Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic | John Barleycorn Must Die | <p>At only 22 years old, Steve Winwood sat down in early 1970 to fulfill a contractual commitment by making his first solo album, on which he intended to play all the instruments himself. The record got as far as one backing track produced by Guy Stevens, "Stranger to Himself," before Winwood called his erstwhile partner from Traffic, Jim Capaldi, in to help out. The two completed a second track, "Every Mother's Son," then, with Winwood and Island Records chief Chris Blackwell moving to the production chores, brought in a third Traffic member, Chris Wood, to work on the sessions. Thus, Traffic, dead and buried for more than a year, was reborn. The band's new approach was closer to what it perhaps should have been back in 1967, basically a showcase for Winwood's voice and instrumental work, with Wood adding reed parts and Capaldi drumming and occasionally singing harmony vocals. If the original Traffic bowed to the perceived commercial necessity of crafting hit singles, the new Traffic was more interested in stretching out. Heretofore, no studio recording had run longer than the five-and-a-half minutes of "Dear Mr. Fantasy," but four of the six selections on John Barleycorn Must Die exceeded six minutes. Winwood and company used the time to play extended instrumental variations on compelling folk- and jazz-derived riffs. Five of the six songs had lyrics, and their tone of disaffection was typical of earlier Capaldi sentiments. But the vocal sections of the songs merely served as excuses for Winwood to exercise his expressive voice as punctuation to the extended instrumental sections. As such, John Barleycorn Must Die moved beyond the jamming that had characterized some of Traffic's 1968 work to approach the emerging field of jazz-rock. And that helped the band to achieve its commercial potential; this became Traffic's first gold album.</p><p>— <strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| Traffic | Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys | <p>The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys marked the commercial and artistic apex of the second coming of Traffic, which had commenced in 1970 with John Barleycorn Must Die. The trio that made that album had been augmented by three others (Ric Grech, Jim Gordon, and "Reebop" Kwaku Baah) in the interim, though apparently the Low Spark sessions featured varying combinations of these musicians, plus some guests. But where their previous album had grown out of sessions for a Steve Winwood solo album and retained that focus, Low Spark pointedly contained changes of pace from his usual contributions of midtempo, introspective jam tunes. "Rock & Roll Stew" was an uptempo treatise on life on the road, while Jim Capaldi's "Light up or Leave Me Alone" was another more aggressive number with an unusually emphatic Capaldi vocal that perked things up on side two. The other four tracks were Winwood/Capaldi compositions more in the band's familiar style. "Hidden Treasure" and "Rainmaker" bookended the disc with acoustic treatments of nature themes that were particularly concerned with water, and "Many a Mile to Freedom" also employed water imagery. But the standout was the 12-minute title track, with its distinctive piano riff and its lyrics of weary disillusionment with the music business. The band had only just fulfilled a contractual commitment by releasing the live album <i>Welcome to the Canteen</i>, and they had in their past the embarrassing <i>Last Exit album</i> thrown together as a commercial stopgap during a temporary breakup in 1969. But that anger had proven inspirational, and "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" was one of Traffic's greatest songs as well as its longest so far. The result was an album that quickly went gold (and eventually platinum) in the U.S., where the group toured frequently.</p>— <b>William Ruhlmann</b> |
| Traffic | The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys | <p>The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys marked the commercial and artistic apex of the second coming of Traffic, which had commenced in 1970 with John Barleycorn Must Die. The trio that made that album had been augmented by three others (Ric Grech, Jim Gordon, and "Reebop" Kwaku Baah) in the interim, though apparently the Low Spark sessions featured varying combinations of these musicians, plus some guests. But where their previous album had grown out of sessions for a Steve Winwood solo album and retained that focus, Low Spark pointedly contained changes of pace from his usual contributions of midtempo, introspective jam tunes. "Rock & Roll Stew" was an uptempo treatise on life on the road, while Jim Capaldi's "Light up or Leave Me Alone" was another more aggressive number with an unusually emphatic Capaldi vocal that perked things up on side two. The other four tracks were Winwood/Capaldi compositions more in the band's familiar style. "Hidden Treasure" and "Rainmaker" bookended the disc with acoustic treatments of nature themes that were particularly concerned with water, and "Many a Mile to Freedom" also employed water imagery. But the standout was the 12-minute title track, with its distinctive piano riff and its lyrics of weary disillusionment with the music business. The band had only just fulfilled a contractual commitment by releasing the live album <i>Welcome to the Canteen</i>, and they had in their past the embarrassing <i>Last Exit album</i> thrown together as a commercial stopgap during a temporary breakup in 1969. But that anger had proven inspirational, and "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" was one of Traffic's greatest songs as well as its longest so far. The result was an album that quickly went gold (and eventually platinum) in the U.S., where the group toured frequently.</p>— <b>William Ruhlmann</b> |
