SOE
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U2 - Songs Of Experience (2017)
 Tracks: 14
  1. You're failing to see my point so yes, that's exactly what's happening. I'm not saying I am right (which I obviously believe I am, hence why I'm writing. I wouldn't write something which I don't believe is true), I'm just saying you're failing to see what I see.


    Originally posted by kris_smith87:[..]One thing I’ve taken from this album is how “stuck” (in a moment... sorry) U2 fans seem to be. They want the band to be different, but work with multiple producers on one project and they have committed treason for example. Just because it doesn’t happen so much in rock doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. This is an example of U2 not being boxed into a certain genre or way of doing things.
    I don't have any problem with the band working with multiple producers. Two of their best albums, Achtung Baby and Pop, were produced by at least 3 very different producers and mixed by at least 3 others. In fact I tend to prefer those mixed albums rather than the more "uniform/heterogeneous" pieces of work. And I've always appreciated -and will always do- that my band isn't stale, stuck in a sound, stuck in a way of doing things. In fact, when the album leaked and we got to hear it in full, my first judgement was something like: "I don't think it's a masterpiece and I'm not sure I even like many of these songs at all, but I celebrate that my band isn't afraid of experimenting and trying new things!". I can't recall the exact phrasing but that is the summary of it. I still stand behind that. But saying that isn't incompatible with acknowledging SOE's failure in other regards.


    Originally posted by kris_smith87:[..]You also mentioned the lack of tying SOI and SOE together yet there are literal callbacks to SOI which had people grabbing their torches and pitchforks here.
    Nope, maybe you want to read my post again. I mentioned that there is no continuous tying of SOE together, and I explicitly left SOI out of that because SOI does have a continuous thread all throughout. Our torches and pitchforks were picked up because a literal callback, reusing parts of music and lyrics, is a lame -and ineffective- way to force-tie these albums together. If the references and callbacks would have been less obvious and more poetic, like the subtle one spotted by Christopher (see below), it would have caused less of a bad reaction among fans.

    Originally posted by DerBFreund:Song for Someone/There is a Light takes the cake. I've grown to tolerate the Lights of Home one, but it's still cringey

    You forgot about "Every wave that broke me" in Landlady




    Originally posted by kris_smith87:[..]We’ve heard it in several interviews that what Bono realized was that all you need is Love and the people closest to you when the world is falling apart. I think that sounds like someone who has quite a lot of Experience.
    I get it that you're trying to justify it any way you can. All the better for you, as I posted in my previous message. I'm not trying to convince anyone to dislike the album, god forbid!! I'm just voicing my opinion on how and why it doesn't work as it should, and how and why it isn't the long anticipated sequel of SOI because it lacks part of what SOI had. SOI&E could (should) have been a masterpiece but it isn't due to SOE's disjuncture - that's all.
  2. I will agree with you Sergio in that this album doesn’t necessarily feel like a sequel to SOI, despite the callbacks. In concept I could see someone argue it, but it doesn’t. Hell, even a lot of the album art and stuff makes it feel different (all the blue, the change in font, etc). I think maybe back when SoI came out, SoE was a very different album to what we have now. Or who knows, maybe in the minds of U2 this really does feel like a sequel/companion. It does and it doesn’t for me.

    But I will also say that I don’t really care. I didn’t really need another album that had the same feel as SoI. It’s sort of cold and grey to me, whereas this album is full of life, fun, and vulnerability.


  3. Exactly.

    Interesting discussion these last couple of pages...I must say that I get where people are coming from with criticism of SOE, even as a big fan of it. The band didn't do themselves any favors with delaying the album to better reflect the Trump era, overthinking certain aspects of the process like usual, etc. I imagine it would indeed have had a more "cohesive" sound and flow to it had it come out in 2016. The narrative aspect of SOI does succeed more, yes.

    And yet...as Alex and Kris and others have mentioned, I do sense continuity here still. You go from:

    1. The "out-of-body", outer space narration of Love is All We Have Left, Innocence talking to Experience, followed by the "brush with mortality" in Lights of Home that set up the album as a whole. Followed by...

    2. ...The "defiant joy" of Best Thing written to Ali and the uplifting encouragement to Bono's daughters in GOOYOW, where the personal meets the political. Followed by Kendrick Lamar's outro that transitions into...

