{"id":3825,"date":"2014-09-11T12:12:56","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T16:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/?p=3825"},"modified":"2024-09-06T21:23:02","modified_gmt":"2024-09-07T01:23:02","slug":"passing-on-the-geezers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/2014\/09\/11\/passing-on-the-geezers\/","title":{"rendered":"Passing On The Geezers"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you may have heard, U2 performed following Apple\u2019s iPhone and Watch event on Tuesday. Along with their performance, their new album Songs Of Innocence<\/em> hit the iTunes Music Store for free until October. I was immediately faced with a dilemma: do I listen to the album, since there\u2019s no cost to me for doing so, or do I ignore it, since nothing U2 has done in roughly a decade has sounded good to me?<\/p>\n

Well, this article by Steven Hyden helped. A little.<\/p>\n

A Sort of iCloud: 11 Takeaways From U2\u2019s New, Free, Apple-Foisted Album, \u2018Songs of Innocence\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

In general, he says the album isn\u2019t vital, the Edge is mostly non-existent on it, and it\u2019s full of Bono being full of shit. I found it interesting that Hyden liked the album more than All That You Can\u2019t Leave Behind<\/em>, which I think is U2\u2019s last really good album, but less than How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb<\/em>, which I thought sucked.<\/p>\n

When the band released their single \u201cInvisible\u201d free after the Super Bowl, I downloaded it, listened to about 2\/3 of it, and then deleted it. I have a feeling if I downloaded the album, the same thing would happen.<\/p>\n

As I did some house cleaning yesterday, I thought about my history with U2. How could I like a band so much for so long and now want nothing to do with their music?<\/p>\n

The biggest factor is how U2 has changed over the years. They\u2019ve gotten bigger in every way. Their songs, which were always meant to fill arenas to the very back row, are now designed to seemingly shake the earth to its core. What was once grand became bombast. Their videos are all kind of the same, or at least the ones I\u2019ve watched. Bono over-emoting as he sings. The rest of the band over-playing. All layered over some crazy graphics. Then there\u2019s the Bono being full of shit angle. I think most people admire the really good things he\u2019s done to raise awareness and money for a long list of causes. There\u2019s no doubt that he\u2019s made the world a better place through his work. But, man, every time he talks, I want to hit mute or turn the channel. I can\u2019t help but think of the time Alec Baldwin played him on SNL. \u201cAm I buggin\u2019 ya? I don\u2019t mean ta bug ya.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for their music changing, what they\u2019ve gone through isn\u2019t any different than what the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith have gone through, or what Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or the Foo Fighters are beginning to go through. Their members are pulled in different directions, success and money have made them comfortable, and they no longer have<\/em> to make music but can do so by choice on their own schedules. The results are bands that may be technically and musically better than ever, but without the passion and energy of their youth. Basically they become living greatest hits performers, making sure their new music fits the general vibe of their careers enough so they can move a few albums but then sell out arenas and amphitheaters when they tour. If it\u2019s a band you like, you accept it. If you\u2019re lukewarm at best, it becomes self-parody and easy to mock.<\/p>\n

A lot of it is me, though. I think the moments when I began to not dig U2 came right when most of us have to make choices of how we consume music. As we build careers and start families, it takes more effort to keep up with new music. Some people still find the time to do so. I\u2019ve been lucky that my life choices have allowed me to keep listening to the music of a 25-year-old, as I like to put it. But my personality and love of music makes me think I would have done that anyway. Where a lot of my friends, and I mean no disrespect by this, were comfortable listening to the same old CDs they\u2019d been playing for years and keeping up with new music based on whatever songs they heard on their drives to-and-from work, I jumped onto the iTunes\/music blog\/streaming train and never looked back. I still listened to bands that owed a debt to what U2 did in the 80s and 90s. But they were taking those influences and pushing them in new directions.<\/p>\n

So we have a band that was vital to my teens and 20s getting older and moving to a safer, more predictable place while I balanced my aging with looking to younger musicians to fill my playlists. It\u2019s not just U2. When Pearl Jam puts a new album out, I\u2019ll listen to it for a week or two and then it gets shuffled back into the library, rarely pulled out. I still listen to individual Pearl Jam songs quite a bit, and their channel is one of my SiriusXM favorites. But I prefer the music they made in their first 15 years as a band to the newer stuff.<\/p>\n

