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  1. Yes, In a follow-up to an earlier post, I do not post much, I should of course do more.
    I listened to the album from start to finish and found three or four tracks to make it worth the effort, but as I came towards the end, it felt like the feeling when you let the air out of a balloon, flat and running out of life. I did not get the feeling I gained when I first listened to POP which again was a highly anticipated affair, there was no let down as you came to the end of that album. Initially, I felt that this album was an excellent affair and have stated so on other forum sites, though now I feel it is just OK!!
    U2 are like your local fooball team, you never change your spots, of course you don't and I will keep the faith. But please boys, if you release another album later this year, which has been suggested, please don't rush it out and provide an inferior effort as I feel NLOTH is!!
    That is the rant, but hey I could listen to the shite that Coldplay turn out. Why does Bono drone on about how fucking good they are. Does anybody else think Coldpay are any good at all? See you all.
  2. After my original posts I have now listened to the album 20+ times and unfortunately it feels like it has no more surprises to offer.
    It is not a bad collection of songs, NLOTH is a great track (culture show is my fav version) as are MOS, UC and COL. Magnificent starts off well, but as soon as Bono starts singing it sounds like he is reading from a script and his vocals have been laid over the top of a backing track, which is a shame as it could have been the standout track.
    However, the main problem I am having is with the lyrics.
    I have been an fan for over 25 years and have always admired Bono's ability to paint such vivid pictures with his words and delivery, MOS comes close with its apparent subject matter and leaves just enough to the imagination. But for every instance of poetry on the album there is also a line that could be taken straight out of a fortune cookie.
    If the passengers album had sounded like this it would have been a classic (although I dont think these songs beat "Your blue room"), but that is what I am reminded of, a concept album.
    An interesting comment was made by one of my friends who has had U2 "forced" upon him over the years (does anyone else do that to their friends? ) when he said that they dont sound "intense" anymore. I asked him what he meant by this and he stated that as a casual listener he was always aware that they sounded like a band rather than a group of musicians, but he wasn't getting that with the new album.

    This hasn't been a rant and the album is not a complete disaster, but maybe Bono needs to stop hanging around with world leaders etc and spend some time with his mates in the band.
    Hopefully with the tour about to start they will reconnect as a four piece and "Songs of Ascent" will be just that.

    Not Songs of Descent


  3. Originally posted by zooey:I don't know if 'disappointed' is the right word but I don't totally love it and there are definitly tracks I skip. But I can think of very very few albums that I don't skip a track or two. For me, on this one, it's MOS and the Snow one (see, I don't even know its name!). I don't love Stand Up Comedy - a little too whiteboy funk for me (makes me a little embarassed for them - makes them look 'old').

    And when ATYCLB and HTDAAB came out I listened to it non-stop for weeks but with this one it's already sort of taken a back burner to some of my other faves (with the exception of Breathe - I listen to that song almost every day, sometimes multiple times).


    My own opinions pretty much word for word and then some.

    And sure, quite a few modern albums have tracks you'd rather skip. But when an album has three or four tracks out of eleven which tempt you to press skip, you can no longer make an album out of what's left. A 13-track album can survive three pressings of the skip button, but an 11-track album definitely can't.

    ATYCLB, though musically regressive compared to what came before it, still worked as a coherent, cohesive album which did pretty much what it set out to do - and everything was in it's right place. HTDAAB was a bit less cohesive as an overall album (more just a collection of good songs unable to cohese as an album whatever running order you put them in) but still had (at least on release) wall-to-wall strong songs with very few embarrassing moments which left you reaching for the skip button. NLOTH by comparison sounds like an unfinished work-in-progress from a band who still hadn't decided what kind of album they wanted to make before simply chucking it out. At most, about five of the songs still fully hold my interest, whereas even the last two albums (far from my favourites in their canon) held my interest for a good six months or so, same goes for most of the albums prior to those. NLOTH just sounds so indecisive to me, lacking even the sonic questing that gave POP some legs despite it's drawbacks: only two or three tracks on NLOTH suggest even the slightest new direction being taken. I suggest they lock themselves away with solely Brian Eno and the unfinished, unused songs and push their sound into some different, fresh and exciting areas with the tracks just as they did on Zooropa. If they refuse to move any further musically, lyrically or emotionally than they have on NLOTH, I truly fear my 25+ year worship of the band coming into serious question. They'll be lumping themselves in with their dreadful tribute act peers like Coldplay.
  4. This thread was opened 2 days after NLOTH leaked, a few weeks prior to its release in Feb 2009... It's amazing to read some of these early comments
  5. I like how people were so pissed about NLOTH that this actually became a thing.
  6. Originally posted by LikeASong:This thread was opened 2 days after NLOTH leaked, a few weeks prior to its release in Feb 2009... It's amazing to read some of these early comments

    Indeed! Well, for me SOI puts NLOTH in a better perspective. It is a little sad - it doesn't sparkle. But the good songs there are trademark U2 classics: for me, the first three songs, Breathe. I find them of better quality than the best songs on Bomb (except SYCMIOYO, which is a truly terrific song). I can appreciate those trademark classics more now that there's a new sparking album, with some truly invigorating tunes. SOI isn't perfect, and the songs aren't as good as the JT songs. But SOI is at least as good as Noel's HFB 2011 album and as Bowie's TND - indeed, it may be even better than either of these records. For me, this is nothing short of a miracle. U2 are nearly 55, and they keep making stellar records. Who else?



  7. This just shows how a 5-years-hype can magnify our view over an album.
  8. I still can see NLOTH as great album and for me much better than previous two. SOI is better, but time will tell... Both are in my top 5. Sad that they stopped play songs from NLOTH during the tour.
  10. Originally posted by TheLedge:[..]
    If they refuse to move any further musically, lyrically or emotionally than they have on NLOTH, I truly fear my 25+ year worship of the band coming into serious question. They'll be lumping themselves in with their dreadful tribute act peers like Coldplay.


    Oh god this, LOL.

    To put things into perspective, between this post and now, Coldplay released not one, but two albums in the form of Mylo Xyloto and Ghost Stories, both of which I consider to be Coldplay's best offerings to date, an opinion which ruffles the feathers of many Coldplayers who revere their older works.

    it's safe to say that U2 met all of these requirements to produce SOI.
  11. Originally posted by Alvin:I still can see NLOTH as great album and for me much better than previous two. SOI is better, but time will tell... Both are in my top 5. Sad that they stopped play songs from NLOTH during the tour.

    Totally agree with everything except the top 5 bit!! NLOTH is still a better album than ATYCLB and HTDAAB, and as I said in my analysis of SOI, it's a brilliant but irregular album, which is a shame. It would have been far better WITHOUT Get On Your Boots and possibly Winter or Soon replacing (or anything else from the supposed "50 or 60 songs" they had, haha) Stand Up Comedy. Maybe in the top 3 after the Achtung/Joshua combo.
  12. Originally posted by ahn1991:[..]


    Oh god this, LOL.

    To put things into perspective, between this post and now, Coldplay released not one, but two albums in the form of Mylo Xyloto and Ghost Stories, both of which I consider to be Coldplay's best offerings to date, an opinion which ruffles the feathers of many Coldplayers who revere their older works.

    it's safe to say that U2 met all of these requirements to produce SOI.

    I really like Ghost Stories, but I think Viva la Vida and Rush of Blood are better than MX.
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