cungar

I guess winning all those Grammy's made me think how much the band has settled into a more "mainstream" sound on their last two albums. I would like to see them shake it up again like they did from Actung Baby to Pop. I wasn't a fan of Pop but it took a lot more chances musically than the last two albums.

Has U2 outgrown their experimental side or will they ever shock us again like they did on Achtung Baby?

wendersfan

They're nothing but a nostalgia act now, like The Rolling Stones or Aerosmith. It's OK; they had a decent two album run with Boy and October.

cupcake jesus

I tend to agree with wendersfan about the nostalgia act thing - no one goes to a U2 show to hear "Vertigo," and shouldn't. For one, I really dug Achtung, Baby!, Zooropa, and Pop. All three still sound fresh and unlike any music made before or since. I'd like to see them get a little more adventurous again - I'm really tired of the All that You Can't Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb-era U2. Those albums are very stagnant, musically. I believe How... is their worst album, front to back, and from a band that's made a few bad albums (albeit with a good song or two, each) that's saying a lot.

cheers,

-the Jesus

cdollaz

You are not very familiar with U2 fans. The hardcore fans love hearing the new stuff. It's fans such as yourself, who only like a certain period of their catalog, that do not want to hear the new stuff. And most of the fans who pay $100+ to go the shows lean towards the hardcore label.

sherm42

You're right. The hardcore fans overlook the fact that U2 has become a mediocre band. They exhalt every new release as being a masterpiece despite the fact that they have become derivative in every sense of the word. To the point where they are derivative of themselves most of all.

That being said, the last two albums have each had at least 4 worthy U2 songs on each. The rest was filler.

nodeerforamonth

Was U2 ever really "adventurous"? Ever? I always saw them as part of the boring mainstream. Even as far back as '83.

wendersfan

They started out as a MOR Public Image Ltd. and went from there. The Edge owes every note he's ever played to Keith Levene, and I've met Jah Wobble, and Adam Clayton is no Jah Wobble.

GuessWho

<---loves Vertigo

nazz

I'm not really a big U2 fan but I'd have to say that you don't see many nostalgia acts picking up so many Grammys. If that were true Paul McCartney and Neil Young would have carried theirs away the other night.

Flashback

No kidding

Although I did like them a long time ago, but that was before Achtung - they have been crap for a long time. And wtf is this adventurous statement? They were definitely (as nodeer said) pure pop.

atlantamoi

You guys really don't think that U2 has had plenty of adventurous moments during their career? Guess I don't think Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" or P.I.L.'s "Metal Box" are the only ways to be adventurous.

While I've bitched plenty of times on this board about the last two U2 albums for being retreads and tame, there were some decent tunes there. If they had combined the best songs from the last two albums then it would have been a great recording. Actually, I think part of the reason I was saddened by the recent output is because the albums before that WERE adventurous and different.

Wendersfan, you can play that influence game all day probably. I don't think Edge owes everything he's done to Levine. If so, then Levine owes everything he's ever done to Faust. But I don't believe that

Ky-Fi

I loved U2 up through and including Unforgettable Fire. I've LIKED a lot of their stuff since, but it doesn't grab me as much. I don't think it's quite fair to say that Edge ripped off Keith Levine. There was a lot of guitarists working in some variant of that post-punk aesthetic---Will Sergeant, Geordie, Charlie Burchill, Bruce Watson/Stuart Adamson, and you could even throw in the guitar sounds from the Cure, Slits, Siouxsie, Stranglers, Clash, Pretenders. And I think the Edge has always talked about Television and Tom Verlaine. I think like all artists, all those guys were influenced by and influencing each other. Particularly as you read up on these guys and find out that half of them were in various failed bands with each other! (or at least saw each other play live a lot).

I think what I liked more about the earlier U2 stuff is more technical---their earlier stuff was mostly minor-key stuff, and it seems like almost all their recent hits have been written in a major key. It just seems a bit lighter and less nuanced than their early stuff, at least to my ears.

Chrisedge

Been a fan since 83. Seen them every tour since then. (36 times) I've run U2 websites. I feel that even my favorite records (JT and AB) have some weaker stuff on them. I went this tour to see them do the new songs. They still play too many "hits" in there show for me. Adventurous to me would be playing some of the deeper cuts off their older albums and songs that they haven't played. (Like earlier in this tour with The Electric Co., An Cat Dubh and Into the Heart.)