There are nearly 900 words setting up my decision: I won\u2019t be listening to the new U2 album. I\u2019ll spend my time this week listening to the new albums from Ryan Adams, Interpol, Tennis, and the Delta Spirit along with my Rdio playlist of favorite albums of the year. U2 was a great band, and essential to the development of my adult musical tastes. But if I\u2019m going to listen to them today, it will be The Joshua Tree<\/em> and Achtung Baby<\/em>, not Songs Of Innocence<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Late note: Rolling Stone gives the album five stars. Because that\u2019s what Rolling Stone does once you\u2019ve been around a couple decades. Steven Hyden\u2019s one-word Twitter response: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you may have heard, U2 performed following Apple\u2019s iPhone and Watch event on Tuesday. Along with their performance, their new album Songs Of Innocence hit the iTunes Music Store for free until October. I was immediately faced with a dilemma: do I listen to the album, since there\u2019s no cost to me for doing so, or do I ignore it, since nothing U2 has done in roughly a decade has sounded good to me? Well, this article by Steven Hyden helped. A little. A Sort of iCloud: 11 Takeaways From U2\u2019s New, Free, Apple-Foisted Album, \u2018Songs of Innocence\u2019 In general, he says the album isn\u2019t vital, the Edge is mostly non-existent on it, and it\u2019s full of Bono being full of shit. I found it interesting that Hyden liked the album more than All That You Can\u2019t Leave Behind, which I think is U2\u2019s last really good album, but less than How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which I thought sucked. When the band released their single \u201cInvisible\u201d free after the Super Bowl, I downloaded it, listened to about 2\/3 of it, and then deleted it. I have a feeling if I downloaded the album, the same thing would happen. As I did some house cleaning yesterday, I thought about my history with U2. How could I like a band so much for so long and now want nothing to do with their music? The biggest factor is how U2 has changed over the years. They\u2019ve gotten bigger in every way. Their songs, which were always meant to fill arenas to the very back row, are now designed to seemingly shake the earth to its core. What was once grand became bombast. Their videos are all kind of the same, or at least the ones I\u2019ve watched. Bono over-emoting as he sings. The rest of the band over-playing. All layered over some crazy graphics. Then there\u2019s the Bono being full of shit angle. I think most people admire the really good things he\u2019s done to raise awareness and money for a long list of causes. There\u2019s no doubt that he\u2019s made the world a better place through his work. But, man, every time he talks, I want to hit mute or turn the channel. I can\u2019t help but think of the time Alec Baldwin played him on SNL. \u201cAm I buggin\u2019 ya? I don\u2019t mean ta bug ya.\u201d As for their music changing, what they\u2019ve gone through isn\u2019t any different than what the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith have gone through, or what Pearl Jam, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or the Foo Fighters are beginning to go through. Their members are pulled in different directions, success and money have made them comfortable, and they no longer have to make music but can do so by choice on their own schedules. The results are bands that may be technically and musically better than ever, but without the passion and energy of their youth. Basically they become living greatest hits performers, making sure their new music fits the general vibe of their careers enough so they can move a few albums but then sell out arenas and amphitheaters when they tour. If it\u2019s a band you like, you accept it. If you\u2019re lukewarm at best, it becomes self-parody and easy to mock. A lot of it is me, though. I think the moments when I began to not dig U2 came right when most of us have to make choices of how we consume music. As we build careers and start families, it takes more effort to keep up with new music. Some people still find the time to do so. I\u2019ve been lucky that my life choices have allowed me to keep listening to the music of a 25-year-old, as I like to put it. But my personality and love of music makes me think I would have done that anyway. Where a lot of my friends, and I mean no disrespect by this, were comfortable listening to the same old CDs they\u2019d been playing for years and keeping up with new music based on whatever songs they heard on their drives to-and-from work, I jumped onto the iTunes\/music blog\/streaming train and never looked back. I still listened to bands that owed a debt to what U2 did in the 80s and 90s. But they were taking those influences and pushing them in new directions. So we have a band that was vital to my teens and 20s getting older and moving to a safer, more predictable place while I balanced my aging with looking to younger musicians to fill my playlists. It\u2019s not just U2. When Pearl Jam puts a new album out, I\u2019ll listen to it for a week or two and then it gets shuffled back into the library, rarely pulled out. I still listen to individual Pearl Jam songs quite a bit, and their channel is one of my SiriusXM favorites. But I prefer the music they made in their first 15 years as a band to the newer stuff. There are nearly 900 words setting up my decision: I won\u2019t be listening to the new U2 album. I\u2019ll spend my time this week listening to the new albums from Ryan Adams, Interpol, Tennis, and the Delta Spirit along with my Rdio playlist of favorite albums of the year. U2 was a great band, and essential to the development of my adult musical tastes. But if I\u2019m going to listen to them today, it will be The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, not Songs Of Innocence. Late note: Rolling Stone gives the album five stars. Because that\u2019s what Rolling Stone does once you\u2019ve been around a couple decades. Steven Hyden\u2019s one-word Twitter response: \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19,9],"class_list":["post-3825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-links","tag-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14207,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3825\/revisions\/14207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}