    3. ...American Soul, where the rage from Volcano on SOI meets the failure of the American dream for refugees attempting to find sanctuary in the U.S...Then we move from the U.S. to the "west coast" of Syria, to people actually experiencing the carnage of war and either nonviolently resisting with simple acts or trying to head across the Mediterranean in SOL and RFD...Bono's own brush with mortality meets the real experiences of mortality of refugees. And then The Showman! where Bono of course admits that despite his advocacy and social justice causes, we shouldn't take him as a performer too seriously. Followed by...

    4. ...The most serious, reflective song on the album! Little Things, now with Experience talking to Innocence (inverting the dialectic from LIAWHL). Then we get Landlady (playing Little Things and Landlady back to back is just glorious for me, by the way). Another song about Bono being grounded and drawn to the power of friendship and ordinary love in a marriage, despite the problems inherent in experiencing world and Bono's own globe-trotting wanderlust.

    5. Along comes the Blackout. Personal and political darkness, yet darkness where "you learn to see..." But of course, as others have pointed out Love Is Bigger reminds us that love will win, no matter the darkness. And in an album that begins with Love being "all we have left," it's fitting to end on this note as well as 13 (There is a Light), where the light might seem small and weak right now, but the tender challenge to "not let it go out" provides beautiful closure on the album for me. It all comes full circle.

    Sorry for the long post. That's how I view the album's narrative/cohesiveness, anyway.
  4. My favourite song changes almost every week, now its 13
  5. I've been enjoying hearing Bono read the liner notes the past few days...
  6. Originally posted by kris_smith87:[..]
    So because you can’t see it it isn’t there and I’m failing to see it? Right. Ok.

    One thing I’ve taken from this album is how “stuck” (in a moment... sorry) U2 fans seem to be. They want the band to be different, but work with multiple producers on one project and they have committed treason for example. Just because it doesn’t happen so much in rock doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. This is an example of U2 not being boxed into a certain genre or way of doing things.


    Can we stop with the 'if you don't like it then you must not be a fan of U2 going forward' divide? Or stop acting insulted that some people don't like the album as much as you do?
  7. Originally posted by KieranU2:[..]


    Can we stop with the 'if you don't like it then you must not be a fan of U2 going forward' divide? Or stop acting insulted that some people don't like the album as much as you do?
    That would be brilliant indeed.
  8. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]
    You're failing to see my point so yes, that's exactly what's happening. I'm not saying I am right (which I obviously believe I am, hence why I'm writing. I wouldn't write something which I don't believe is true), I'm just saying you're failing to see what I see.


    [..]
    I don't have any problem with the band working with multiple producers. Two of their best albums, Achtung Baby and Pop, were produced by at least 3 very different producers and mixed by at least 3 others. In fact I tend to prefer those mixed albums rather than the more "uniform/heterogeneous" pieces of work. And I've always appreciated -and will always do- that my band isn't stale, stuck in a sound, stuck in a way of doing things. In fact, when the album leaked and we got to hear it in full, my first judgement was something like: "I don't think it's a masterpiece and I'm not sure I even like many of these songs at all, but I celebrate that my band isn't afraid of experimenting and trying new things!". I can't recall the exact phrasing but that is the summary of it. I still stand behind that. But saying that isn't incompatible with acknowledging SOE's failure in other regards.


    [..]
    Nope, maybe you want to read my post again. I mentioned that there is no continuous tying of SOE together, and I explicitly left SOI out of that because SOI does have a continuous thread all throughout. Our torches and pitchforks were picked up because a literal callback, reusing parts of music and lyrics, is a lame -and ineffective- way to force-tie these albums together. If the references and callbacks would have been less obvious and more poetic, like the subtle one spotted by Christopher (see below), it would have caused less of a bad reaction among fans.

    [..]



    [..]
    I get it that you're trying to justify it any way you can. All the better for you, as I posted in my previous message. I'm not trying to convince anyone to dislike the album, god forbid!! I'm just voicing my opinion on how and why it doesn't work as it should, and how and why it isn't the long anticipated sequel of SOI because it lacks part of what SOI had. SOI&E could (should) have been a masterpiece but it isn't due to SOE's disjuncture - that's all.
    I think we're on similar wavelengths here, Sergio.
  9. Originally posted by bpt3:[..]


    Exactly.

