DevilsShoes

Just pulled this off Digital Spy (it may have already been posted somewhere).


Bono: 'U2 album was too challenging'
Saturday, October 24 2009, 19:56 BST

By Catriona Wightman


WENN
Bono has admitted that he is disappointed with the lack of success for U2's recent album.

No Line On The Horizon was a number one album, but single 'Get On Your Boots' peaked at number 12 in the single charts and 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight' only reached number 32.

According to The Mirror, Bono is unhappy that the band didn't "pull off the pop songs".

He explained: "We weren't really in that mindset and we felt that the album was kind of an almost extinct species, and we should approach it in totality and create a mood and a feeling, and a beginning, middle and end."

The frontman added that the record might have been too complex for fans.

"I suppose we've made a work that is a bit challenging for people who have grown up on a diet of popstars," he said.


I'm not sure I'd necessarily agree that NLOTH was too challenging, I personally find the likes of AB and Zooropa far more difficult to gets to grips with. I don't think the lack of pop songs was the problem with this album either. It'd be hard pushed for Boots in particular to be more hook-laden.

I just don't think the singles were strong enough. Boots and Crazy Tonight are perfectly good pop songs but I don't believe there's anything truly great about them. Crazy Tonight strains towards something great but somehow ends up falling short IMO.

Magnificent on the other hand is a real triumph and should have been the song to launch the whole campaign.

I think it'd be easy for the casual listener to catch one of these songs in passing and conclude that U2 haven't really developed all that much since HTDAAB.

The band have always tended to work best when they have a clear vision for an album, whether it's wanting to be everything the old U2 were not on AB or getting back to the more stripped back simplicity on ATYCLB. Maybe it's a lack of focus that NLOTH suffers from. Whilst the title track, I'll Go Crazy, Boots, SUC, and Breathe are perfectly decent tracks they don't have that spark of magic than runs through Zoo Station, One, End of the World, The Fly, MW and Acrobat.

And I say this as somebody who thinks AB is overrated.

coolian2

i hope they decide to stay the course though, because i don't think i'll be hanging around for another atyclb.

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financeguy

Indeed. It's a deeply troubling article, as it indicates U2 are mainly interested in popularity for its own sake.

Muldfeld

Exactly. U2 could do some really cool stuff. The newest album and "Kingdom for Your Love" are an indication of that, but the band must push further. And U2 is lying or is delusional when saying that "Get On Your Boots" was too edgy.

Mofo was perhaps too edgy for the mainstream. The Fly was.

Get On Your Boots just sucked, though it was better than Vertigo, it was too similar.

I think U2 is between its old fan base that appreciated complexity and the newer fan base its grown with its last 2 albums and radio play of its past singles. Such people of the latter category love older U2 due to brainwashing. They'd never have given The Fly a chance and probably still don't.

U2 HAS to be stronger than this. I fear a retrenchment. The ego for popularity has too long overtaken the gutsiness for artistry in this band. The Edge hasn't shaken up his guitar sound in ages; his work is the most conservative on the new record. Shame on him.

If you read the Rolling Stone article, it's pretty clear that U2 are going to make "Songs of Ascent" poppier than it might have been. Bono is talking about recapturing the hits charts. Very worrying. We all know that there are good hits (U2's '80s and early '90s stuff) and bad hits (most of their post-1998 work), and the charts largely foster bad hits. When is the last time a hit on the charts was mindblowingly good and not just Outkast "Hey Ya" pretty good. I can't even remember. But it has been forever.

I think the economy may be a big reason and illegal downloading has become that much easier. HTDAAB's success on the charts and at the Grammys wasn't a sign that U2 was on the right track, though. People with taste know it was precisely the opposite.
Well said. There's too much of a focus on that hipster contingent, who haven't even TRIED to get into the older albums. For them, it's all about immediacy, and U2 music was always better than that in the '80s and '90s. It's very sad that U2 think a back to basics album is what they created in 2000 and 2004. It was largely dumbed down stuff. There's nothing inherently wrong with Joshua Tree 2 if U2 had actually done that. The problem was they copied certain melodies from the past and eliminated a lot of the texture found in Joshua Tree.

The tragedy of ATYCLB and HTDAAB is that U2 deluded themselves into thinking that they were fulfilling their mission of old -- improving the mainstream by infusing it with innovative, great, future classics -- rather than turning against it by selling out. It is crucial that U2 understands this if it is to forge ahead toward making better music.

I don't know what U2 is reading, but, based on what I've read in this thread alone, all the band has to do to get some sober opinions is read what we think. Some really smart fans here.

rjhbonovox

Amen to that brother. It is worrying how Bono has worded this article about their lastest album. Its a great album. Its their best since Pop, another flop. But when you are pushing 50 and yer album is not full of pop hits your not going to sell shitloads. It would be very embarrasing to see U2 go and create something similar to ATYCLB and break out another Beautiful Day. I like Beautiful Day but I just hope U2 don't go that route for the sake of selling records to the masses!

coolian2

exactly. the only thing that worries me about criticism of stuff like no line on the horizon is that is impacts their decisions on future work. i wish they'd just decide "fuck it, we're big enough and rich enough to do what we/the omg reel fans want" and go for it.

you saw them hinting at it with no line on the horizon and some of the 360 tour, but instead of stepping forward it feels like this attitude is regressing again.

