Utoo

I'm surprised no one's commented on this:

I can't say that I completely disagree. As a rabid fan, I want to say that there are some things that they're actually better at now than they were in the past----but if I sit back and honestly think about it, I can't come up with an example. Sad, but true.

It seems to me that they've oversimplified the idea of pop, yet have forgotten its simplest core: pop is about sex. And aside from a few examples (Streets, Beautiful Day, Pride), nearly all of their biggest radio-friendly hits during the band's pop-culture peak (easily recognized as JT through AB, perhaps extended to War through Zooropa) were about sex and relationships. First number one single in the US? WOWY. Steamy song, steamy video. Going back to NYD ("I will be with you again"), Two Hearts, WOWY, ISHFWILF, EBTTRT, One, Mysterious Ways, Ultraviolet-----nearly all of the songs that made the band a radio fixture had some feeling of sex & relationships about them. This is when the band's look & image had the most sex appeal, and Bono's voice was at is baritone peak. Perfect combination.

I love NLOTH, and I love ATYCLB, and I'm sure I'll love anything that they continue to put out because I'm a superfan. And it pains me to say this...but I've accepted it. The guys now look, act, and perform like 50-year-old rockstars eager to stay on top, not 20-something rockstars eager to get to the top. Hell, Beautiful Day was nearly 10 years ago! The Bono of that video still turns girls on. Bono's voice is still great, but it just plain doesn't have that sex appeal anymore---he'll never be able to sing anything from R&H or Achtung like he did on the album. Nor does their look ( The most striking relationship-oriented song is AMAAW---not quite a turn-on. Their lives are different & they're coming from a different place. To paraphrase Acrobat, "There was fire in their souls." There still is, but it ain't the same fire.

Maybe this is just a 29-year-old guy's oversimplification, but without the sex drive in the music & the lyrics & vocals, I can't expect another JT or AB to come. They'll still write amazing music that I'd kill to be able to put out, but JT or AB---not coming.


Meh, sad post.


ETA: I guess one chink in the armor of this theory is In A Little While----the sexiness is there, with a superbly appropriate vocal delivery...but not really the possibility of being a huge radio song, perhaps because while the music is appropriate for the song, it's not of 'huge' caliber.

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gman

I love how many try to explain the "failure" away. for me GAF is on the money. It is simple......all things considered....see below for explanation



regardless of what you think of NLOTH, the above is true, Sadly! And many long term fans will probably agree with this. I dont think anyone who has discovered u2 this decade can really understand.

coolian2

depending on which u2 album is your favourite, you could have been potentially saying that since 1980.

if they've lost it, how come no line on the horizon is rated by so many fans here as being better than at least their last two albums, plus a fair whack of the rest of the catalogue?

or is it my opinion is fact day and i've missed it?

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gman

Dont think of it as losing it, think of it more as hopefully a temporary blip. as a fan of u2 for not a kick in the ass off 30 yrs, i can safely say, that is because....the two albums prior to NLOTH were sub standard offerings! I would agree that NLOTH is a more respectable album, but it pales in significance compared to 80s and 90s albums....IMO. I was shocked to learn NLOTH has only sold 3.5M

roy

doctorwho

I disagree - both with you and, to an extent, Bono.

I concur that the album was, well, an album. And that this material is not the typical sugar-coated pop music, some of which U2 created on their last two releases.

JT is also not one of those albums - but times were different then. U2 were able to get a huge album and a string of hits from songs that really weren't typical pop music of the time. Even the haunting WOWY - a "love" song that usually do succeed on the charts - seemed a bit out of place compared to Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Debbie Gibson, Poison and the like of 1987. But I would contend that if U2 were to release JT today, it would not be the hit album it is. And not because of U2's age, but because people don't buy albums.

NLOTH is a fantastic album and easily one of my favorites. The songs are diverse (unlike some of U2's work - I'm looking at you, JT), and while there are some pop hits (like "Crazy") there are also flat out rock songs, soaring anthems, and bluesy epics. For U2 to have created an album like this at this point in their careers is mind-boggling. To say that they aren't as good as they used to be is incomprehensible to me.

That said, Bono is right, this album is a bit challenging and I can accept that some may simply not like it. There aren't the big hooks in the songs that U2 are famous for. This is an album not meant for the masses.

Still, when I went to the concerts, I could see people reacting to the new songs - songs that some clearly were hearing for the first time. And the audience reaction was great.

The trouble is that people don't buy music any more. So far, no album released this year has sold 2M copies in the U.S. That is incredible. In 2000, albums would sell 10M copies just in the U.S. But thanks to illegal file-sharing, people just download an album. iTunes has helped, but now people "cherry pick" songs, which also hurts album sales. Some artists have huge iTunes hits, but their albums flop.

Bono, and the rest of U2 - including their management - have to accept this change. NLOTH has sold over 1M copies in the U.S. - one of about 8 albums released this year to have reached that feat. Worldwide, it is the #1 album released this year, even though it has sold only between 3.2-3.8M copies (depending on which source one uses). For the #1 album not even sell 4M copies despite it being almost November - in a year where juggernauts like Eminem, Kelly Clarkson, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, etc., all released albums - says a lot.

