U2 SONGS OF INNOCENCE HOW TO

I also could live without the frankly weird sleeve photo on the CD release, which looks like a high-class DVD cover to a gay-porn film. The song is a bit too obviously targeting a hit single (it failed). There are a few problems, like invoking 'Joey Ramone' by name on the opening track, which was a bit desperate, along with the 'Oh-oh-oh's' draped all over the track (the one bit of over-singing on this album, but at least it's not Bono's lead). 'Every Breaking Wave' (in this studio form, only) is one of U2's very greatest tracks, ever. 'Cedarwood Road' isn't my favorite tune, but each of the other 10 tracks is quite strong. I started to think I would never hear Bono sounding good and not over-singing on every track again, but I slept easier after Songs of Innocence, which in fact has very strong and well-recorded vocals, very little over-singing, and clean & sharp production.

The only U2 album I truly dislike is 2009's abysmal No Line On The Horizon, which features so-so Eno/Lanois production, but horrible mixing, horribly recorded vocals, and terrible songs. I'd been listening to U2 since 1987 (I was 11 then), as the first thing that struck me about Songs of Innocence was that the production & mixing was finally good again. I do find that the U2 maniacal fans (usually that became fans in the internet era) hate this album with a passion, for reasons I can't fathom. Like the OP, I also revisited it recently and found it was a really strong record. I did listen to Songs of Innocence a few weeks after it came out, and I thought it was pretty good. I have far more fondness for it than I used to have, but I feel like it has a bit of weakness that most of their output didn’t.Īs I've never owned an Apple product in my life, U2's album showing up on i-Phones didn't affect me one way or the other (I also live in Japan, where people don't overreact to such things). This album was the first time I didn’t feel I could say it anymore. I tested the waters of U2 in the Atomic Bomb era and didn’t really go all-out on them until just a couple of years ago, but despite the many different styles of their various albums and eras, I felt like they were always themselves, if that makes any sense, up to and including No Line. Songs of Innocence came off, to me, at least, as an act of desperation for relevance in an industry where the major rock bands were those with established legacies, and the big-name modern bands who even had a hint of rock in them were those who were teetering on the edge of pop vs.

U2 SONGS OF INNOCENCE HOW TO

I feel like it's an album that did a couple of things: it came off as yet another attempt to make a more commercial album to redeem some sort of greater public standing on the heels of an album (No Line on the Horizon) that really didn't get as much love as they were used to getting, much as All That You Can't Leave Behind did on the heels of Pop, and also as a second attempt to be the face of the digital age of music, much as they did with How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

Many songs, as well as the album itself, have grown on me, but it's still near or at the bottom of my U2 album rankins.

U2 songs of innocence