New Album Discussion 10 - Songs of Sir, this is a Wendy's, durr

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Every single percussion crescendo has got me. Electrical Storm:up::up:

EDIT:

I'll keep writing here because I don't want to spam.

The Fly - probably my second favorite so far. Very very cool.
 
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dan_smee said:
Disc two down:
- The Miracle - probably the triumph of the project. One of their worst songs ever (at least the way it was recorded) and definitely their worst single ever for me. This is great. Fun, breezy, not trying too hard, but this just clicks.
Click to expand...

Their worst single has to be Get On Your Boots.
 
allaras said:
Waiting for it to drop on Apple Music or for my iTunes preorder to go live ?
Click to expand...



Most of it just arrived for me (45min early) on Apple Music here in Ireland.

There are about 10 songs that randomly haven’t come through yet.

Woohoo there goes the next few hours.
 
So, is this venture going to flop or soar? With the combination of Bono being so public last year, the Disney Plus movie, and this being such a well-crafted album, what do you think?
 
I'm going to wait until my physical copy in the post in the next day or 2. But from the short clips on youtube so far, Red Hill Mining Town is by far the best. By far.
 
Boots was a banger live and I don't care who knows it. They have to EDM up Crazy to make it passable live. They riffed on Letterman I think about how they ripped off Dexy Midnight Runners for the middle 8 of Crazy and they really should give it and the rest of the song back to them.

More on topic, is that a harp in UTEOTW during the outro?
 
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/u2-songs-of-surrender-album-review-b5hjcpms3

U2: Songs of Surrender review — older and wiser, Bono and co rework their back catalogue
Also reviewed: Bono & The Edge — A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman

Will Hodgkinson
Friday March 17 2023, 12.01am, The Times

★★★★☆
There is plenty to find annoying about U2. The self-importance, the grandiosity, the world-saving tendencies of Bono and, most of all, the overriding suspicion that the people benefiting most from U2’s largesse are U2 themselves. Put all this to one side and, to quote a career-reinventing album title by George Michael, listen without prejudice and it is hard not to be moved by the grace, depth and ambition of U2 at their best.

Songs of Surrender was conceived initially as an accompaniment to Bono’s 2022 memoir, Surrender, but in typical U2 fashion it took on a life of its own and has become a vast 40-song reworking of material spanning their entire career. What really hits home, for a band whose breakthrough album, Boy, was released 43 years ago, is the sense of the reworked music reflecting the inevitable ravages of age, and the greater degree of reflection that brings. Where the Streets Have No Name is a song of hope, of escaping the restrictions applied to someone by the place they grew up in. This new version, which consists of just Bono’s voice against a bed of reverberating synths, suggests implicitly that we can never escape ourselves, and acceptance of that equates to some kind of wisdom. Every Breaking Wave, from 2014’s iPhone-invading album disaster Songs of Innocence, eschews the chugging arena rock of the original for simple restrained piano. It ends up being a lot more affecting as a result.

It is surprising, even discombobulating, to hear such modest versions of songs known for their bombastic sense of scale. Pride (In the Name of Love) is Bono’s 1984 tribute to Martin Luther King Jr and exactly the kind of thing that made U2 the ultimate punch-the-air Eighties rock band in the first place. On this rendition a simple strummed guitar accompanies altered lyrics about the refugee crisis and the human cost at the heart of it. “One boy washed up on an empty beach/ One boy will never be kissed,” Bono sings. It is hard not to be affected by it.

For those of us who struggled with U2’s desire to be the biggest band in the world, and even more so with their tendency (since copied by Coldplay) to emulate modern trends that didn’t suit them, these more intimate versions feel more natural, less forced. They also shine a light on the songwriting craft at the heart of it all, alongside Bono’s desire, whether successful or not, to accompany rock stardom with a sense of moral obligation. Walk On, originally from 2000, is stripped of the now-dated production of the original, which was written about the Burmese political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. This time round the song is for the people of Ukraine, the message being that love is the one thing you can take with you when all else is lost. The minimalism of the arrangement suits the theme.

You do wonder whether the bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr were told to go off and have a game of Scrabble while Bono and The Edge got on with it, because much of the time there is no rhythm section at all. And when they do come in, U2 sound more like a good-time bar band than a stadium spectacular, from the chugging funk of Desire to the loose, rattling rock of Get Out of Your Own Way. None of this will propel them back to being the biggest band in the world. That modesty — a word I never thought I would write in relation to U2 — is exactly what makes Songs of Surrender a gentle, rather moving reinvention. (Universal)

Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman
Disney+
★★★☆☆

As if a 40-song reworking of their back catalogue weren’t enough, along comes Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with David Letterman, a St Patrick’s Day-timed trip down memory lane for two of U2’s band members on Disney+. The former chat show host Letterman does a tour of Dublin with its most famous rock duo, going to the pubs and taking selfies with fans, before an intimate performance by Bono and The Edge at the city’s Ambassador Theatre.

There are moments of revelation, such as The Edge describing how Sunday Bloody Sunday came out of not just his rage at the futility of the Troubles but also the struggle he felt at reconciling a Christian faith with the frivolous goal of being in a rock’n’roll band.

The friendship forms the film’s emotional bedrock — at one point Bono wells up as he says The Edge is his best friend because he can always argue with him — and Letterman proves a genial host, unafraid of a bit of gentle mockery. In the main, though, this is one for the U2 megafans.
Click to expand...
 
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21743044/u2-guitarist-the-edge-new-album-songs-of-surrender/

Not going to paste the whole interview but here’s an interesting few clips:

So what of the other U2 members, Adam Clayton (bass) and Larry Mullen Jr, and their involvement in Songs Of Surrender?

“They were into it,” affirms Edge. “But we decided the arrangements would be as minimal as possible.

“So there’s very little full drum kit, maybe only on a couple of songs, but Adam came in and played a lot.

“The Fly is interesting because we did one version with Adam on bass and me on acoustic guitar.

“That was a little ordinary, so we ended up with two basses, which was fun and produced quite a different mood. We tried not to do the obvious.”

—-

I ask Edge what didn’t make the cut from the Songs Of Surrender sessions.

“We tried Angel Of Harlem which was nearly good but felt similar to the original and we were running into standstill. The original arrangement is sort of in the style.“

“We almost had Moment Of Surrender from No Line On The Horizon on the record but decided that it’s mood could be fully expressed on other songs.”

—-

Before we go our separate ways, Edge talks about U2’s groundbreaking residency in Las Vegas this autumn which will focus on Achtung Baby.

Sadly, they will be without Larry. “It’s one of those things when medical issues arise at unexpected times and they don’t honour the schedule,” he says.
 
Oh man that hurts to hear we were close to getting MOS. Definitely excited about seeing these impressions but would have loved to see something from No Line + October.
 
I might be the only person who has no interest in hearing MOS in any form. One of the truly great tunes from an average album.
 
Insofar as there is or should be a single, I feel like it’s Red Hill

With the fuller kit and horns it feels like they put a little more into it, too… the single Red Hill almost was

I hope they keep it up with the breezy retro guitars on the next record, it’s a nice vintage enough to be back in style note for them to strike

I would be very down for breezy chill retro U2
 
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