— Tania
"Like Bono said, they're just four jerks with a police escort, haha."
— Jay
I was just eight years old in the summer of 1985 when Live Aid took place. To say I had better things to do was pretty much on the money. Music was fine but my life revolved around comic books, Lego, street hockey, wrestling and cartoons; I wasn't about to spend a whole day watching an over-long music festival which took place in two cities on separate sides of the Atlantic. One member of my family who did watch was my mum. Rather than appreciating the many stars from her younger days that performed (McCartney wasn't all that good, the Stones were boring, Dylan was self-serving and she's never been a fan of Queen) her fondest memories of Live Aid were of a handful of the newer acts on the bill. Paul Young and U2 are the two she always mentions being especially impressed by. In the case of the former, it was his silky-smooth voice that won her over, with the latter it was their memorable renditions of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Pride (In the Name of Love)".
Yeah, about that. U2 didn't play "Pride" at Live Aid. I'm sure they considered it and probably would have had (a) they'd done a set of four songs like many of the groups that day rather than two or (b) the tune Mum mistook for it had not gone on for so damn long. It was with a stirring twelve minute rendition of Unforgettable Fire deep cut "Bad" that U2 set themselves up for superstardom; it's just a pity that the song itself fell through the cracks along the way. Nevertheless, it managed to set a standard for what U2 songs were supposed to sound like. Not every one of their numbers sounded the same but they all seemed a bit like "Bad".
It has also been the one I've been singing to myself over the last several days as I've been gearing up to write this piece. "Bad" and "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" (as an aside, what the hell is that exclamation point doing in there?!?) aren't terribly similar beyond both having those unmissable U2 stamps of that heartbeat rhythm, those clipped chords that The Edge has made a career out of and Bono's distinctive wail. On an emotional level, "Stay" strays because it doesn't lift me up the way a song like "Bad" does so effortlessly. I keep expecting true inspiration such as when Bono screams "I'm wide awake!"; "Stay" just pulls me along and then passes me by. It's nice to have on but when it comes to a close I forget all about it. I didn't know it was possible to listen to a U2 song this much and it not make the slightest impression; even their songs that I don't care for have melodies I can hum, even if I choose not to do so.
U2 becoming weird was something everyone had accepted by 1993. It no doubt helped that they were happy to remind people that they were still U2 every so often. After the genuine shock of "The Fly" near the end of '91, follow-up "Mysterious Ways" proved to be a welcome way to ease back into normal while maintaining their new found funk sound and overall sexiness. "One" neither harked back to the "2" of old nor suggested anything particularly new but it was so brilliant that it hardly mattered. Very justly, the remix of "Even Better Than the Real Thing" outperformed the standard version as the two competed with each other on the UK singles charts. Finally, their run of singles from Achtung Baby! ended with "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" a song that was horribly, painfully U2.
Achtung Baby! had been so hyped that it was one of those early nineties CD releases that people lined up for at midnight to purchase. This wasn't the case two years later with the more low key Zooropa. Videos for the first two singles were played a lot but there didn't appear to be the same degree of chart action involved. Unbeknownst to me, "Numb" was a video single and didn't qualify for the US and UK hit parades, though it did all right in my native Canada; "Lemon" wasn't readily available either. I wasn't exactly tickled by them at first but the two did grow on me but there was a sense that maybe the public had had enough of them. Luckily, there was "Stay" to put them back in the good graces of their fans. The only trouble was, it was at the expense of something truly memorable.
With records such as "Wild Horses" and "Stay", U2 managed to appease their longstanding cult base while at the same time drifting off into sonic adventurism elsewhere. (The blowback from their 1997 Pop project prompted a wholescale rethink with greater emphasis on retreating to their old sound which resulted in the highly popular and highly successful All That You Can't Leave Behind but as an on the fence listener this was where I pretty much gave up on them) While it ticks the boxes of how one of their singles ought to sound, it's an unsatisfying listen, particularly over time. It isn't so much a return to form as a reminder of how they used to be so much better.
Finally, unremarked and possibly unnoticed by Tania and Jay of Eurodance sensation Culture Beat is that "Stay" was a split single or double A side (depending on how you choose to classify it). It shared the spotlight with "I've Got You Under My Skin", Bono's contribution to the popular Frank Sinatra Duets album that came out for that year's Christmas rush. U2 had already done an outstanding cover of "Night and Day" for the 1990 Red, Hot + Blue AIDS benefit charity album — a recording which anticipates their new European/indie-influenced sound a year later — so clearly the former Paul Hewson knew a thing or two about Cole Porter's songbook. Still, this one isn't nearly as good. While Bono is the perfect singer for U2, he sounds completely out of his league when paired with Sinatra; his once powerful vocal chords now reduced to sounding like a croaky old whimper. The recording is also harmed by some pointless production touches that try to add a faint tinge of current "2" to the jazz arrangement. It's as if they wished to add some of the current U2 sound to one song while trying to add some of what they used to do on to another. Perhaps they go together better than I ever would've thought.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Pet Shop Boys: "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing"
"They don't express themselves," reports the rapper from a group whose creative shots were being called by German studio boffins. Ironically, "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" is meant to be about a reserved individual being open with their feelings for the first time but how can that hold up alongside years of pop in inverted commas? There's a fair amount of Pet Shops backlash in the Hits by this point though it's worth noting that Tania considers it to be one of their better efforts of late. I can't help but feel that people were getting sick of Tennant and Lowe and this affected the critical standing of their early nineties releases. That said, this one isn't a big favourite of mine. Tennant has subsequently complained that the album version is much cleaner and he's absolutely right. Plus, the Very album isn't all that well served by its 45's: I'll happily take the likes of "The Theatre", "Dreaming of the Queen" and "One in a Million" (not to mention some choice B sides from the same time) over the stuff they had in the charts. Yet, even when they were coasting — and apparently not expressing themselves — the Pet Shop Boys were still way above the competition.
No comments:
Post a Comment