U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
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Free Music Notes for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Free Music Review: How To Dismantle THE Atomic Bomb
Hit: 5 Stars
At first, when i saw the video of Vertigo on TV, i thought that the tune and the beat is catchy. But my impression on the whole song didn't exactly had the very same impact. At that time, i was just happy that U2 is ON with a new album again.
When I was able to listen to the whole album on the NME website, the impression was, "Hey, did they even spend time writing these songs?!"
Then my cousin sent me the special edition of the album, the one with the bonus track "Fast Cars" and that's when i learned how to unlock the mystery.
Just like every U2 album, the latest release How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (HTDAAB) need more listening for the songs to sink in. I couldn't remember one U2 album wherein after one sitting then all the songs tend to be catchy and after a week's listening it gets covered with dust. NO.
although this new material may be described as "too wordy" and doesn't have the same subliminal effects that the albums "The Joshua Tree", "Acthung Baby" or even "Pop" had. The lyrics in this album are more, shall we say, radio friendly and not as mind-boggling as it was in the other albums. But, you see, that is where the trick lies, on being simple, yet ful of meaning.
The songs in the album runs on a more personal level than any of the U2 albums. The songs "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own", "One Step Closer" and "A Man and A Woman" takes a blue-blooded U2 listener to take to heart these songs. The band has grown more mature. The lyrics are on a personal basis, but the message is still on a general note and listeners can actually relate the songs to their own lives. Yes, the lyrics may be a little lighter but this doesn't mean that the meaning of the entire song is.
They are sending a different message this time. Not more about a revolution. Enough of the anger. It can be read somewhere that Bono has had enough of taking political sides but is more keen on taking a stance. And the stance is to unite and fight the war on poverty and debt on third world countries. And on a certain standpoint, the whole band has followed where Bono has taken lead. And the path that the band has taken is evident in the songs they've produced: "Love, Peace Or Else", "City of Blinding Lights", "Crumbs On Your Table".
Songs like "Vertigo" and "All Because of You" are the old-time rockers delight. These songs can make you stomp your feet and "swing to the music".
A song to note is "Yahweh". A song of surrender. Not the typical U2 album-ender. Lines such as "Take this mouth, so quick to criticise...Take this mouth, give it a kiss" is so proverbial yet with a timely tune to it.
All the songs are written with taste, warmth and the usual depth that U2 injects in most of their songs. This time, add the term "personal note" when describing the songs.
The album will take you closer to what U2 is all about. This is U2 gracefully coming of age.
Free Music Review: One of the best, by the greatest.
Hit: 5 Stars
One of the best productions by history's greatest rock band. To fans with lukewarm feelings, all I can say is go get some Vertigo Tour tickets and treat yourself to some life experience in the meantime. Real love is hard work, not a jingle, or a rhyme, or a subject for trite ode to fleeting passion. There isn't another act out there who could credibly and so memorably deal with the themes presented here.
Miracle Drug fuses faith WITH works, without which the former is clearly dead. "Love AND logic." "Science AND the human heart." Lyrics like these: "Freedom has a scent, like the top of a newborn baby's head...," assume their place alongside some of the greatest ever written. Newborn babies do indeed have a scent: clean, innocent and new. This smell, this freedom from illness, from pain and poverty is no mere lyric or device; a baptism of effort and sacrifice is demanded. This music requires an answer. Listeners must become part of the solution envisioned, or become condemned by it.
Where Miracle Drug deals with serving and saving our fellow man (exemplified by AIDS-affliced Africans), Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own reckons with the consequences of a certain kind of domestic pathology. It's the best song on the CD and every bit as good as One. Specifically, Bono grapples with the strained relationship he had with his father after his mother died when he was a young teen. The good. The bad. Regrets. What might have been. How it could have been different. The song lays bare Bono's most deeply personal thoughts and feelings, and is sung in studio and live--each and every time--with an authentic emotional intensity rarely, if ever, heard in any rock song. (Only Johnny Cash's version of Hurt immediately comes to mind.)
