U2 is reaching Oprah levels...
posted on:
Mar '09
25
10:36pm
... of annoying me!
Last week I finally got around to picking up a copy of U2's new album, "No Line on the Horizon". To be fair, it normally takes me several listenings to get into an album but did this really deserve 5 stars from Rolling Stone?
Maybe my reaction to this album is based more on U2s overexposure in the media - covers of Rolling Stone and Spin recently, a performance on the Grammys (didn't see it but saw Thom and Johnny er.... Radiohead doing 15 Steps with the USC marching band on google video. That was pretty darn cool.), not being able to read the news without tripping over a story about Bono doing good...
When did music news become all U2 all the time? Honestly, I am more interested in the new Decemberists album that came out yesterday and can't wait to hear a new Arcade Fire album.
U2 is a good band, don't get me wrong. I saw them at Camp Randall in Madison, WI on the ZooTV Outside broadcast tour and was amazed. The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and All that You Can't Leave Behind are some excellent albums but... really, Bono just needs to go away.
I am so tired of "news" stories showing him meeting with heads of state or traveling in Africa. It's great that he's involved and promoting a message but his job, as a rock n roll star, is to not be boring and, well, he's really beginning to bore me.
Has the U2 phenomenon gotten to such a point where critical reviews can't be made of their new album? "Get Your Boots On" as a single? Really? I just don't get the appeal... yet. Maybe it will come in time. All That You Can't Leave Behind took a long time to get into but, then again, The Crane Wife by the Decemberists was one listen and I was hooked. (How can you not like an album named for, but not entirely based on, a Japanese folk tale about a bird taking on human form and marrying a poor man who then works her to death?)
I'm sort of all over the place on this one but please Edge, Larry, Adam, please lock Bono up somewhere and let us not have to deal with him for a few years. Or at least a year. Exile him to Elba, put him underground, do something because, if you don't, he's in danger of turning into Oprah.
And that's not a good thing. Maybe Bono is already there.
I'm willing to bet people would love for him to have his own eponymous talk show and a magazine called B. He could grow ZooTv into his own cable channel - less man-hating, more fashion with sunglasses on everyone. He could produce his own devil spawn too. Oprah has Dr. Phil, Bono could promote Jeff Sachs (as if Professor Sachs isn't doing that enough already).
So my overall review of the album without writing anything about it? Pi octagons out of infinity. Don't know what that means but I haven't figured out what I like and don't like out of it.
Better yet, remember that infinite monkey theorem - a million monkeys hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare? Ok, to review U2's album with that in mind I'll say 15 monkeys, 3 hours. Don't know if that is good or not either but it has monkeys. Maybe the monkeys are all smoking cigars too. (Britney Spears latest album would be 3 monkeys 5 minutes).
Last week I finally got around to picking up a copy of U2's new album, "No Line on the Horizon". To be fair, it normally takes me several listenings to get into an album but did this really deserve 5 stars from Rolling Stone?
Maybe my reaction to this album is based more on U2s overexposure in the media - covers of Rolling Stone and Spin recently, a performance on the Grammys (didn't see it but saw Thom and Johnny er.... Radiohead doing 15 Steps with the USC marching band on google video. That was pretty darn cool.), not being able to read the news without tripping over a story about Bono doing good...
When did music news become all U2 all the time? Honestly, I am more interested in the new Decemberists album that came out yesterday and can't wait to hear a new Arcade Fire album.
U2 is a good band, don't get me wrong. I saw them at Camp Randall in Madison, WI on the ZooTV Outside broadcast tour and was amazed. The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and All that You Can't Leave Behind are some excellent albums but... really, Bono just needs to go away.
I am so tired of "news" stories showing him meeting with heads of state or traveling in Africa. It's great that he's involved and promoting a message but his job, as a rock n roll star, is to not be boring and, well, he's really beginning to bore me.
Has the U2 phenomenon gotten to such a point where critical reviews can't be made of their new album? "Get Your Boots On" as a single? Really? I just don't get the appeal... yet. Maybe it will come in time. All That You Can't Leave Behind took a long time to get into but, then again, The Crane Wife by the Decemberists was one listen and I was hooked. (How can you not like an album named for, but not entirely based on, a Japanese folk tale about a bird taking on human form and marrying a poor man who then works her to death?)
I'm sort of all over the place on this one but please Edge, Larry, Adam, please lock Bono up somewhere and let us not have to deal with him for a few years. Or at least a year. Exile him to Elba, put him underground, do something because, if you don't, he's in danger of turning into Oprah.
And that's not a good thing. Maybe Bono is already there.
I'm willing to bet people would love for him to have his own eponymous talk show and a magazine called B. He could grow ZooTv into his own cable channel - less man-hating, more fashion with sunglasses on everyone. He could produce his own devil spawn too. Oprah has Dr. Phil, Bono could promote Jeff Sachs (as if Professor Sachs isn't doing that enough already).
So my overall review of the album without writing anything about it? Pi octagons out of infinity. Don't know what that means but I haven't figured out what I like and don't like out of it.
Better yet, remember that infinite monkey theorem - a million monkeys hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare? Ok, to review U2's album with that in mind I'll say 15 monkeys, 3 hours. Don't know if that is good or not either but it has monkeys. Maybe the monkeys are all smoking cigars too. (Britney Spears latest album would be 3 monkeys 5 minutes).
7 months ago
Right now I am very focused on a jazz artist by the name of Jeff Golub. I love his guitar licks. He started about with Avenue Blue but is now a solo artist who does a tour with some outstanding sax artists. He calls the tour Saxes and Axes.