    Interesting discussion these last couple of pages...I must say that I get where people are coming from with criticism of SOE, even as a big fan of it. The band didn't do themselves any favors with delaying the album to better reflect the Trump era, overthinking certain aspects of the process like usual, etc. I imagine it would indeed have had a more "cohesive" sound and flow to it had it come out in 2016. The narrative aspect of SOI does succeed more, yes.

    And yet...as Alex and Kris and others have mentioned, I do sense continuity here still. You go from:

    1. The "out-of-body", outer space narration of Love is All We Have Left, Innocence talking to Experience, followed by the "brush with mortality" in Lights of Home that set up the album as a whole. Followed by...

    2. ...The "defiant joy" of Best Thing written to Ali and the uplifting encouragement to Bono's daughters in GOOYOW, where the personal meets the political. Followed by Kendrick Lamar's outro that transitions into...

    3. ...American Soul, where the rage from Volcano on SOI meets the failure of the American dream for refugees attempting to find sanctuary in the U.S...Then we move from the U.S. to the "west coast" of Syria, to people actually experiencing the carnage of war and either nonviolently resisting with simple acts or trying to head across the Mediterranean in SOL and RFD...Bono's own brush with mortality meets the real experiences of mortality of refugees. And then The Showman! where Bono of course admits that despite his advocacy and social justice causes, we shouldn't take him as a performer too seriously. Followed by...

    4. ...The most serious, reflective song on the album! Little Things, now with Experience talking to Innocence (inverting the dialectic from LIAWHL). Then we get Landlady (playing Little Things and Landlady back to back is just glorious for me, by the way). Another song about Bono being grounded and drawn to the power of friendship and ordinary love in a marriage, despite the problems inherent in experiencing world and Bono's own globe-trotting wanderlust.

    5. Along comes the Blackout. Personal and political darkness, yet darkness where "you learn to see..." But of course, as others have pointed out Love Is Bigger reminds us that love will win, no matter the darkness. And in an album that begins with Love being "all we have left," it's fitting to end on this note as well as 13 (There is a Light), where the light might seem small and weak right now, but the tender challenge to "not let it go out" provides beautiful closure on the album for me. It all comes full circle.

    Sorry for the long post. That's how I view the album's narrative/cohesiveness, anyway.
    bingo boingo bango

    But just to re-iterate, I think people would like this album more if it was called something different, and if the weight of "a sequel" wasn't on its shoulders. That being said, I love the "coda" or whatever of Lights of Home and how it calls back to Iris as if to remember those wise words on the verge of questioning faith and mortality etc.

    I said a long time ago (not to toot my own horn) that if U2 really wanted to put out something great, I think they'd have to split the fanbase. The greatness factor will always be up for debate, but this album has certainly split this fanbase. That being said, I'd MUCH rather have the discussions we're having now to all of us agreeing that a new U2 album is "fine". That's how I remember everyone feeling about SoI after a month.
  10. Originally posted by KieranU2:[..]


    Can we stop with the 'if you don't like it then you must not be a fan of U2 going forward' divide? Or stop acting insulted that some people don't like the album as much as you do?
    It would also be great if everyone would be a bit more open as opposed to "My band would NEVER do that...." etc etc etc.
  11. I think you're being a bit flippant.
  12. Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:[..]
    bingo boingo bango

    But just to re-iterate, I think people would like this album more if it was called something different, and if the weight of "a sequel" wasn't on its shoulders. That being said, I love the "coda" or whatever of Lights of Home and how it calls back to Iris as if to remember those wise words on the verge of questioning faith and mortality etc.

    I said a long time ago (not to toot my own horn) that if U2 really wanted to put out something great, I think they'd have to split the fanbase. The greatness factor will always be up for debate, but this album has certainly split this fanbase. That being said, I'd MUCH rather have the discussions we're having now to all of us agreeing that a new U2 album is "fine". That's how I remember everyone feeling about SoI after a month.
    Interesting point about the "weight" of being a sequel maybe hurting its overall reception.

    As one who puts Achtung/Zooropa/Pop all in the top 5, I still am a little bummed that we didn't get more of a "90s" style, satirical exploration of Experience, as that's what I was expecting after SOI basically charted the influences of "early U2." But the more that I think about it, ATYCLB pretty much signaled the end of any deep engagement with irony for U2. And SOE is still actually pretty heavy and dark at times, while still beginning and ending with a ray of hope.
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