Will the New U2 Be a “Lemon”?
According to Friday’s on-line edition of Rolling Stone, U2 will have a new album out in the next six months or so:
U2 are recording a new album with Danger Mouse, and they plan on releasing early next year. “We have about 12 songs with him,” Bono told The Age . “At the moment that looks like the album we will put out next because it’s just happening so easily.” Also in the works is a “club” album that will feature Will.i.am, RedOne and David Guetta. “U2’s remixes in the 1990s were a real treasure,” Bono said. “So we wanted to make a club-sounding record. We have a pile of songs.” If that wasn’t enough, the band is also contemplating recording the songs Bono and The Edge wrote the Spiderman Broadway musical. “We haven’t convinced the rest of the band to do that yet,” Bono said. “Larry definitely has a raised eyebrow.” (Andy Greene)
A couple of lazy Friday-night observations from a long-time “frenemy” of the band:
• Danger Mouse’s only fully satisfactory collaboration to date has been Gnarles Barkley’s 2006’s St. Elsewhere; its sequel, The Odd Couple (2008), didn’t feel quite right to anybody. And given Cee-Lo’s breakout this year with “Fuck You,” one begins to suspect that we may initially have overestimated Danger Mouse’s contributions to Gnarles Barkley. This year’s Broken Bells album, with James Mercer of The Shins: Meh. Meanwhile his important first disc, 2004’s The Grey Album—as important as it was when it was released—sounds less interesting with each passing month; my students now will hardly sit still for it.
• A “club” album: oh, dear. Bono’s right: the club remixes of some of those Achtung Baby and Zooropa albums were real gems; the “Lemon” remixes alone were a revelation. Significantly, though, they’re a revelation made without the band’s input, oversight, or meddling: other artists, producers, DJs got their hands on the basic track and screwed with it brilliantly. When U2 tried to remix themselves, we ended up with the real lemon, the third of the early 1990s trilogy, Pop. People of goodwill across the globe are praying there won’t be another Pop.
• Whereas I’m all for a more accessible version of Bono & Edge’s music for the Broadway Spiderman; the touring production hasn’t yet made it to L.A. Hell, Limp Bizkit’s theme song for Mission Impossible II is the only decent track they ever cut: I’m willing to believe that action & adventure can call forth the best from our pop stars. Just in case you haven’t heard it in awhile, or want to be thrown violently back ten years—just for fun!—here’s the LB video:
Amazing how much credit a solid rhythm section will get you (though that ringing, descending line on the guitar, nicked from the original TV theme, is pretty great, too).
• I wasn’t familiar with Austrialian newspaper The Age until I followed the link in the Rolling Stone story; presumably fcrp reader Third Coast Steve knows this rag? But one can’t help but wonder: is The Age what we’ll be calling U2’s guitarist in another ten years? (And yes, I’m stunned if no one’s made that joke already….)
And yet, like the new Brian Eno album—about which, as I wrote yesterday, early press and an early released track give me some pause—I’ll buy it on the day of release. For the most part, when it comes to the couple-dozen musicians and bands in my personal pantheon, who’ve made me love them, I’m like the red-tailed hawk (or, in the less flattering analogy, the bald eagle, or perhaps the prairie vole)—I mate for life.
I’d be interested to see your list of buy-on-release artists. I was just thinking yesterday how I may have finally reached the point where I am not constantly or primarily in search of new artists. I can probably satisfy myself mostly with back-filling my collection and keeping up with my “pantheon.”