| Traffic | On The Road | <p>Reportedly released as an effort to undercut bootleggers following a world tour, Traffic: On the Road was the band's second live album in three years. The album chronicled a late edition of the band in which original members Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood were augmented not only by percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah, but also by a trio of session musicians from the famed Muscle Shoals studio, Roger Hawkins, David Hood, and Barry Beckett. The studio pros lent a tightness and proficiency to their characteristic free-form jams, and though they sometimes sounded like they couldn't wait to get the songs over with, the tunes went on and on, four clocking in at over ten minutes. That might have been okay if the choice of material had been more balanced across the band's career, but 1971's Welcome To the Canteen had treated earlier efforts, and the 1973 tour was promoting Shoot Out At the Fantasy Factory, from which three of the six selections were drawn. Unfortunately, that album was not one of Traffic's best, and the live versions of its songs were no more impressive than the studio ones had been. Traffic: On the Road featured plenty of room for soloing by some good musicians, but it was the logical extreme of the band's forays into extended performance, with single tunes taking up entire sides on the original LPs. It's not surprising that, after this, Traffic shrunk in size and returned to shorter songs. [Though best known in its two-LP version, Traffic: On the Road was initially released in the U.S. as a single LP containing only four tracks.]</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| Traffic | When The Eagle Flies | <p>In its second manifestation, Traffic displayed an affection for jazz-like improvisation over shuffling rhythms, and that tendency was never more indulged than on When the Eagle Flies. Having dispensed with the trio of session musicians who had accompanied them on tour, the remaining band members, led by Steve Winwood, jammed over long-lined musical structures. Still, this was nominally a rock album, with lyrics and vocals, and Winwood often seemed to be improvising his melodies over the music, paying little heed to the meaning of the words, especially on the title track. Jim Capaldi's lyrics touched on the ups and downs of romance and the vicissitudes of capitalism and politics, and warning of apocalypse. But he sounded most assured reflecting on his past and future in "Memories of a Rock 'n Rolla." The most intriguing lyric was a blank-verse effort from the Bonzo Dog Band's Vivian Stanshall, "Dream Gerrard," which took off from 19th-century French poet Gérard de Nerval's speculations about the relationship between dreams and reality. But Winwood treated the words and his singing as another musical element rather than fashioning the songs to emphasize them, so that When the Eagle Flies, not unlike previous Traffic albums, was really a mostly instrumental collection that happened to have vocals. That wouldn't have mattered if the music had been more compelling and effectively played, but rather than seeming like a fresh start for the band, the album was listless and remote. Although it became Traffic's fourth consecutive studio album to reach the Top Ten and go gold in the U.S., the group broke up following the American promotional tour in the fall of 1974.</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| Traffic | When The Eagle Flies | <p>In its second manifestation, Traffic displayed an affection for jazz-like improvisation over shuffling rhythms, and that tendency was never more indulged than on When the Eagle Flies. Having dispensed with the trio of session musicians who had accompanied them on tour, the remaining band members, led by Steve Winwood, jammed over long-lined musical structures. Still, this was nominally a rock album, with lyrics and vocals, and Winwood often seemed to be improvising his melodies over the music, paying little heed to the meaning of the words, especially on the title track. Jim Capaldi's lyrics touched on the ups and downs of romance and the vicissitudes of capitalism and politics, and warning of apocalypse. But he sounded most assured reflecting on his past and future in "Memories of a Rock 'n Rolla." The most intriguing lyric was a blank-verse effort from the Bonzo Dog Band's Vivian Stanshall, "Dream Gerrard," which took off from 19th-century French poet Gérard de Nerval's speculations about the relationship between dreams and reality. But Winwood treated the words and his singing as another musical element rather than fashioning the songs to emphasize them, so that When the Eagle Flies, not unlike previous Traffic albums, was really a mostly instrumental collection that happened to have vocals. That wouldn't have mattered if the music had been more compelling and effectively played, but rather than seeming like a fresh start for the band, the album was listless and remote. Although it became Traffic's fourth consecutive studio album to reach the Top Ten and go gold in the U.S., the group broke up following the American promotional tour in the fall of 1974.</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| Traffic | Far From Home | <p>It could be argued that, in its most basic form, Traffic was a vehicle for the songs of Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, who wrote most of the material and on some tracks were the only musicians performing. But the question of whether Winwood and Capaldi could validly constitute Traffic by themselves was not addressed until 1994, 20 years after the group disbanded, when the two surprisingly announced they would be recording and touring under their old band name. The album they made together sounded for the most part like a Winwood solo album. He played most of the instruments and sang (Capaldi drummed and sang occasional backup vocals), and he didn't show much interest in the lengthy instrumental passages that characterized Traffic in its heyday. Winwood, the composer, had simply moved on from that old style, and since the new Traffic wasn't a band in any real sense, its sound reflected his contemporary concerns. But if you listened to the lyrics, written by Capaldi, you did hear traces of the old Traffic. Granted, lyrics were not among Traffic's strong suits, but Capaldi, in his sometimes roundabout way, did have certain continuing concerns -- a generalized sense of spirituality, a tendency to give advice, and a rejection of the negative aspects of modern society. Winwood may have wished to return to music of greater substance, and if so, he got what he wanted; Far from Home certainly explored weightier topics than a Steve Winwood album. But Capaldi hadn't really improved as a writer over the years, and the final product still worked better musically than lyrically, and, to most ears, didn't really sound like a Traffic album. The resulting confusion kept the album from having much commercial impact.</p><p>—<strong>William Ruhlmann</strong></p> |
