for hope - it makes Pop not sound like a desperate and tiring techno experiment. One of the band members hinted also that there will be a reissuing of this album in the not-too-distant future that will contain the original and the remixed version. As with all things U2 and me, I don't like all of the songs on Pop but I seem to like what I like a LOT.
18 - DJRadiohead
The remixes heled but no remix can fix the lyrics, and in too many songs the lyrics were lacking ("Playboy," "Miami," etc).
I think Bono was on empty during those sessions and just didn't have it going on lyrically. I am also not sure a remix could flesh out the melodies any better. Mayb it could... and it better because the melodies were missing on several of those songs (although "Last Night On Earth" if mixed properly and "Gone" are both very good).
19 - Eric Olsen
excellent discussion in the wake of my flippancy - some really great points, thanks!
20 - Mark Saleski
you did point out that al (and others) is defective, evil or misguided.
surely,our al is at least one of those things.
on occasion.
21 - Eric Olsen
what if someone were all three? Would the traits magnify or attenuate each other?
22 - Distorted Angel
And that sense of excitement is something I do miss, so I think I have an idea of what you are trying to say.
Yes, the sense of excitement is exactly what's missing for me, DJ. From my middle-aged perspective, it's a difficult thing to recapture in a band that you've been listening to for a long time. Like Al, I'm a devoted Elvis Costello fan (as you might have picked up from my nom de internet). In the past two years, Elvis has released an album of jazz ballads, a classical ballet score, and an album of country-infused rockers. While he has sacrificed something in terms of fame and fortune by not pandering to the masses, and while I don't love absolutely everything he does, he has yet to bore me, and I've never had the sense that he has settled into his middle ages, in an artistic sense, because he likes to explore and push the boundaries of what he does. He has alienated a good part of his fan base for having done so, but he doesn't care. Having said all that, you can bet that when U2 starts that tour, I'll be in line for tickets :-)
23 - bronzarino
My own sense of excitement not being aroused (as DJ mentions) is exactly where my perspective begins in finding the last couple of U2 records to be decidedly lacking. Maybe some of it has to do with my finally tiring of the band after 20 years of die-hard consumption, but to these ears, the high standards they’ve previously set just no longer seem to be the benchmark. For all that some people seem to make of U2’s post-Achtung output being uneven, there was still a sense of adventure that I, personally, don’t see in Can’t Leave Behind or Atomic Bomb. Rather, the ‘working without a net’ ethic appears to have been left behind for a safety harness and a copy of Billboard. The masses appear to like x, y, and z, and as long as the band sticks to that, they will still be seen as relevant.
Parts of Zooropa and Pop might be a little hard to digest, but their strongest moments do something for me that I’m just not seeing lately. I still gotta shake to “Daddy’s Gonna Pay”, “Dirty Day” is a perfect companion to Joshua Tree, and Bono gave up some of his best lyrics for Johnny Cash to sing in “The Wanderer”. “Please” is as interesting and epic to me as “Bad” was 13 years earlier, and “Wake up Dead Man” has an incredible sound that still sounds unique to me. If U2 was looking for a good radio single in 1997, it mindboggles me that “Do You Feel Loved” didn’t seem to be an obvious choice.
Now, it just feels a little too much to me that the band’s prime goal of the post-90’s records is mass acceptance, and as a necessity, much of the adventure has been compromised. I can appreciate the craftsmanship of the newer tunes as textbook examples, but they don’t stir me as great rock n roll. Granted, the status quo for U2 is more than many bands are capable of, but it now strikes me as mediocre, and it’s hard to be satisfied with encouraging mediocrity from a genius.
The true test " would either of the last two records have captivated me if they were made by some band I’d never heard of? Sadly, not. I’ll just have to accept the fact that U2 is no longer making music for me, and I thank them for all the gems that I still have at my disposal… And as most of the year’s top 10 lists on Blogcritics bear out, 2004 was otherwise a great year for music, and indeed the adventure continues…
24 - Eric Olsen
I see the experimentation of the '90s as running away from the responsibility of being one of the very few great rock 'n' roll bands left in the world, or playing AT someting rather than playing it, of leaving the option open to say "just kidding." I think they were very brave to return to their "core competency" (hey, I like that) and overtly say "this time we mean it" and let the chips fall where they may. I don't think "bomb" is perfect -- the ballads all sound a bit thin and wan to me -- but the rockers all rock and the whole thing feels like a solid chunk of meaning, and spunky meaning at that. Other than "Joshua Tree" and "Actung" they've NEVER been a consistent album band anyway and I'd say this one fits in nicely right after those two.
25 - DJRadiohead
I swore I was done carrying U2's water on this post six posts ago! =)
Eric hits on something I was thinking after reading Distorted Angel's last post. If someone tells me their favorite U2 albums were one of the 90's trilogy (Achtung, Zooropa, Pop), I can understand how the last two albums would be something of a disappointment. But it is hard for me to see how fans of Joshua Tree, UnFire, or War wouldn't love these last two records (Atomic Bomb in particular). Bono has said Achtung was the sound of four men cutting down The Joshua Tree (perhaps because they had been excoriated by the press after Rattle & Hum). They were making a conscious effort not to sound like (or look like) the band that rose to such heights in the mid-late 80's. I don't look at these past two records as a retreat. I just think the band decided they could stop running. They didn't have to be embarrassed to be U2. It was OK for The Edge to sound like The Edge because... well, he is.
Distorted Angel brought up something interesting with Elvis Costello. You are right... he has made it a point to experiment. And I think that's great. I am a big Bowie fan, and DB has made turned experimentation with sound and image an art form. And sometimes his fans get very annoyed when he leaves a popular phase for a more difficult one. But I would contend it is much easier for a solo artist to be self-indulgent and experimental than it is for a band most of the time. That doesn't take away from Costello or Bowie's willingness to expand, but it might explain why a band like U2 couldn't make a career out of it. I think artists who want to defy boundaries are vital. But what's so bad about doing what you're good at and being good at what you do (I mean that rhetorically, not accusatory to Distorted Angel or anyone else, btw). And, let's face it, U2 is not the most musically talented outfit in the world (by their own admission).
Experimenting for Bowie and Costello meant trying a style of music they had never dabbled in before, not inventing a new style. Are there really any new ideas under the sun (not taking shots here... I like Bowie and am not well-versed in Costello to render an opinion there either way)? Again, for me, it comes down to the songs. "Beautiful Day" is a gem. It's uplifting and anthemic and thoughtful and wonderful whether U2 broke any new ground to get there or not.