U2: Overrated?

At least DD was close.

 

Ignored.

 

Being a sophomore in high school when AJFA came out, I've listened to it more than any Metallica album. But if I had to pick just three, I'd replace it with Kill 'Em All.

 

Double ignored.

 

I like Rush.

I was into metal AND psychedelia in high school. At least what I remember of it.

 

I'd have listened to Lawrence Welk on a loop if it got me laid in high school.

There was a short period after I read "No One Here Gets Out Alive" that I was determined to become a drunken poet. But I didn't have the proper focus at that age.

 

Was wondering whether I could sneak Oasis on there—first two albums are classics—but thought Be Here Now might be a bridge too far. Love Klosterman’s review of it, though.

Chuck Klosterman's Review of Be Here Now | Live4ever Forum

 

Fuck that ginger boy lol. Be Here Now isn't a smash start to finish but it's strong.

And the 3-song run of Don't Go Away, Be Here Now, and All Around the World is fantastic.

 

Plus I imagine you needed to eat.

 

Even Noel Gallagher thinks "Be Here Now" kind of sucks.

“People are prepared to have stand-up rows with me in the street: ‘I fucking love that album!’ And I’m like, ‘Mate, look, I wrote the fucking thing. I know how much effort I put into it. It wasn’t that much.”

 

To me, the contention isn't that U2 hasn't made good music, it's that they're in no way deserving of the quasi-religious devotion they seem to inspire. I know people who talk about that Super Bowl performance after 9/11 like they jerk off to it every Sunday. I admire bands that try to speak to something bigger than themselves, that are bold enough to tackle big themes. But to me, U2 has always seemed like they ought to have start out with Bono saying at the beginning of every album: OK BLOKES, HERE IS OUR NEW ALBUM THAT TACKLES BIG THEMES! There isn't a lot of subtlety in any of their music, and yet it's also incredibly vague!

THIS IS A SONG ABOUT NUCLEAR WAR!
This is also a song about nuclear war!
This is a song about The Troubles.
This is a song about MLK.
This is a song about colonialism and America's disastrous intervention in Central America!

Skies. Bullets. Blood Red Canyons. Clouds. Rockets. Etc.

Someone wrote something once I thought perfectly captured why their songwriting is purposefully vague bullshit: Has there ever been a single character in a u2 song? It's always just "you" and "us." Now compare that to Springsteen or Dylan (or The Stones or Beatles).

I actually admire earnestness (since I think cynicism is generally a safer emotion) so I should be right in U2 demographic, but there is something that just rings false about their whole deal.

 

I would, too, if they had kept Kill 'Em All's original title, "Metal Up Your Ass."