No Line On The Horizon 11 years on.

Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:[..]
Which turned out to be a bullshit story from Bono haha. I love that. "Guys, I had a bunch of masterpieces but they were all stolen...what do we do?"

*Is returned book years later to find there was basically nothing in it*.

Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]
Hahaha, indeed Good ol' joker Bono. Funnily enough this made-up story is still told to defend October's lyrical poorness, even by so-called hard die fans.

Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:[..]
Which turned out to be a bullshit story from Bono haha. I love that. "Guys, I had a bunch of masterpieces but they were all stolen...what do we do?"

*Is returned book years later to find there was basically nothing in it*.

I want to hear the version of No Line that existed before they decided they had to "put some songs" onto it. I want to hear an entire album being written from different perspectives, to do with war, journalists covering it, etc.

I maintain that if this was a U2 EP, it'd be the best music project they'd have released since Pop:

Soon
Being Born (goodbye random Fez intro)
Moment of Surrender
Winter
White As Snow
Cedars Of Lebanon

Gets even worse (for me) when you realize that Every Breaking Wave was supposed to be on this album but was held back because of the running time, AND it was likely much closer to the version they played on the 360 tour which IMO was 10000000X better. Never really liked the arrangement on SOI, never really liked the new chorus (or that Ryan Tedder supposedly wrote it), and absolutely hated what they did to the "Waves know, where are the rocks" section - or rather, the "The sea knows, where are the rocks" (which it became).

Originally posted by popmarter:Stand up comedy is a cracking tune it sounds like Led Zeppelin meets the Chilli Peppers and has one of Edge's best guitar solos ever.
turn it up loud folks.

Originally posted by RememberEveryMoment:[..]


I think EBW was just a rough demo at that stage (just listen to the live performances, it does not sound finished at all) and that is the reason it didn't make NLOTH. I agree on the first part of your post though, they should have released an album with the more ambient pieces and without GOYB/Crazy/SUC. So add (an earlier and less overproduced version of) Magnificent, Breathe and North Star to that list and you'll have one of their best LPs.

We had another track called Every Breaking Wave which, if we'd included it, would have made for a very long record. Anyway, we decided that song just hadn't reached its potential, so, we put it back in the cupboard for the next record (laughs)."

Originally posted by popmarter:Stand up comedy is a cracking tune it sounds like Led Zeppelin meets the Chilli Peppers and has one of Edge's best guitar solos ever.
turn it up loud folks.

Originally posted by miryclay:[..]
SUC = worse U2 track of 21c

Originally posted by RattleandHum1988:[..]
I actually prefer that live performance version, but yeah - I think I may have misread this quote here:

[..]
-https://web.archive.org/web/20090301120424/http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/2009/02/exclusive_adam_clayton_qa.html

It kinda sounds like it was a mix of "well the record is too long...and maybe Every Breaking Wave could use more time in the cooker, let's just leave it off".

But IMO this is another great example of U2 over-writing/producing a song. I just have to wonder what the recorded version sounded like at that point, as the live performances on 360 were hauntingly beautiful to me - vs the SOI version which kind of just turned into another U2 song - if that makes sense. I have to imagine the version they had at that point was more in line with what you said, more ambient and less produced, etc. A wandering sort of ballad. BRB off to listen to that 360 version again...

But yeah - 100% we're on the same page, there regarding the rest of the album.

Definitely not on the same page as these aliens who like Stand Up Comedy though

EDIT: Really, it's just the arrangement of the newer version of EBW that kind of bugs me, not the chorus. That, and the fact that they kind of butchered that beautiful middle 8 part. It went from a crazy pretty harmony part to a...rap? No thanks.

Originally posted by popmarter:Stand up comedy is a cracking tune it sounds like Led Zeppelin meets the Chilli Peppers and has one of Edge's best guitar solos ever.
turn it up loud folks.

Originally posted by thefly108:Ain't nothing wrong with Stand Up Comedy!
While we're at it, Get On Your Boots is also a great song -- dare I say, one of the best post-2000s songs they've released.