| Happy & Artie Traum | Doubleback | |
| Merle Travis | Guitar | |
| Tuck & Patti | Tears Of Joy | |
| Jethro Tull | This Was [Remastered] | <p>Jethro Tull was very much a blues band on their debut album, vaguely reminiscent of the Graham Bond Organization, only more cohesive and with greater commercial sense. The revelations about the group's roots on This Was -- which was recorded during the summer of 1968 -- can be astonishing, even years after the fact. Original lead guitarist Mick Abrahams contributed to the songwriting and the singing, and his presence as a serious bluesman is felt throughout, often for the better: "Some Day the Sun Won't Shine for You," an Ian Anderson original that could just as easily be credited to Big Bill Broonzy or Robert Johnson; "Cat's Squirrel," Abrahams' big showcase, where he ventures into Eric Clapton territory; and "It's Breaking Me Up," which also features some pretty hot guitar from Abrahams. Roland Kirk's "Serenade to a Cuckoo" (the first song Anderson learned to play on flute), their jazziest track ever, is one of the best parts of the album. The drum solo on "Dharma for One" seems like a mistake, but is understandable in the context of the time in which it was done. The one number here that everybody knows, "A Song for Jeffrey," almost pales amid these surroundings, but at the time it was a superb example of commercial psychedelic blues. This would be the last album of its kind by the group, as Abrahams' departure and the lure of more fertile inspiration tugged them toward English folk music. Curiously, the audio mix here is better than that on their second album, with a much stronger, harder group sound overall. In late 2001, This Was was reissued in a remastered edition with much crisper sound and three bonus tracks. The jazzy improvisation "One for John Gee" (a reference to the manager of the Marquee Club), the folky "Love Story" (which marked the end of Mick Abrahams' tenure with the group), and the novelty piece "Christmas Song" have all been heard before but, more to the point, they're worth hearing again, especially in the fidelity they have here.</p>— <b>Bruce Eder</b> |
| Jethro Tull | This Was | <p>Jethro Tull was very much a blues band on their debut album, vaguely reminiscent of the Graham Bond Organization only more cohesive, and with greater commercial sense. The revelations about the group's roots on This Was -- which was recorded during the summer of 1968 -- can be astonishing, even 30 years after the fact. Original lead guitarist Mick Abrahams contributed to the songwriting and the singing, and his presence as a serious bluesman is felt throughout, often for the better: "Some Day the Sun Won't Shine for You," an Ian Anderson original that could just as easily be credited to Big Bill Broonzy or Robert Johnson; "Cat's Squirrel," Abrahams' big showcase, where he ventures into Eric Clapton territory; and "It's Breaking Me Up," which also features some pretty hot guitar from Abrahams. Roland Kirk's "Serenade to a Cuckoo" (the first song Anderson learned to play on flute), their jazziest track ever, is one of the best parts of the album. The drum solo on "Dharma for One" now seems like a mistake, but is understandable in the context of the time in which it was done. The one number here that everybody knows, "A Song for Jeffrey," almost pales amid these surroundings, but at the time it was a superb example of commercial psychedelic blues. This would be the last album of its kind by the group, as Abrahams' departure and the lure of more fertile inspiration tugged them toward English folk music. Curiously, the audio mix here is better than that on their second album, with a much stronger, harder group sound overall. In late 2001, This Was was reissued in a remastered edition with much crisper sound and three bonus tracks. The jazzy improvisation "One for John Gee" (a reference to the manager of the Marquee Club), the folky "Love Story" (which marked the end of Mick Abrahams' tenure with the group), and the novelty piece "Christmas Song" have all been heard before but, more to the point, they're worth hearing again, especially in the fidelity they have here.</p><p>—<strong>Bruce Eder</strong></p> |
| Jethro Tull | Aqualung | <p>The lyrical concept -- the hypocrisy of Christianity in England -- is stronger than on most other '70s conceptual efforts, but it's ultimately the music that makes it worthy of praise. Tull's winning way with a riff was never so arresting as on the chugging "Locomotive Breath," or on the character studies "Cross Eyed Mary" and "Aqualung," which portray believably seedy participants in Ian Anderson's story. The fable imagery of "Mother Goose" and the vitriolic anti-authoritarian sentiments of "Wind Up" both serve notice of Anderson's willful iconoclasm and his disillusionment with the spiritual traditions to which he was born. Varied but cohesive, Aqualung is widely regarded as Tull's finest hour.</p><p>—<strong>Rovi Staff</strong></p> |
