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  1. The No Big Single syndrome was NLOTH's biggest problem, yup. Leave Behind had Elevation and Beautiful Day and even arguably Walk On; the Bomb had Vertigo and COBL. NLOTH didn't have anything like that.
  2. It would have been ohh so different had Magificent been the lead single. GOYB got the air play, and people just turned off their radio's or changed the TV channel. Magnificent as the lead with MOS as a second single, and people would have been saying U2 were back to their best. Performing GOYB, with a near 50 year old Bono wearing eye shadow at the grammies and Brit awards, and people just thought, what on earth is going on.
  3. Feeling towards NLOTH is that of an arthouse record. Not especially for the masses and not that accesible. And that is not necessarily a bad thing imo. It's a great record, with two tiny flaws (SUC and Mag). Still very much liking GOYB. Standouts: NLOTH, MoS, Breathe, Snow, Winter, Cedars. I rate it lower than AB or ATYCLB but higher than Pop/Zooropa/JT/HTDAAB
  4. I love all this critical debate about an album that was the 2nd best selling CD in the world in 2009 (im pretty sure I read that somewhere). It shows the high standards we expect of them, and the high standards they set themselves.
  5. Originally posted by dieder:Feeling towards NLOTH is that of an arthouse record. Not especially for the masses and not that accesible. And that is not necessarily a bad thing imo. It's a great record, with two tiny flaws (SUC and Mag). Still very much liking GOYB. Standouts: NLOTH, MoS, Breathe, Snow, Winter, Cedars. I rate it lower than AB or ATYCLB but higher than Pop/Zooropa/JT/HTDAAB

    Agree in parts
  6. Originally posted by dieder:Feeling towards NLOTH is that of an arthouse record. Not especially for the masses and not that accesible. And that is not necessarily a bad thing imo. It's a great record, with two tiny flaws (SUC and Mag). Still very much liking GOYB. Standouts: NLOTH, MoS, Breathe, Snow, Winter, Cedars. I rate it lower than AB or ATYCLB but higher than Pop/Zooropa/JT/HTDAAB

    Still a great record and Boots sounds as good as the first day I heard it.

    On my playlist I have:

    No Line
    Moment Of Surrender
    Get On Your Boots
    Fez
    White As Snow
    Breathe
    Cedars

    Magnificent and the other two tracks aren't that great but still not as bad as some of ATYCLB and HTDAAB's supposed 'best'.
  7. Originally posted by paulc:It would have been ohh so different had Magificent been the lead single. GOYB got the air play, and people just turned off their radio's or changed the TV channel. Magnificent as the lead with MOS as a second single, and people would have been saying U2 were back to their best. Performing GOYB, with a near 50 year old Bono wearing eye shadow at the grammies and Brit awards, and people just thought, what on earth is going on.

    Brian Eno....or was it Daniel Lanios??? Said that MOS was the defining moment of his entire career. And now you're saying it should have been a single? It's a nice song, but some of the hype is a bit overblown. Making it the closing number was very odd. Some at the shows I was at, people were heading for the parking lots as it played.

    I might agree with you that things may have been a little different had Magnificet been the first single. Boots just sounded too similar to Vertigo. The thing people keep missing here is that as each year goes by, the powers that be in the music industry mandate that songs played on the radio be by young people under 35 with an image to sell.

    U2 are old, and they could release the best album of their career in 2013, and it won't get airplay. Magnificent probably would've done a little better than Boots, but the climate for U2 airplay in 2009 was poor. For all the hype Vertigo got, it was a #31 hit on the charts in the US. Even Beautiful Day only hit #21 in the US. I can't speak for Europe, but Older artists are treated like scum on the US radio waves. Even the oldie stations will only play a new song for a few weeks, then it's back to I Still Haven't Found, WOWY, Streets, etc.

    I like NLOTH a lot. I would have had Magnificent as the first single, followed by Breathe, and then maybe Boots, but the singles would not have gone anywhere on the charts. It would have taken more promotion than what U2 likely was willing to do anyway.
  8. The last few months I've been listening to NLOTH for the first time again in a few years and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I now rate it higher than HTDAAB but about the same as ATYCLB. There are some real gems in this album, but amongst them are a few songs that I tend to skip, based on mood. This was the same for me ATYCLB, where I would on occasion skip Wild Honey and Peace On Earth. On NLOTH these songs would be Stand Up Comedy and White As Snow.

    When I first heard the previews for NLOTH (when it was just about to be released) the snippets of audio I previewed seemed like it could be their 3rd best album (and to some people it probably is), and then when it was released (and I got to hear the tracks in their entirety) it was very bittersweet for me.

    With time this album is a real gem, and I'd rank it as maybe their 3 or 4th best album behind Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and/or ATYCLB/Unforgettable Fire ( yeah I can't make my mind up on those two!)
  9. Do you really skip White As Snow? It's still one of my favs. I love it, as well as playing it on guitar.
  10. I wouldn't call NLOTH an arthouse record, it's more like a record that might've been that if U2 hadn't come to the realization "oh we need some radio singles if we want grammys" - which resulted in songs lik Boots, Stand Up Comedy, Magnificent, Unknown Caller, I'll Go Crazy (UC isn't as bad..). Take out songs like that and you have yourself something special, but they can't really be overlooked because they take up a large chunk of the record.

    I'd love to hear the early demos of NLOTH to see how far the experimentation got before they chickened out. I think the best thing for everyone would be something like AB, experimentation but with radio hits that are experimental to the U2 sound. And with Danger Mouse on board I'm hoping that's what we get.
  11. ^ I've always wondered with regards to experimentation, how far it was in the sessions that Soon was recorded. That's not exactly out-there but it has that odd sound that I don't think we were used to hearing.
  12. Soon is more interesting than half the album imo, I wish they hadn't "chickened" out. If anything they should have made the album experimental, and then played the songs live on tour as they are. It would have been amazing to see I think.
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