My father passed away last year, and unlike Bono's father, mine was always kind and forgiving. I'm finding his shoes difficult to fill. I'm not quite the man or father mine was. Bono's song provides a lodestar for course correction. Fathers take heed. You needn't always be harsh. The house shouldn't be empty, or feel that way. It's ok to express love. Enjoy your children. Be interested in them. Wrap your arms around them. Silence is not always golden. Warm is better than cold. So much better!
Moreover, the song, like most of the rest on the CD, is deeply layered with Christian meaning. Phrases continually reveal themselves for those with ears to hear. "Let me take some of the punches for you tonight," Bono pleads, reminiscent of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Father Hewson's burdens could have been so much lighter, love could have taken so much weight off his shoulders, so much more joy could have been shared. One suspects Bono's own children are the beneficiaries of this conviction.
But so is he, and so is the band, and so are we all. "You're the reason why the opera is in me!" Bono credits his father. Thank Heaven.
Free Music Review: Love And Rockets
Hit: 5 Stars
While many would suggest All That You Can't Leave Behind reinvigorated the record buying public's faith in U2 with its back to basics oeuvre after the techno glitch of Pop, at the end of the day many of the lesser album tracks such as Wild Honey, In A Little While and Peace On Earth felt somewhat ingratiating. After wrapping up the resulting Elevation Tour (having played over 100 nights to more than two million people), U2 returned to Dublin and polished up songs for a collection of their greatest moments from the 1990s. Although its tracklisting shirked some of U2's most well known singles in favour of album tracks, The Best Of 1990-2000 (confusingly including two tracks recorded in 2002) acted as a musical stopgap for U2 while they considered their next move. That next move has taken four years to make, but as Bono sings on opening single Vertigo, "Checkmate!".
The most understated of U2's albums since their debut Boy in 1980, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb at first fails to reveal just how beautiful it is. The studied arrangements only divulge their excellence on repeat listens, with the clean and simple layers of bass, guitar, drums and vocals all being identifiable at any one instance across the 11 track album. While it is truly the worst album title they've ever offered up, Bono's familiar lyrical realms of religion, love, death and saving the world and The Edge's ongoing exploration of new guitar techniques reflect that this is a band that still has much to offer. Shadowed by his father's death on Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Bono cleverly avoids cloying sentimentality and instead turns in a heart wrenching vocal that also includes his highest falsetto on record. In a similar vein to Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, City Of Blinding Lights could also have easily fallen into the pretentious basket due to its length, yet this Joshua Tree style ode to love and America (there's always one) maintains a refreshing jubilance. Thanks to its xylophone chimes and graceful elegance, Crumbs From Your Table is a decendent of the 2002 single Electrical Storm, although the lyric is a deceptively nasty denunciation of Western greed that peaks with Bono's line, `where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die'. The stomping Love And Peace Or Else and All Because Of You kick like a six legged mule, One Step Closer is the greatest song ever inspired by Noel Gallagher's philosophising and album closer Yahweh is yet another moment of spine-tingling beauty from a band who could legitimately copyright the phrase. Mid-40s rock stars with some of the biggest bank accounts in the game aren't supposed to be this damn powerful. With How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, U2 shows once again why they are in a league of their own.
Free Music Review: finally, a welcome digression from the elevator music genre
Hit: 5 Stars
The songs are really good, I'd like to prattle on and on about how they strike a chord, but i'll leave you to decide that. I've grown up listening to U2, and find the older songs much more endearing than anything in recent years, but this album makes a good addition to those old numbers.
here's a track by track breakdown
Vertigo : Reminscent of Zoo tv..the first song in achtung baby, typical u2 rock
Miracle Drug : Really well done piece. has a really nice start...guitars with orchestra and keyboard..i really loved this.