| McCoy Tyner | Infinity | <p>It seems only fitting that the initial new release on the latest revival of the Impulse label features McCoy Tyner and Michael Brecker. When Impulse started out in 1960, John Coltrane and Tyner were the first artists to be signed, and when Impulse was briefly brought back by MCA in the 1980s, two of its most important albums were recordings by Brecker. There are not a lot of surprises on this quartet matchup (with bassist Avery Sharpe and drummer Aaron Scott) except perhaps for how well Tyner and Brecker mesh together. The music is somewhat similar to a set by the pianist's regular trio with a solo piece ("Blues Stride"), a generous amount of Tyner originals and colorful versions of Thelonious Monk's "I Mean You" and "Good Morning Heartache," but Brecker's presence and consistently powerful playing does inspire Tyner and his sidemen. For a strong example as to why today's saxophonists have such a high opinion of Michael Brecker, his roaring statement on the extended "Impressions" will suffice. Highly recommended.</p><p>— <b>Scott Yanow</b></p> |
| U2 | Under A Blood Red Sky | <p>War turned U2 into arena rock stars, and the EP Under a Blood Red Sky captures the band on its supporting tour as the band members adjusted to their larger audiences. Unsurprisingly for a band that always favored the grand statement, the group flourished in such a setting, as this mini-EP attests. Comprised of material recorded in America and Germany, Under a Blood Red Sky draws equally from the band's first three albums, and these live versions, while less textured, are considerably tougher than their studio counterparts and illustrate quite effectively why U2 were considered one of the best, most exhilarating live bands of the '80's.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><hr/><p>In the early 1980's, U2 had earned critical respect and a swelling fanbase but, despite a UK #1 album, were far from superstardom. After debuting with Boy (1980), an album of strident post-punk, then following with a brief yet still promising hiccup (1981's October), in 1983 they released the more direct and overtly political War. Now tackling big themes and universal concerns with dramatic gestures and chest-beating choruses, U2 weren't yet an arena band but they carried themselves like one. What's more, they actually sounded better the bigger and brasher and bolder their music got. It's no surprise then that, in the U.S., this would-be Important Rock Group's profile and reputation became, like many other important rock groups, amplified via live performances-- the group's eye-opening 1985 Live Aid set, and the earlier mini concert album, Under a Blood Red Sky.</p><p>One of the younger bands on Live Aid's Boomer-heavy bill, U2 spent more than half of their alloted time performing "Bad", the standout track from their then-recent The Unforgettable Fire. While most of the bands onstage in London and Philly that weekend remained aloof and distant from the enormous crowds, Bono waded into the photo pit to embrace and slow dance with a member of the audience-- a rare moment of real human connection at what was meant to be a showcase of global unity. Only Queen and their monumental performance of "We Are the Champions" came off better that weekend.Under a Blood Red Sky, released at the tail end of 1983, was a little less spontaneous and truthful. With its striking, scarlet-drenched cover, a shoutout to Colorado's Red Rocks on opener "Gloria", and the concurrent VHS release Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky (now bundled nicely as a DVD with some versions of this release), the LP was packaged to emphasize the natural beauty of the amphitheater's mountain setting.</p><p>In truth, however, only two songs from Under were recorded at Red Rocks ("Gloria" and "Party Girl")-- most were taken from a show in Germany, while one performance was recorded in Boston.Yet when the group performed at Red Rocks on a rainy June night, with lit torches above a panoramic skyline, the venue provided an ideal backdrop for U2's literally flag-waving music, with everything-- earth, wind, fire-- in place to maximize and heighten the drama of the moment and the songs. Red Rocks, too, began a love affair with America that carried through the rest of the decade, as the group's music began to match the spacious, seemingly limitless scope of the American countryside and they effectively explored American myths and touchstones on The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree before carrying the approach a step too far on the bloated, pastiche-y Rattle and Hum.And, hell, it worked.</p><p>MTV played the hell out of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and other videos from the performance, and the audio and video documents cemented U2's reputation as a commanding live band. Rather than release a full concert-- which could have resulted in a cumbersome and unnecessary record, particularly for a group with only three albums to date-- U2 wisely cherrypicked their best songs, created an out-of-order tracklisting built to maximize the LP's impact rather than accurately present a their live experience, added a solid B-side ("Party Girl") to enhance the worth of the release to longtime fans, and let the package take on its own myth.The record itself opens with crowd noise, highlighting the bond between U2 and their fans and emphasizing the role of the audience in the group's ascendency. They were a true populist band, unafraid to make strong, direct connections with listeners at a time when many of their post-punk peers shied from such gestures.</p><p>The band's strident performances here are all interspersed with recognition of the crowd, the act of performance, and the value of entertainment, and most-- from "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and its "this is not a rebel song" intro to "I Will Follow" to rugged, lesser-known tracks "Gloria" and "The Electric Co."