obligatory "influential on the track of the week" post.
i'm pulling out the record symbolically - it was a culmination of enossification as applied to bowie, u2, his solo work and elsewhere that was on my mind when i was making the end section. but, it was equally a result of the keyboard patch, which has this kind of pitch-based echo that gets just a bit dissonant with polyphony. what i remember thinking was "this sounds like eno", rather than "i want this to sound like eno".
(relevant tracks: teenage jesus, book it!, missed connection, all symphonies, others)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5VIJor61uM
beneath the remains
don't bring up u2, even eno couldn't make u2 sound good, i doubt nigel goodrich could make u2 sound good
deathtokoalas
i'd argue that eno's best work was probably with u2, but it's secondary to the point - u2 was how i, personally, interacted with eno first and what generated interest in looking through his other work. i probably would have eventually found him through either bowie or fripp, but that isn't how it happened...
for example, i have very fond memories of sitting in a dark room very late at night around the age of 12 or 13 when i was supposed to be sleeping and just getting absolutely lost in the swirling synths of zooropa through a pair of sennheisers.
his (pop) work with bowie and talking heads and others tended to sound very clinical - like he was just pulling something out of his ass to cash a pay check. i'm not sure why he seemed to gel so well with u2, but it's the most organic and bluntly real pop work that he did outside of his own releases.
beneath the remains
he helped them a little bit with those synths but still just the name u2 is disgusting, he couldn't cover up bonos voice or those shitty guitars
you were only 12 but you should try to strike any and all u2 from your memory
deathtokoalas
again: the edge is a very interesting, underrated guitarist and bono did have quite a few interesting things to say before his record company sold him to apple.
"beneath the remains" is a name that suggests that you're currently probably not much older than 12, and don't really know what u2 was before the year 2000. i'd suggest you check out some of the records u2 released before pop. you probably want to avoid rattle and hum. otherwise, most of it is quite interesting political rock music, with thought-provoking themes and excellent production.
beneath the remains
i am 38, beneath the remains is a record from the 80s
this is a list of about 50 of the best 150 albums ever made https://rateyourmusic.com/list/okrainbows/my_list_of_albums/
u2 is horrible
deathtokoalas
never did like sepultra. "beneath the remains" sounds like the name of a current emo band.
if you take the thrash/metal out, i'd argue you mostly have a list of notable records, although it's in a rather contentious ordering.
it doesn't change the importance of relevance of u2's early work. i'm sorry you don't hear it, but i'll note that you don't have much of the other things that serious u2 fans would rank highly (joy division, rem) in there, either, so it's perhaps outside of your sphere of interest.
i will say that it's a little confusing that you can be a big radiohead fan and not get u2, though, considering that radiohead has essentially based their entire career on stealing ideas from u2.
beneath the remains
u2 looks up to radiohead just like paul mccartney does and elton john does and every other popular band and the thought that radiohead based their career on u2 is retarded, they haven't sounded anything like u2 since 1996
so funny, u2 would be scared to play a show with radiohead
deathtokoalas
hrmmn. so, you mean that it's just a coincidence that they followed their stadium rock breakthrough (bends/fire) with a sombre pop record dominated by synthesizers (joshua/okc) and a "groundbreaking" techno-rock record with mocking political themes (kid/achtung) connected to a side two of outtakes (amnesiac/zooropa)?
the major difference between u2 and radiohead is that u2 deserves the critical acclaim for being innovative and radiohead doesn't.
beneath the remains
that is funny, radiohead is 100 times more critically acclaimed yet it is not enough, they are the most remixed band ever, 1000s of musicians from every genre look at them as gods, fkn rappers sample them and they sample anything and everything yorke does on his own, they are the most studied band
paul mccartney has been trying to get yorke in teh studio for almost a decade, radiohead is god on earth
deathtokoalas
it is, indeed, rather unfortunate that music journalists of a certain age are so ignorant as to not realize that radiohead has largely operated on borrowed ideas throughout their career and assign them credit for innovation, rather than accuse them of plagiarism. even creep was plagiarized from an old hollies song...
history tends to right itself in these cases, but sometimes you have to give it a generation or two to get it right.
in the end, u2 will be remembered as some idealistic kids that put up a hell of a fight, but lost their way in the end - and released a string of paradigm-shifting albums in the process. as far as the rock era is concerned (and let's go ahead and say it - that is roughly 1963-1999), there are two bands of singular importance - the beatles and u2.
radiohead will be remembered as cynical ripoff artists that squeezed every dime out of the industry that they could in a consciously engineered path for world domination, and ultimately created little of any real lasting artistic value that hadn't already been done.
Matthew D
Beatles, yes. U2? Really?
deathtokoalas
i don't know your age. if you're under a certain cut-off point, you've never experienced a time when u2 were actually a really unique, forward thinking experimental rock act. and i get the backlash. but if you're over a certain cut-off point, you realize that the decline has actually been painful to watch, and really sort of depressing.
if john lennon had lived as long as bono, would he have gotten to the same point of self-parody and hypocrisy?
the music press often likes to pretend the influence is from joy division, and sometimes from the cure, but the reality is that the entire indie rock culture from about 1997 is absolutely reliant on u2. everybody sounds like u2. their influence and importance on the culture we live in is immeasurable.
the only band of almost comparable importance to u2 this side of punk rock is sonic youth.
put another way, think this through: if bono had died in the 90s, he'd most likely be remembered the way lennon is.
nadia mccall
When people say ripoff they really should give some examples since so much music is derivative often without the artists fully realizing this themselves. All art rips off to an extent. Also in what way was U2 "experimental?" I do love some U2 songs but not sure how they were, just curious. I remember hearing they started out as a religious band (reminds me of Creed, UGH) but went more mainstream for whatever reason. I actually do like some U2 stuff a lot and hadn't realized how great Eno was til recently. Finally, NO while good come on, Radiohead is not "godlike" and this is just insulting to the greatest artists ever, like Mozart, and really music is the god while then you have the truly great like Mozart. Radiohead? good but come on....I'm sure Yorke himself would find that annoying.
deathtokoalas
the string of records from unforgettable fire to pop utilized a number of unusual production approaches. it's not experimental in a music composition sense, but nothing really sounded like unforgettable fire before it and it dramatically changed the way that pop music is produced. every time you hear a rising synth part in a pop song, that's u2 - or eno via u2. the production remained cutting edge through this period.
i don't think u2 were ever a religious band, and i don't think bono is really a person of faith. his vocals are often about questioning faith, but they're never about accepting it. it's more in the tradition of somebody that has lost faith. it's more nine inch nails than creed.
what's happened is that bono said a few vague things and the christian community has jumped all over it, in order to co-opt it. they accidentally on purpose misinterpreted it, and they yelled loud enough that it stuck. christians like to claim everybody as their own. they see it as a convincing argument - "this icon is a christian, so you should be a christian, too".
but, bono's religious convictions are on the order of:
i would break bread and wine, if there was a church i could receive in
it's full of sarcasm, skepticism and doubt.
the actual dominant theme explored in the music is a criticism of hypercapitalism, and it's actually incredibly relevant when parked right at the end of history like it was.
Matthew D
I am old enough... Unfortunately!
