It's an articulate piece, but reading it alongside the bits from the RS piece, there's no doubt no one's innocent here. Nor should they claim to be. It would have to be so very hard to exist and create with a small group of people over such a long time. I bet U2 must hate each other by now.
Given the eerily prescient U2 comment, I'll just leave this here ...
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/readers-poll-the-10-best-albums-of-2014-20141217
That makes me a bit sad. Even older albums? Fair enough about Lightning Bolt, cos, well, yawnish, but other recent PJ albums have been worthwhile. So it SP if you discount Teargarden etc, etc. Now I want to send you a mixtape to remind you.
I got this album at the same time as my first CD player - a mini hi-fi (and the Black album as well, same day) for my birthday. It had been out for a year already by then but I had listened to it compulsively thanks to friends.
I still remember putting this on for the first time, and pouring obsessively over the booklet.
One of my top ten albums. I just love it, so much.
Read all the comments, then listened, and therefore actually kind of enjoyed it. Nickelback, nah, cos they usually have a hook. Yes, this doesn't cos of the different-to-normal song structure.
It's FF, is all it is. This is what they do. Start out slow or medium, rev up, Dave yells, they rock on, and fade out.
I've not deified anyone, nor did I say I had. My point is that our 'heroes' ... whether musical, political, sporting, academic, whatever ... are simply people, like the rest of the world, and therefore open to mistakes.
Love this guy. His first album especially is one of my all-time favourites. Eight years is a long time between albums ... builds some expectation, that's for sure
Tom Waits is a great one - his last album was fantastic. And arguably, he's remained pretty consistent in terms of creativity and quality.
And just thought of Ryan Adams too. He's had a couple of dull albums ... 29, anyone? But others have been great
Here's the thing I've been wondering ever since listening to Songs of Innocence, and finding that's it's ok, but not great and realising that's what U2 will now do, probably, forever ... does the ability for creative, original, amazing output wither and die as people get older? Is it only in our youth that we're able to have Achtung Babies? If so, then that's it for me. Give me a rug and a chair and a dog and my slippers, and get off my lawn.
Who's an elder statesmen/woman-type musician still releasing fresh, original albums? What about movie directors/writers/painters? Is it the same for them? George Lucas, yes, but Terrence Malick, no.
Personally hated that album too. So lifeless,so cold, so dull. So far Songs Of Innocence is just lifeless and dull. But I don't have the instant dislike for it ... maybe there's hope.
Took me a bit of fiddling for it to turn up. Had to log out of iTunes, go to the shop, click on the U2 banner, and then the tag no longer said purchased, but Free. When I clicked on free, it asked me to sign in and then it downloaded.
Before all that it just wouldn't show up in purchased or my library. But I don't us iTunes much ... may have been doing something wrong.
That was the first thing I thought of. I've not heard of the Hatesong thing ... but the last thing I'd want to know about is why someone doesn't like something. I get so tired of negativity about music ...
My sons - 6 and 2 - very, very much love dancing to Let There Be Rock with me. They go off. In fact, my six-year-old was so upset when he realised I'd given it four stars in Windows Media Player that he changed it to five. But to be honest ... it's almost the only AC/DC song I love.
This album ... man, this album.
As much as I love his version of Hallelujah, Lover, You Should Have Come Over is my favourite song on Grace.
Thanks to Jeff for getting me into Cohen as well.
As a side note, I listened to two older "music fans" talk at work the other day about the Rolling Stones, Dylan, and Buckley, and were very disparaging about Grace. Said it was mostly covers and not very good ones. I was shaking with anger in my seat.
I remember when this first came out, and the utter strangeness of it, how it turned melancholy into something virtually tangible. To say there was nothing else like didn't convey the reality - it was purely alien. It changed my life, pushed me beyond guitars/drums/bass.
To their credit, I've never found anything like it (apart from the second album).
As a side note, I remember reading that Barrow recording music, pressed it on to vinyl and then sampled that. Or was that just for the second allbum? Anyone know?
I know exactly what you mean. The idea that the single best song (yes, overplayed, but it's still the best) is the final song - it was almost as if they tried to downplay it.
Back in 1994 ... I was 17 ... Glory Box was kind of everywhere. In movies, at parties, on the radio. It was, in a way, the song that summed up that year for me, anyway - moody, dour, disturbing and emotional
To me, it almost exists outside of the album, by itself, a song out of time.
It's not the first time a Ryan Adams album has been scrapped for being too sad ... and now there are two Ryan Adams albums I really want to hear. C'mon Ryan, give us the misery.
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