-- became arguably the definitive reads of these songs. (This reissue, like the original U.S. release of the LP, features the truncated version of "The Electric Co.", without the snippet of "Send in the Clowns" that appeared on some international editions.) The closing sing-along of War's "40" ends the record where it begins-- in the voices and cheers of the audience, a converted mass that, over the rest of the decade, carried the sound of the group back to their homes, places of work, schools.Eventually, the drive and work to be the biggest band in the world became a seriously uncool pursuit in many circles-- one could argue Nirvana punctured this sort of excess and spotlight-craving as surely as they did hair metal or indie dance. </p><p>These days, many distrust guitar bands who don't reflect their own personal values, who they don't believe merely walk, talk, think, and act like them. Somehow, a group is more genuine if they're more, well, regular, or plain, even less accomplished or incurious about a wider world-- groups are often unwilling to show flashes of ability, or they'd rather preach to a choir than attempt to unify the masses, or they're happy being a big fish in a small pond. It's a weird attitude. (Good thing Americans don't ask for the same from their national politicians-- oh, wait...) But anyone interested in retracing U2's meteoric rise-- in relocating what made them an 80's touchstone at a time when their flirtations with earnestness came across more as combativeness rather than self-righteousness-- would do well to start here.</p><p>— <strong>Scott Plagenhoef, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| U2 | The Joshua Tree | <p>Using the textured sonics of <i>The Unforgettable Fire</i> as a basis, U2 expanded those innovations by scaling back the songs to a personal setting and adding a grittier attack for its follow-up, <i>The Joshua Tree</i>. It's a move that returns them to the sweeping, anthemic rock of <i>War</i>, but if War was an exploding political bomb, The <i>Joshua Tree</i> is a journey through its aftermath, trying to find sense and hope in the desperation. That means that even the anthems — the epic opener "Where the Streets Have No Name," the yearning "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" — have seeds of doubt within their soaring choruses, and those fears take root throughout the album, whether it's in the mournful sliding acoustic guitars of "Running to Stand Still," the surging "One Tree Hill" or the hypnotic elegy "Mothers of the Disappeared."</p><p>So it might seem a little ironic that U2 became superstars on the back of such a dark record, but their focus has never been clearer, nor has their music been catchier, than on The <i>Joshua Tree</i>. Unexpectedly, U2 have also tempered their textural post-punk with American influences. Not only are Bono's lyrics obsessed with America, but country and blues influences are heard throughout the record, and instead of using these as roots, they're used as ways to add texture to the music. With the uniformly excellent songs — only the clumsy, heavy rock and portentous lyrics of "Bullet the Blue Sky" fall flat — the result is a powerful, uncompromising record that became a hit due to its vision and its melody. Never before have their big messages sounded so direct and personal.</p><p>— <strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><hr/><p>U2 started out as a scrappy band riding the punk wave out of Ireland, but from the beginning they clearly had their sights on America. And indeed, the States ate up U2's bombast, landing both War (1983) and The Unforgettable Fire (1984) in the U.S. top 20. The group fed off that enthusiasm, criss-crossing the country as much as its schedule allowed. The more the band's fan base grew, the harder U2 worked to get even bigger, and in 1987 they enjoyed their breakthrough into superstadom thanks to The Joshua Tree, which went on to sell 10 million copies in the U.S. alone.</p><p>Funnily enough, while The Joshua Tree once and for all catapulted U2 to permanent superstardom, the album marks something of a conscious refinement of the group's sound. The album was nowhere near as strident as War or as radically overwrought as The Unforgettable Fire (which was, lest one forget, recorded in a frickin' castle). Reunited with producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, it's as if the band finally took a moment to ponder the wide-open American spaces it had been traveling through for years and applied those musical and cultural observations to its songs. It's an album made for dusty, empty flyover country.</p><p>U2 have always flirted with charismatic Christianity, and the Joshua Tree songwriting process finds the band in a particularly reflective mood; "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and" "With or Without You" are steeped in religious imagery, but even their constant radio rotation hasn't robbed these introspective songs of their potency or effectiveness. Smartly, U2 balanced those personal songs with more universal tracks, often with an emphasis on forgotten people and forgotten places around the globe: "Red Hill Mining Town" (about the mid-80s UK miners strike), "Exit" (inspired by Norman Mailer's Gary Gilmore tome The Executioner's Song), "Mothers of the Disappeared" (about Argentina's murdered political dissidents), and "Bullet the Blue Sky" (about U.S. meddling in Central America).</p><p>"Bullet" is one of the few Joshua Tree non-singles to remain a live U2 staple—its bluster hints at the band's current broad aesthetic—but it's slightly out of place among a record mostly characterized by its grace, subtlety, introspection, and beauty. That holds especially true for its more mysterious (or at least less overplayed) second half, which roughly begins and ends perfectly with the ballad "Running to Stand Still" (about heroin addiction) and gentle outro "Mothers of the Disappeared". In between, "Trip Through Your Wires" is the rare blues track to prominently feature co-producer Eno's favored novelty, the Omnichord, while "One Tree Hill" and the apocalyptic "Exit" showcase wickedly screwed up and uncharacteristic guitar solos from the Edge.