Bottom line - U2 didn't have the big hits off this album that they hoped. I'm not sure why. I can accept that some didn't like GOYB, but "Magnificent" should have been a huge hit. It's lack of success almost has me buying into that conspiracy theory about radio boycotting U2 (due to some comments Bono made about radio paying artists for playing their songs). But album sales have been strong as they can be, given the times. The tremendous success of the tour - even in "smaller" markets - shows that this isn't 1997. U2 can do stadium shows worldwide. And I hope U2 take this and don't produce another album full of potential "singles". That was a fun experiment for ATYCLB, but we don't need it again.

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Utoo

Yes, I'm also surprised that this fact is often overlooked when the album is considered a commercial failure. Factor in a huge leak of the album weeks before its release--on top of the fact that folks illegally download even when the album is properly released on time; the iTunes buy-a-song effect; the fact that iTunes split its reporting of the album's rank by album version (thus keeping it from reaching the higher spot it really attained).....and so on, and so on.

A much more global interpretation of an album's success is required these days. I'd look at all of the following together: 1) album sales, 2) individual song sales, 3) ringtone/etc. sales during album's release, 4) increase in u2.com merchandise sales during album's release, 5) increase in popularity/transfers of U2 material on torrent sites during an album's release, 6) hell, bumps in one.org and Product(RED) hits & sales during an album's release. Look at all those things during a given timeframe before and after a new album's release and you'll see the cultural impact & success of the band and any new material. Look simply at album sales & you'll miss the boat.

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digitize

Not to mention the fifty gazillion U2360 tickets sold.

AliEnvy

Oh and perhaps see bumps in all those categories, plus things like twitter feeds and facebook hits after the free webcast.

Screwtape2

First off, I find it a bit funny having that first line of the article and in the next line have it say that it was a number one album.

I personally found the line about the album possibly being too complex for fans a bit insulting and in bad taste. For a fanbase that bought Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop, I don't think the "failure" of NLOTH is a result of it being too complex. Fans are an easy scapegoat. The truth for NLOTH not selling as much as they hoped is not restricted to one scapegoat. It starts though with possibly unrealistic expectations.

I'm not freaking out but hearing this stuff is discomforting for SOA hopes. I don't think they'd go to this extreme but I agree with Coolian that I don't think I could take another ATYCLB.

U2opra

As much as I like NLOTH, I find it part of the trilogy that goes with ATYCLB and HTDAAB (certainly the tour setlist shows that). Some of the songs from NLOTH are certainly also what you might expect on HTDAAB, like Crazy tonight for example. I think on this basis, it hasn't really gave too much of a drastic change for average joe to go "that's interesting" and take notice. It's a shame because while we may see it, a lot of more casual listeners may not, and certainly casual listeners do indeed make an impact on sales too.

NLOTH is a great album, (I know I'm gonna be blasted for this) but I must admit U2 were playing it a bit safe with some of the songs on the album and maybe could've done with a little bit more experimentation - there was a little bit too much of that familiar sound echoing from HTDAAB at times.

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intedomine

When casual fans buy albums, it's usually based on how much they favour the promotional singles. Did Boots fail to achieve this favourability? Yeah, probably, but I still wouldn't say it was a bad choice or too complex for radio listeners.

I can't help but feel that the commercial letdown of NLOTH is not due to a lack of pop sensibility, but rather that the commercial mainstream that U2 were selling to were just not really wanting U2 at the time. They've got their Kings Of Leon and MGMT and Pink at the moment, a new U2 release wasn't really that essential to their musical needs.

In Australia in particular, the radio stations rarely played Sexy Boots or Magnificent. There was other stuff going around that was already striking a chord with the masses, U2 weren't doing anything commercially essential.

Who knows, later in 2012 or back in 2002, Get On Your Boots could have been a smash hit number one single all around the globe, but it just wasn't gonna happen in 2009. That's just the way it is...


Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing U2 simultaenously release a Rubin album and Songs of Ascent. Radical thing to do, but the Rubin album can be the mainstream-targeting showcase of potential singles, while Songs of Ascent can be whatever it in fact actuallyis, something more for the harder core fans.

Indeed, a unique selling point for both albums is that they are two completely separate albums being released on the same day, that is bound to garner massive publicity.

digitize

As others have said before, I do not think it's impossible to have a hit single or two on an album without compromising artistic integrity. U2 have generally done this well over their career... they have some great catchy singles that get into great albums with much more depth without making the singles themselves mediocre or anti-artistic. NYD, Pride, WOWY, The Fly/Mysterious Ways/One, Magnificent, and even BD and Cobble are all good examples of this, IMO, even though the last one didn't have much of an album to support.

The problem with Boots is that some of the fan base thought that they were making Vertigo 2.0, and rejected the single because of that, and some thought they were making Discothèque 2.0 or The Fly 2.0, and rejected it because of that. I love the song, considering that it actually has a strong lyrical position in the album, upholding the 'peripheral vision' theme of the album with ironic close-surroundings-centrism. I also love the Eno-tastic layered-ness of the production. But not a lot of people saw the single the way I saw it, so it kind of failed.

oktobergirl

Good points. But I just don't like the song.

subnet

so bono wants pop?

does bryan adams still live in vancouver in the month of november?