Originally posted by MattG:Wonder if they'll ever stop trying to do insane things with their production and just do a simple end-stage arena tour like the JT tour. Couple nights per city. Easy schedule.
Originally posted by ahn1991:The band will always do live stuff. Now how they decide to do that is pretty much anyone's guess. I actually think the IE Tour scheduling is U2 approaching their endgame equilibrium. While multiple dates in the same city puts on the pressure of mixing things up, there is one thing that this tour effectively reduces: travel. This is huge for a band like U2 and here's why. If you've watched Coldplay's Live 2012 concert film/documentary, there's a segment where Chris talks about how he and the band sometimes get spirited away from a venue as the ending fireworks go off so they can pack and be ready to head to the next city. Even for rock stars that can afford to travel on private jets tailored to their every need, travelling is an incredible burden. The current scheduling reduces the amount of time the band needs to spend travelling while keeping the number of shows relatively the same. It's also much better for the families because longer stays allow for more time off the stage. Plus, I think it makes the shows a bit better because the band is more rested and feels much more connected to the city after spending an extended period of time there. This is why I'm very excited for the 8 shows in MSG. Even though it's a long ways off, I know that the band will end up feeling right at home in the Garden.
Commenting on the other genres, I actually think Taylor Swift has gotten a lot better when she decided to completely cut her ties with country. Sure, she has a very stereotypical country voice, but her personality suits pop music much better. In many ways, Taylor Swift is what we want from U2. Here me out first! Swift developed her fan base in country, but her work slowly started to naturally move towards pop. I wouldn't compare her to Maroon 5, which completely dropped rock elements in favor of pop because her fusion of pop and country was in itself very successful. When she started receiving pressure from the country music association that her music wasn't "country enough", she decided to break off them them completely and do what she felt worked for her. This is the U2 we want to see. That is, a band that doesn't really care about relevance or fitting into some predefined niche presented to them by some organization. I still wouldn't spend money on her albums, but if it were forcibly downloaded into my device I wouldn't mind because I respect her guts.
Originally posted by kris_smith87:See I find comments like this to be extremely annoying. I happen to be a fan of a lot of genres (admittedly I HATE Taylor Swift) but I've seen comments from people on this forum and a lot of the time they seem very narrow and only seem to be fans of one genre or group of bands.
), because if they were competing against them then they would/should play a different kind of music (please notice that I didn't said better/worse kind of music, just different).Originally posted by kris_smith87:[..]
You had me up until you said she wasn't worried about relevance. Embracing the pop sound that she did is the most "relevance seeking" "mass audience" thing you can do. NOT that there is anything wrong with that. As I have stated before I don't get why you would make music and not want to be the biggest/best/most popular.
Originally posted by CMIPalaeo:I honestly don't even think U2 are competing with similar bands like Coldplay, PJ, Muse, The Killers, etc. For probably 80-90% of people, U2 aren't seen as having competitors for one of two reasons:
1. They're a washed up old band way past their prime that don't deserve or get much mainstream attention beyond their mostly 30s+ fanbase
OR
2. They've done so well for so long that they've carved out a niche for themselves unlike anything anyone else could have, whatever they do will always get enough attention to be a success, and thus they are beyond competition even from bands playing similar music.
When it comes to younger bands like The Killers or Coldplay, they're basically playing a sort of rock/alternative rock music that was essentially created - or at least codified - by U2. Both U2 and these bands take that basic U2 rock/alt rock sound and add to it a twist - for The Killers (and 80s U2), punk and folk; for Coldplay (and 90s-early 00s U2) electronica and pop. Both The Killers and Coldplay - while not exactly rock's hottest ticket - are really popular modern bands, and both have acknowledged the strong influence U2 have had on their music, but I don't think either their audience or U2's see the bands in any sort of competition.
As for how much longer U2 have left, I honestly don't think they'll stop until one of them is too ill, old, or dead to keep making music, and then it'll be over for good - if any member of the band was unable to continue, U2 would end, as it should. I would say that a day may be coming where they aren't the top dogs anymore, and the realisation of that might be a real blow to them, but I don't think it'd stop them. And really... I don't know that that day will come. U2 certainly aren't a hip band, and they're by far the coolest rock band to hate, but anytime they release something... it always does really well. SOI was FREE and people still bought loads of copies, and in the first two or three months after its release, U2's back catalogue absolutely dominated iTunes' top albums - in the top 200, U2 often had as many as 11 or 12 albums, while today's most popular contemporary artists never had more than three, and I never counted more than three or four for The Freakin' Beatles. Since their fans obviously already own their albums, this means that very casual listeners or entirely new listeners were being introduced to U2... and loving them. So while their days of Joshua Tree, ZooTV... even ATYCLB popularity are behind them, no matter what some people say, U2 will never truly be has-beens.
Honestly, I think this band will be with us for the rest of their lives.
Originally posted by CMIPalaeo:I honestly don't even think U2 are competing with similar bands like Coldplay, PJ, Muse, The Killers, etc. For probably 80-90% of people, U2 aren't seen as having competitors for one of two reasons:
1. They're a washed up old band way past their prime that don't deserve or get much mainstream attention beyond their mostly 30s+ fanbase
OR
2. They've done so well for so long that they've carved out a niche for themselves unlike anything anyone else could have, whatever they do will always get enough attention to be a success, and thus they are beyond competition even from bands playing similar music.
When it comes to younger bands like The Killers or Coldplay, they're basically playing a sort of rock/alternative rock music that was essentially created - or at least codified - by U2. Both U2 and these bands take that basic U2 rock/alt rock sound and add to it a twist - for The Killers (and 80s U2), punk and folk; for Coldplay (and 90s-early 00s U2) electronica and pop. Both The Killers and Coldplay - while not exactly rock's hottest ticket - are really popular modern bands, and both have acknowledged the strong influence U2 have had on their music, but I don't think either their audience or U2's see the bands in any sort of competition.
As for how much longer U2 have left, I honestly don't think they'll stop until one of them is too ill, old, or dead to keep making music, and then it'll be over for good - if any member of the band was unable to continue, U2 would end, as it should. I would say that a day may be coming where they aren't the top dogs anymore, and the realisation of that might be a real blow to them, but I don't think it'd stop them. And really... I don't know that that day will come. U2 certainly aren't a hip band, and they're by far the coolest rock band to hate, but anytime they release something... it always does really well. SOI was FREE and people still bought loads of copies, and in the first two or three months after its release, U2's back catalogue absolutely dominated iTunes' top albums - in the top 200, U2 often had as many as 11 or 12 albums, while today's most popular contemporary artists never had more than three, and I never counted more than three or four for The Freakin' Beatles. Since their fans obviously already own their albums, this means that very casual listeners or entirely new listeners were being introduced to U2... and loving them. So while their days of Joshua Tree, ZooTV... even ATYCLB popularity are behind them, no matter what some people say, U2 will never truly be has-beens.
Honestly, I think this band will be with us for the rest of their lives.