</p><p>No question, the disc deserves this anniversary treatment, but other U2 albums need the remastering more. As for the 14-tracks disc of B-sides and extras, it's best to keep expectations firmly in check. U2 aren't known for hiding away gems, or for that matter, sharing their studio experiments—not even the reggae-tinged version of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" shows up here. What we get instead is mostly the usual array of previously released tracks and familiar rarities—best among them are "Spanish Eyes", "Silver and Gold", the original version of "The Sweetest Thing", and "Deep in the Heart"—plus a handful of tracks new even to hardcore fans. Of those, "Beautiful Ghost/Introduction to Songs of Experience" and "Drunk Chicken/America" are moody spoken word pieces. The Patti Smith-styled "Wave of Sorrow (Birdland)" is similarly a bit out of character for the band, which explains what it's doing here.</p><p>While the haters were already on board, it was with its next album, Rattle and Hum, that the group's egos finally overtook their ambitions, and it took a near fatal break and the resounding triumph Achtung Baby to set the band back on track. But to this day U2 's Joshua Tree breakthrough—and, in particular, Bono's insistence on living up to the messianic role his fans and admires foisted upon him—still resonates as a lingering source of scorn, suspiciousness, and ridicule. If you don't doubt that, then try to sit through the (videotaped, not filmed) July 4, 1987 concert at an outdoor venue in Paris, the 40-minute Outside It's America documentary, and the music videos stuffed onto the set's DVD.</p><p>About the only remarkable thing about the concert is that it starts with "I Will Follow" rather than "Where the Streets Have No Name". As for the doc, it plays like a Rattle and Hum test run that will leave you throwing things at your screen as the band goes shopping, signs autographs, and poses for photos. There is, however, a rare glimpse of U2's sense of humor that teases their future neo-ironic rebirth hidden on the DVD: footage of the fames Dalton Brothers, the band's country alter-egos, who opened a few dates on the Joshua Tree tour (replete with Adam Clayton in drag). But after a couple of minutes of their shtick, you'll want to throw stuff at them, too.</p><p>— <strong>Joshua Klein, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| U2 | Rattle And Hum (DVD) | <p>Functioning as both the soundtrack to the group's disastrous feature-film documentary and as a tentative follow-up to their career-making blockbuster, Rattle and Hum is all over the place. The live cuts lack the revelatory power of Under a Blood Red Sky and are undercut by heavy-handed performances and Bono's embarrassing stage patter; prefacing a leaden cover of "Helter Skelter" with "This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles, and now we're stealing it back" is bad enough, but it pales next to Bono's exhortation "OK, Edge, play the blues!" on the worthy, decidedly unbluesy "Silver and Gold." Both comments reveal more than they intend -- throughout the album, U2 sound paralyzed by their new status as "rock's most important band." They react by attempting to boost their classic rock credibility. They embrace American roots rock, something they ignored before. Occasionally, these experiments work: "Desire" has an intoxicating Bo Diddley beat, "Angel of Harlem" is a punchy, sunny Stax-soul tribute, "When Loves Come to Town" is an endearingly awkward blues duet with B.B. King, and the Dylan collaboration "Love Rescue Me" is an overlooked minor bluesy gem. However, these get swallowed up in the bluster of the live tracks, the misguided gospel interpretation of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the shameful answer to John Lennon's searing confession "God," "God, Pt. 2." A couple of affecting laments -- the cascading "All I Want Is You" and "Heartland," which sounds like a Joshua Tree outtake -- do slip out underneath the posturing, but Rattle and Hum is by far the least-focused record U2 ever made, and it's little wonder that they retreated for three years after its release to rethink their whole approach. </p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| U2 | Rattle And Hum | <p>Functioning as both the soundtrack to the group's disastrous feature-film documentary and as a tentative follow-up to their career-making blockbuster, Rattle and Hum is all over the place. The live cuts lack the revelatory power of Under a Blood Red Sky and are undercut by heavy-handed performances and Bono's embarrassing stage patter; prefacing a leaden cover of "Helter Skelter" with "This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles, and now we're stealing it back" is bad enough, but it pales next to Bono's exhortation "OK, Edge, play the blues!" on the worthy, decidedly unbluesy "Silver and Gold." Both comments reveal more than they intend -- throughout the album, U2 sound paralyzed by their new status as "rock's most important band." They react by attempting to boost their classic rock credibility. They embrace American roots rock, something they ignored before. Occasionally, these experiments work: "Desire" has an intoxicating Bo Diddley beat, "Angel of Harlem" is a punchy, sunny Stax-soul tribute, "When Loves Come to Town" is an endearingly awkward blues duet with B.B. King, and the Dylan collaboration "Love Rescue Me" is an overlooked minor bluesy gem. However, these get swallowed up in the bluster of the live tracks, the misguided gospel interpretation of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the shameful answer to John Lennon's searing confession "God," "God, Pt. 2." A couple of affecting laments -- the cascading "All I Want Is You" and "Heartland," which sounds like a Joshua Tree outtake -- do slip out underneath the posturing, but Rattle and Hum is by far the least-focused record U2 ever made, and it's little wonder that they retreated for three years after its release to rethink their whole approach. </p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| U2 | Achtung Baby | <p>Reinventions rarely come as thorough and effective as Achtung Baby, an album that completely changed U2's sound and style. The crashing, unrecognizable distorted guitars that open "Zoo Station" are a clear signal that U2 have traded their Americana pretensions for postmodern, contemporary European music. Drawing equally from