A U2 Thread (3 Viewers)

[sleepy]

Sure they’ve been releasing music for forty years or more at this stage and no one really has an appetite for new material by them. Could see them retiring in the next few years
Should have done that 25 years ago

That’s one thing you can say about REM, at least they retired. Maybe a few years too late, but not 25 years too late. And their last album was actually pretty decent

 

[Anthony]

I'm generally of the opinion that it's nobodies fucking business how long a musician keeps making music for.

 

[ernesto]

I'm generally of the opinion that it's nobodies fucking business how long a musician keeps making music for.

i think it's everybody's business as long as joe soap has to keep hearing it everywhere

 

[Anthony]

i think it's everybody's business as long as joe soap has to keep hearing it everywhere

Do you though?

 

[rettucs]

I don't think I've heard a new U2 song in about 10 years

 

[ernesto]

Do you though?

Yes. Radio exposure. Internet ads.
Heard a (presumably) new U2 song recently while grocery shopping and literally laughed out loud on my own it was so shit

 

[Lili Marlene]

No one is stopping them making music except their own frustrations when they do and it doesn't become the biggest rock album that year.

 

[Deadmanposting]

There was a very good piece many many years ago in Hot Press (written by Bill Graham, I think)
At least if it wasn't very good, it was one of these things that sticks with you
And it was basically asking - around the time of U2's megastardom - why they made it and why other bands hadn't. Like why hadn't the Jam made that jump and so on. I'd love to read it again.
But I was thinking about it recently in regards to the recent dimming of their light



Like maybe no bands go on forever, only the Beatles are truly immortal? And they got there by being great and then suddenly stopping being the Beatles.
Dylan lives on, as people still try to figure him out.
By going on, I mean somehow currently relevant in some way.
I don't know that teh Beatles are, it just feels that way to me. Same as Dylan.
Maybe people feel this way about Queen or Michael Jackson or Oasis or George Michael or Nina Simone or Dolly Parton.
Even the Stones have fizzled out.
I find I liked REM better after they fucked off. Or felt warmed toward them.

Is it that other artists play your songs?
That you find something new when you listen to them repeatedly?

This is the most open-ended question - but how do you stay relevant or feel like you mattered as an artist - versus something/someone that just happened.

Or can you just stay doing the music and just dropping down the divisions, playing to smaller and smaller crowds like George Best toward the end?

I think U2 always wanted to be loved more than they wanted to be great.
They never made a record (except maybe October) that was 'we don't care if you like it or not, but this is us'. If you're always going for that and you lose it, there's nothing else to fall back on except the back catalogue.



Sorry, guys. I am blathering all thsi down instead of updating a very importnat business spreadsheet.

 

[Deadmanposting]

No one is stopping them making music except their own frustrations when they do and it doesn't become the biggest rock album that year.

I think U2 always wanted to be loved more than they wanted to be great.
They never made a record (except maybe October) that was 'we don't care if you like it or not, but this is us'. If you're always going for that and you lose it, there's nothing else to fall back on except the back catalogue.

Ok, it took me half a goddamn page to get to where you got to in one single line

Fair play

 

[Lili Marlene]

Ok, it took me half a goddamn page to get to where you got to in one single line

Fair play

Yours is a good read though, mine is just pithy.

 

[pete]

Sorry, guys. I am blathering all thsi down instead of updating a very importnat business spreadsheet.

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[Anthony]

That's a fun thing to think about. Where do you place Springsteen?

 

[Lili Marlene]

New York Times had a piece a few years ago about who will be remembered in 300 or so years by name, on a Mozart kind of level, as the 20th century guy, and their answer was Chuck Berry.

Dylan - not a pleasant singer, few pop hits, held an acoustic guitar rather than an electric one, was white.

Beatles - four of them, not American

Elvis - didn't write his own stuff, was white

Everyone else - too late in the game or too genre specific

Chuck Berry was black, played the lead guitar, wrote his own songs, lyrics were poetic, changed popular music at the time, was in there first. The only one who ticked all boxes.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

New York Times had a piece a few years ago about who will be remembered in 300 or so years by name, on a Mozart kind of level, as the 20th century guy, and their answer was Chuck Berry.

Dylan - not a pleasant singer, few pop hits, held an acoustic guitar rather than an electric one, was white.

Beatles - four of them, not American

Elvis - didn't write his own stuff, was white

Everyone else - too late in the game or too genre specific

Chuck Berry was black, played the lead guitar, wrote his own songs, lyrics were poetic, changed popular music at the time, was in there first. The only one who ticked all boxes.

hmm - not sure I buy that entirely. although I haven't read the article - do you have a link perchance?

I'd not say berry had a greater impact, than say, hendrix?

 

[Lili Marlene]

hmm - not sure I buy that entirely. although I haven't read the article - do you have a link perchance?

I'd not say berry had a greater impact, than say, hendrix?

No Berry no Hendrix. I wonder about people like Bob Marley on a world scale though.

Here it is, a fairly lighthearted piece if i recall correctly

Which Rock Star Will Historians of the Future Remember? (Published 2016)

The most important musical form of the 20th century will be nearly forgotten one day. People will probably learn about the genre through one figure — but who might that be?

www.nytimes.com

 

[JohnnyRaz]

No Berry no Hendrix. I wonder about people like Bob Marley on a world scale though.

Here it is, a fairly lighthearted piece if i recall correctly

Which Rock Star Will Historians of the Future Remember? (Published 2016)

The most important musical form of the 20th century will be nearly forgotten one day. People will probably learn about the genre through one figure — but who might that be?

www.nytimes.com

le paywall...

marley point is a good one - given that people of african origin are likely to be a bigger component of the world population the most remembered musician of the 20th century might be someone not particularly well know in the 'west' currently

 

[Lili Marlene]

le paywall...

oh i'm sorry, this link should work

Which Rock Star Will Historians of the Future Remember? (Published 2016)

The most important musical form of the 20th century will be nearly forgotten one day. People will probably learn about the genre through one figure — but who might that be?

www.nytimes.com

just rereading it, it comes to a bit of an abrupt end. I think Hendrix might be a good call actually, maybe his lyrics aren't up to scratch though?

 

[ann post]

Teh christians in america are already re-writing popular hits with jesus lyrics

A lot of stuff you hear at mass are old folk hits turned a bit jesusy.

Is that in the article?

Maybe 7 nation army will be some sort of Hymn

 

[Lili Marlene]

Teh christians in america are already re-writing popular hits with jesus lyrics

A lot of stuff you hear at mass are old folk hits turned a bit jesusy.

Is that in the article?

yes.

 

[ann post]

Boney M pretty solid in the old venn diagram actually