Sometimes you can't make it on your own : See above. really nice as well, i think these two songs stand out, very heartfelt and entirely devoid of the tedium and plasticity that dogged the All That You Can't Leave Behind album(with the exception of Beautiful Day).
Love and Peace or else : Might take some getting used to, verses are bleh, chorus is good, didn't make as much as an impact as the 2nd and 3rd tracks. Think of "Until the end of the World" on achtung baby, and you'll know what i mean.
City of Blinding Lights : Very nice blend of keyboards and guitar, i guess this is what they're really good at and should stick to, instead of making disastrous forays into pseudo-electronica like they did with Pop
All because of you : Too noisy for me to appreciate fully.Desire-esque
Man and Woman : For some reason this sounds a lot like staring at the sun plus a beat, especially the beginning..with the guitars, decent song.
Crumbs from your Table: A little bland.
One Step Closer: Quiet, almost atmospheric piece like Mothers of the Disappeared, although not as depressing.
Origin of the Species : Didn't make an impact really, maybe with a few more listens...
Yahweh : Great finish, but i find myself going back to 2 and 3 again and again, they simply overshadow everything else in my opinion.
on a final note, pop took me a long time to get used to, all that you can't leave behind didn't really make an impact, it was kind of like sitting drowsily on a hot summer afternoon...everything was tepid, this album however actually invokes some emotions, like the old ones used to, they may not stand up to the likes of with or without you, or where the streets have no name, but they definitely come close, and is the best new album i've heard in a year or so. His voice sounds good, but there is a general feeling of age, not only physical, but more an intellectual maturity that's evolved over the years and has culminated in a piece of work that's a very effective, sobering mood-lifter.
I'd give it 5 stars as it's definitely well worth the money paid for it.
Free Music Review: They have done it again!
Hit: 5 Stars
I am 21 years of age and have been a U2 fan since 1998.I have been reading several reviews and alot of them are complaining on how the tracks in HTDAAB are so drastically different from the single Vertigo and how one guy felt jipped because he was dissapointed that every song didnt sound like vertigo. I am sure the guy that was dissapointed was on his way to pick up the new Eminem cd and had heard a song called Vertigo by some band called U2 and had just decided to pick it up. ANYWAY what i am trying to say is if you are anykind of fan of U2 wouldnt you realize that having a cd with extremely upbeat songs like Vertigo would pretty much gop against what U2 is all about. What i mean is every U2 cd has had only a very slim number of loud upbeat songs and they have always toned it down later in their cd's and thats why so many millions of people Love U2, they make music from their heart they dont simply put a loud upbeat track behind crappy lyrics they pick the sound for what suits their feelings that that are expressing in their words. Not that i wam saying that every U2 cd has been completely mellow i mean if you look at it early U2 (Under a blood red sky, Boy etc) were all very upbeat albums. It wasnt until the 90's where U2 really started to mix their mellow and upbeat songs together. But to get back to the new album. I dont know what the hell these other people were listening to but when they said that this wasnt a rock album they must have completely gone deaf when Love Peace or Else and All because of you were playing. Prob my favorite tracks on the cd is City of blinding lights, a truly beautiful song that is a blast to crank up in the car and let the top down and cruise the streets in the evening. The song Kite was one of my favorite tracks off of the all that you cant leave behind cd and a song that is similar in lyrics off of the new album Sometimes you cant make it on your own is becoming one of my all time favorites. One thing i learned is that sometimes you cant make it on yourown has been sitting around for a few years which gets me excited, i mean if a song as beautiful as that has just been sitting on the shelf for a few years i cant imagine what else they have just sitting around. The song All Because of You took a lil getting used to but i came to realize that this song is so raw and good it can stand toe to toe with any 20 something garage band on the radio today. This is another beautiful work of art by U2 and in a time when any crap can make it on the radio U2 will have no problem whatsoever dropping the atomic bomb on the rest of the crap and once again proving to the world they are and will always will be a Bad Ass rock and roll act from Ireland.