Bowie's electronic, avant-garde explorations of the late '70s and the neo-psychedelic sounds of the thriving rave and Madchester club scenes of early-'90s England, Achtung Baby sounds vibrant and endlessly inventive. Unlike their inspirations, U2 rarely experiment with song structures over the course of the album. Instead, they use the thick dance beats, swirling guitars, layers of effects, and found sounds to break traditional songs out of their constraints, revealing the tortured emotional core of their songs with the hyper-loaded arrangements. In such a dense musical setting, it isn't surprising that U2 have abandoned the political for the personal on Achtung Baby, since the music, even with its inviting rhythms, is more introspective than anthemic. Bono has never been as emotionally naked as he is on Achtung Baby, creating a feverish nightmare of broken hearts and desperate loneliness; unlike other U2 albums, it's filled with sexual imagery, much of it quite disturbing, and it ends on a disquieting note. Few bands as far into their career as U2 have recorded an album as adventurous or fulfilled their ambitions quite as successfully as they do on Achtung Baby, and the result is arguably their best album.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p><hr/><p>"If you give a pop star a shit pile of dough and he refuses to self-destruct, I think it is a bit wet," said a smoking, slicked-back, black-sunglasses-clad Bono in a 1993 interview on the UK music show "Naked City". "I think it's part of the deal. If they don't die on a cross by 33, I'd ask for your money back." Like many of the knowingly audacious quotes from the singer and his U2 mates during this period, it's a little tough to deduce the exact level of sincerity involved. And that was the whole idea. In the early 1990s, U2 were sending up the idea of a "rock'n'roll star." They were offering themselves as an ironic, postmodern band for similarly confused times. They were making fun of themselves and their own humorless, slate-faced 80s reputation.</p><p>A year after Bono's casual quip about pop stars dying on a cross, Kurt Cobain killed himself. And in Nirvana's final video, for "Heart-Shaped Box", Cobain could be seen making wild eyes in front of one. Achtung Baby and its accompanying Zoo TV tour lived within the slippage between perception and reality. "Sometimes you can get far closer to the truth of what you're trying to say by highlighting what it isn't as if it were true," said the Edge on "Naked City". "That's assuming we know the truth-- 'truth' is one of those words that's lost its meaning." In the 80's, U2 seemed endlessly in search of a definite truth, whether in peace or god or love or some ambiguous combination of the three. Famously, they didn't find it. But the quest was thrilling-- at least until 1988's album and film Rattle and Hum, which found the group looking and sounding spectacularly self-serious while gawkily paying tribute to some of their American heroes like Elvis Presley and B.B. King. The resulting critical backlash caused these open-hearted Irishmen to reflect, and they weren't crazy about what they saw in the mirror. "We looked like a big, overblown rock band running amok," says Bono in an excellent new documentary called From the Sky Down that chronicles the band's pivotal turn-of-the-decade moment. And while that might seem like an aptly derisive opinion of today's incarnation of U2, it's important to remember that these guys originally came out of the cacophony of rule-breaking post-punk, a realm where bloated arena rock was the enemy.</p><p>So they went away and tried to come up with a new way to seek some truth. Achtung Baby is rightly known as one of rock's greatest reinventions because it was so complete. Sure, U2 changed their sound from chiming melodics to lurching, distorted rhythm. But they also changed their attitude, their demeanor, their look, their ideas on how to deal with celebrity. All of a sudden, they were funny, sexy, a bit dangerous-- three things few would've associated with U2 in the 80's. And yet, at their core, the band's values remained constant. They were still ethically minded and interested in the real-life connection between living beings. But the way they went about projecting those core tenets flipped. In TV-news parlance, their attitude switched from "60 Minutes" to "The Colbert Report".This new era was conveniently spelled-out on Achtung's first single "The Fly" with the Edge's metallic skronk and Bono's conspiratorial, effected whisper of lines like, "It's no secret that a conscience can sometimes be a pest/ It's no secret that ambition bites the nails of success." And just as the album goes lengths to both fulfill and upend rock'n'roll myths with thorny tales of deep betrayal, questioned fidelity, and ambiguous artifice, this coffee-table-book sized, 6xCD, 4xDVD set both props up Achtung and pokes a few holes in it, too.</p><p>Take the album's much-ballyhooed place of origin, Berlin's Hansa Studios. This was the location that played host to David Bowie and Iggy Pop's electronic-inspired masterworks Low and The Idiot. And Hansa is located near the Berlin Wall, which had only recently been breached when U2 set up there in the fall of 1990. Perched literally in the middle of historic liberation, U2 were meant to find inspiration in the world events around them and turn that spark into a new version of the band for a new decade. It's a great backdrop for a great story. But it didn't really go down that way. "We're there, and greatness has left the building," Bono recalls in From the Sky Down, which features the band returning to Hansa earlier this year in preparation for their headlining set at Glastonbury. While Berlin did inspire bits of the record-- "Zoo Station" was named after one of its prominent train terminals-- it hardly lived up to its lofty reputation. This serves as a lesson for U2, a band that shamelessly worships past rock heroes, to move past such naïve mythologizing. "Berlin was a baptism of fire," says bassist Adam Clayton in the documentary. "It was something we had to go through to realize what we were trying to get to was not something you could find physically, outside of ourselves, in some other city-- that there was not magic to it and that we actually had to put the work in and figure out the ideas and hone those ideas down." This newfound pragmatism would help them to move past their fantasies about the sanctity of rock. So while Berlin played a part on Achtung Baby, it did so in surprising ways; though "One" was mostly written in a burst of inspiration in Hansa, most of the album truly came together once the group went back home to Dublin. Most of the audio bonuses in this set are unfortunately superfluous, and don't offer much in terms of insight.