To me, their "Adventurous" albums are Zooropa, Passengers and Pop. Which most people wouldn't call their best albums. (I love Pop!) Those are the ones that they truely took a chance on, and did something different.

Edited to add: I just want to see them contiune to release records that they like. I will follow.

grunter

Nothing is more tedious than the U2 naysayers.

Nothing.

auto

Not even the people who blindly pledge allegiance to a declining band?

illennium

Fixed.

A.D.D. for DVD

I'm not sure why I should feel like a musically-challenged person because I like/love all of the U2 albums in some form or another. Some are just a little easier to access than others.

If I don't want to concentrate too much, there's HTDAAB and Boy. If I want to be challenged a little bit, there's Zooropa and Pop. You guys take this stuff a little too seriously... music should be about listening to what you enjoy, not trying to prove why your opinion is right (or someone else's is wrong).

Hollowgen

make it a poll, eh?

POP is the best U2 album, hands down.

Josh H

I'd like to see them branch out some. I like both All That You Can't Leave Behind and How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb.

My only nit pick is that they are too similar to each other. They lack the evolution and exploration they had from album to album in the past, i.e. Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby to Zooropa to Pop etc.

wendersfan

I was probably drunk when I posted that.

But I really don't think U2 were ever innovative or adventurous.

Michael Sheridan

Hmm, as a big U2 fan, I have to 100% disagree with you....as would MANY U2 fans.

How can you overlook The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, War, The Unforgettable Fire, ATYCLB, etc....??

Turd Ferguson

I think "Electrical Storm" was their only decent song post-"Achtung Baby".

grunter

All bands decline. All of them - especially those that outlive the decade where they gained their initial fame. It's inevitable. They grow older, their original audience changes. That doesn't detract from what they accomplished or the music that they created.

The reason U2 is the easy target right now - and I honestly believe this - is because they are the absolute last of the "classic rock" bands. They have no successors. Of the bands still making new, artistically relevant music (thus, eliminating the Stones or McCartney or Elton John, etc.) whose catalog stretches back more than 2 decades, U2 is the last of the line. There's a huge gap in quality, age and style of fandom betweem them and what I would term the very first "iPod" generation supergroup: Radiohead. Radiohead will most likely outlive the era that spawned them, but the fanbase operates a helluva lot differently than the fanbase that birthed U2. No Radiohead fan ever slept on the sidewalk for 3 days (as I did in '87 to get "Joshua Tree" tour tickets) for concert tickets. When the technology changed and Napster made file-sharing so simple and easy, the very first of the universally lauded bands to reap the benefit of that new technology was Radiohead. You can't tell me every geek with that first generation iPod didn't have "The Bends" encoded on it somewhere.

The bands that came in between have seen their popularity wax and wane within the space of a decade - give or take a few years. They may still be eking out passable albums to an ever-smaller and more rabidly allegiant fan base (read: Pearl Jam, R.E.M.), but their greatest success has already passed them by and will, most likely, never be seen again. The entire Lollapalooza-nation era is over and done with. It's of its own time and place - as quaint and irrelevant today as is early 1980's New Wave or late 1970's British punk.

U2 is the last band out there with ties to the "classic" era that are still making new music that the mainstream cares to hear. Yes, all the music snobs pooh-pooh the new output, because its hip to hate on Bono or to decry for the 10 millionth time how low on the mythical scale of influence The Edge ranks.

But, y'know, so what? They've endured. That, by itself, merits some respect.

Gcomeau

I know this is a bit of topic but i just want to see them live. They haven't here in Wpg since the Pop tour, which i missed out on..don't ask. But my lucky a$$ sister won tix with a limo ride and a meal and everything. It was an outdoor show and complained about the scent of a drug!?!!

But i always been and always will be a U2 fan 'til i die, no matter what.

atlantamoi

I LOVE U2 and still don't care much for the new music. Paid to see them in concert and I'll see them again in the future. Still doesn't mean I can't slam the hell out some of their very mediocre new tunes. I mean, when I listen to something like the last two Interpol albums it becomes even more apparent that wonderful, older bands certainly can lose it in the studio (U2 is not doing anything wrong live, though).

BTW, interesting comments about U2 being one of the last of the classic rock bands. Haven't put much thought into that and you make some good points.