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last unicorn

What's Bono supposed to say? Wow, it's great we didn't sell many copies of our last album and didn't have hit singles? Come on, that would be stupid. Of course they are disappointed, we all are. Not because it's a bad album, but because we all expected it to do better. But Bono and the band even said that having hit singles wasn't on their mind when they made the album. Fans seem to hate the thought of the band making radiofriendly, mainstream music, but at the same time hate the thought of them not having hit singles.

And I don't think he meant the album is too complex for fans. It's more like: For people who are used to listen to the music that's in the charts today, and I kind of agree with that. Having hit singles isn't really about being good, it isn't about quality.

Articles like that will never be able to turn my opinion on the album around. I love NLOTH and hope U2 continue to follow this path. They have nothing to worry about with a tour like this going on. It's all about media negativity, I hope they won't stop believing in making exciting and even more innovative music.

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digitize

I second this post.

U2387

Agree with everything you said here.

I did not interpret Bono's comments as "stupid, unsophisticated fan base was not ready for this kind of material." I interpreted them exactly as you say- the 18-35 casual music listener crowd that buys albums, listens to radio, etc, was brought up on pop crap like N SYNC, Britney, Lady GaGa, etc and shit "rock" like Nickelback. They also were brought up in the whole mentality of the music industry today which seems to want to get a huge single out of, for example, Nickelback, and then ride the song for 4 years. Make a bunch of money, then they go away.

People seem to forget that when U2 are talking about their fan base, that they, unlike any other band EVER, are talking to alot of people who have become fans since 2000 and consider ATYCLB and Bomb their first albums. For this significant part of the base, brought up with 90s boy bands and Britney on the radio, NLOTH would be challenging.

Very few U2 fans my age will mention songs older than Beautiful Day. It is the rare U2 2000s new fan that actually goes back and explores and realizes how truly awesome albums like War, UF, JT and AB are.

ATYCLB and HTDAAB, though not "pop" in the sense of the artists mentioned above, went with this mentality and both albums were a collection of potentially huge singles as a result.

I too hope they continue in the NLOTH vein. I do not think commercial success and quality work focusing on the whole album as U2 envisions it now(more reflective, companion piece to NLOTH) are mutually exclusive.

I just think choice of lead singles but more importantly how they are promoted makes all the difference these days. Of course, U2 did a major NLOTH promo tour. However, where was the promotion for Boots 6 weeks earlier when it hit the radio? As much as people hate I-tunes U2, it got Vertigo out there, got peoples' attention and told them U2 had a new album coming out. I personally would have gone with NLOTH 2 or Magnificent as the first single, but Boots is the kind of song that could have been big if it had been promoted properly.

We can argue all day over whether this new age of the huge lead single and the technology gadget promotion is good or bad, but what we can not argue is that it is REALITY. That being said, U2 needs to adapt to these times and come up with innovative, forward thinking ways to promote material they release through the mediums used in the industry today. Otherwise, they will not have huge commercial success again. I think this is more the issue than whether the tunes are "radio-friendly" or not. Lets face it, no one would have called WOWY or Still Haven't Found radio friendly in 1987.

Any ideas on how U2 should go about releasing and promoting SOA in general or Every Breaking Wave in particular? Blackberry App early release and commercial? Let it leak out? Fan club members get it first? Download it from RED campaign?? Other possibilities.

ZOOTVTOURist

...Really, how times have changed.

financeguy

Indeed. Plus, given recent album timelines, U2 will be in their mid 50s before the next one (discounting Songs of Wonder or whatever it's called)

I couldn't think of anything more pathetic than a bunch of fiftysomethings trying to write chart friendly pop hits. They weren't even very good at that in the 20s and 30s. Was With or Without You a chart friendly pop song? Hardly, it was completely different to most of what was in the charts in 1987, and yet did well in the singles charts precisely because of that.

Maoilbheannacht

Well, I think ATYCLB is one of the best albums U2 has ever done. So I would have no problem with something equal to that or better.

But, the band is selling tons of albums with NLOTH! Look at the following facts:

THE BEST SELLING ALBUMS WORLDWIDE IN 2009 AS OF WEEK 43

1. Lady Gaga The Fame 3.811.000
2. U2 No Line On The Horizon 3.463.000
3. Michael Jackson Thriller 3.156.000
4. Kings Of Leon Only By The Night 3.037.000
5. Michael Jackson Number Ones (since 2009) 2.962.000
6. Black Eyed Peas The E.N.D. 2.784.000
7. Eminem Relapse 2.783.000
8. Taylor Swift Fearless 2.755.500
9. Soundtrack Hannah Montana: The Movie 2.597.000
10. Beyoncé I Am... Sasha Fierce 2.584.000
11. Michael Jackson The Essential (since 2009) 2.433.500
12. Green Day 21st Century Breakdown 2.428.000
13. Soundtrack Twilight 2.194.000
14. Pink Funhouse 2.119.000
15. Michael Jackson King Of Pop 1.828.000



This is 2009 and its impossible for albums to sell 10 million copies thanks to internet downloading, file sharing, CD burning and other ways of obtaining music for free. If you can sell 3 million copies of an album worldwide in under a year in this environment, your what the industry today would consider a red hot artist!

roy

2nd biggest selling album of the year, that's pretty good. In fact has a U2 album ever done so well before? Where did The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby & ATYCLB place in terms of year end charts? Anyone know?

Maoilbheannacht

Joshua Tree #1 in 1987
Achtung Baby #5 in 1992
HTDAAB #7 in 2004

GirlsAloudFan

Pretty simple: They just aren't as good as they used to be.

Not a big deal, they're approaching their 50's. Can't keep it up forever. Everything has an expiration date.