</p><p>There are two CDs filled with dance remixes, and while U2 were at the vanguard of big time rock bands embracing the notion of the remix, even the most devout rave nostalgist would have little use for six remakes of "Mysterious Ways". The disc of bonus material and B-sides is disappointingly slight, and another filled with early versions of every song on Achtung offers a few revelations-- an Irish jig-style version of "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" has an easy charm, but generally, it's easy to see why these attempts were improved upon later. Achtung's even more electronic and weirder follow-up, 1993's Zooropa-- which was recorded in a creative frenzy during a break in the Zoo TV tour-- is also included, though it's generally (and somewhat unfairly) glossed over in all the accompanying materials. The worthy additions in this "super deluxe edition" are nearly all visual. There's Anton Corbijn's gorgeous and colorful photography that covers its case, as well as a big, sturdy 84-page book. And then the four discs of video: It Might Get Loud director Davis Guggenheim's new 90-minute doc From the Sky Down, every video from the era, a full live gig taped in Australia in 1993, interview shows (like "Naked City"), and, best of all, a playfully subversive TV special from 1992 that includes live footage from the Zoo TV tour as well as goofy interludes that play up the surrealism and insanity of the whole project. Moments like the "Even Better Than the Real Thing" video, with the band playing in a glass case while fans look on outside, successfully tie in all the pomo flourishes U2 were chasing.</p><p>The group was at the forefront of bringing huge video screens into the live arena, and some of the tricks they pull off-- Bono "dueting" with a static-y Lou Reed or flipping channels to live local stations-- still look impressive. And for all the technical wizardry of the stage setup, the band still uses it to complement the music rather than overshadow it. Even 20 years on, the tour looks like something to behold, a singularly inventive experience that no band-- including U2 itself-- has been able to really expound upon in a meaningful way. In the Zoo TV special, which originally aired during Thanksgiving weekend in 1992, a "news commentator" covering the show dubs it "the most significant and exciting TV event since the Gulf War." Some of the ideas behind Zoo TV and Achtung Baby were inspired by the television coverage of that initial Gulf War in 1991, and the bizarre reality of being able to switch channels from home shopping to MTV to the bombing of Baghdad. U2 recognized the dangers of this idea, when war turned into just more filler for the burgeoning 24-hour TV-news cycle. And instead of preaching against it in a high and mighty fashion, they embraced that chaos in an effort to expose it. Of course, our collective information overload has been upped exponentially since thanks to the internet, making the flashes of words and slogans that backed U2 during their live campaign seem eerily prophetic. Talking about the Zoo TV audience in the "Naked City" interview, drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. says, "They're coming to a rock'n'roll show and watching television, what more can you ask for?" He's joking, but as we go to arenas and see singers on big screens through our cellphone cameras, the question begins to answer itself.</p><p>— <strong>Ryan Dombal, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| U2 | Pop | <p>No matter which way you look at it, Pop doesn't have the same shock of the new that Achtung Baby delivered on first listen. Less experimental and more song-oriented than Zooropa, Pop attempts to sell the glitzy rush of techno to an audience weaned on arena rock. And that audience includes U2 themselves. While they never sound like they don't believe in what they're doing, they still remove most of the radical elements of electronic dance, which is evident to anyone with just a passing knowledge of the Chemical Brothers and Underworld. To a new listener, Pop has flashes of surprise -- particularly on the rampaging "Mofo" -- but underneath the surface, U2 rely on anthemic rockers and ballads. "Discotheque" might be a little clumsy, but "Staring at the Sun" shimmers with synthesizers borrowed from Massive Attack and a Noel Gallagher chorus. Similarly, "Do You Feel Loved" and "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" fuse old-fashioned U2 dynamism with a keen sense of the cool eroticism that makes trip-hop so alluring. Problems arise when the group tries to go for conventional rock songs, some of which are symptomatic of the return of U2's crusade for salvation. Pop is inflected with the desire for a higher power to save the world from its jaded spiral of decay and immorality, which is why the group's embrace of dance music never seems joyous -- instead of providing an intoxicating rush of gloss and glamour, it functions as a backdrop for a plea of salvation. Achtung Baby also was a comment on the numbing isolation of modern culture, but it made sweeping statements through personal observations; Pop makes sweeping statements through sweeping observations. The difference is what makes Pop an easy record to admire, but a hard one to love. </p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
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