U2 “Get on your Boots” and “Stand up Comedy” review

2 today because i forgot yesterday 🙂

Get On Your Boots: Looooooove. I don’t know how people can NOT like this song. Yes the lyrics are ridiculous and silly, but it’s supposed to be fun and frivolous. I already reviewed it, but in case you missed it…it has a fun retro vibe to it, the guitars are killer and it’s going to be fabulous live. The “let me in the sound” bridge is wonderful. Edge’s chorus background is lovely, Bono’s high notes could be toned down, but it works. It’s got flashy colorful fun video to go along with it. Now it completely does not fit into the rest of the album, but ah well…

Grade: A! Super fun!

Stand Up Comedy: Very funky. “Stop helping god across the road like a little old lady” LOL “Come on people stand up for your love”. It’s got a sort of hippy vibe to it. I apparently do not have a lot to say about it. It’s fun and rock. Interesting guitar work.

Grade: B

tomorrow…fez-being born

U2 “I’ll go Crazy…” review

before i go onto the next song, i have to make a comment on “moment of surrender”…i re-read the Q magazine review of the album from January, which calls the song an instant u2 classic, and this album’s “one”…are you fucking kidding me?!?!?! seriously, this song is on the list of the worst u2 songs ever, along side “the playboy mansion”, “miami”, “peace on earth”, and “yahweh”. it is absoultely an awful song that makes no sense and is way way too long. they claim it was recorded in one take but that has got to be bull. no way.

I’ll go Crazy if I don’t go Crazy Tonight: Woah high notes for no reason, unnecessary! Especially when you can’t hit them, as in the 2nd verse. Completely uninteresting song, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and could easily fit into How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. That’s not a good thing. It must be one of those songs that was at one time 2, and eno/lanois did a mash up so that it makes no sense anymore. With a title like this, it should have been a fun upbeat dance-y kind of song. It’s not. In any way shape or form.

Grade: D – the more i listen to it the more i hate it

tomorrow, get on your boots.

U2 “Unknown Caller” review

Unknown Caller: Macphisto sings a line! Ok enough already with the “oh oh oh oh ohs” seriously!!! Interesting chant like chorus, would be neat to hear live with crowd participation. “Restart and reboot yourself, you’re free to go”…hmm…not sure about that. And ANOTHER organ. What the hell. And horns? I can’t tell what this instrument is…trombone or something. Edge guitar is nice, but again seems too above the music, and does not blend well. The music, minus the chours, makes this song “the most likely to have been on All That You Can’t Leave Behind”

Grade: C+, “classic u2” except for the chorus.

tomorrow: I’ll go crazy if i don’t go crazy tonight…

U2 “Moment of Surrender” review

up next…

Moment of Surrender: Boring…zzzzzz….nice bass line. Adam’s been practicing! Holy Bono forcing his voice, no thank you, calm down. Background organ does not go with the bass line and drum machine. Weird gospel sound to it, do not want. The lyrics aren’t bad, a bit deep actually. The chorus is horrible.
Edge guitar is nice, but maybe mixed too loud. Ok I take it back, not sure on the lyrics…the beginning verses are decent, choruses all suck. Then WOAH loud out of place guitar riff for no reason. And more “oh oh oooohs”. God it’s 7 minutes long. 7:24 exactly, how awful.Who thought this was a good song? Who green lighted this one to be on the album? Fire them.

Grade: F. Hate. Will consistently get fast forwarded.

tomorrow, Unknown Caller

U2 “Magnificent” review

Time for….

Magnificent: Great start, great bass, great beat, great synth (lol), builds awesome. And then… “magnificent” *cringe* wow. Chorus: “only love can leave such a mark, only love can leave such a scar”…The verses are very nice, and as a whole the song is really good, I love the music of the song so much…except for no reason Bono sings the word “magnificent” and it ruins it all. Lots of “oh oh oh ohs” again. I think Bono runs out of things to say so he just goes “oh”. That’s ok, better than “some people get squashed crossing the tracks” haha.

Grade: B, love the music, hate the word “magnificent”. Please release multitracks so I can edit it out.

Next up: the gem…ha…Moment of Surrender

U2 “No Line On The Horizon” review

and now my song a day review of U2’s “No Line On The Horizon”

Song: No Line On The Horizon

I’d downloaded the b-side version a few days ago, it is much more atmospheric than the album version. Kicks in nicely, good start to the record. Cassie says i’m wrong, but something about it constantly makes me think of Coldplay. I could do without the “woah woah woah ooah”s…The chorus is nice, and I’ve recently discovered how much I generally hate u2 choruses of the 2000s. I don’t have alot to say about this one, mostly because I like it…stay tuned for some of the others LOL. I like the remix as well, gives it a different kind of feeling.

Grade: B, only because I have to compare everything U2 does to the genius of Achtung Baby and nothing will ever compare…Ok if you force me to grade it in comparison to 2000s u2, then A- or B+. It’s not “beautiful day” or “walk on” but it’ll do.

Up tomorrow: Magnificent

Oh and I have to add…this was a legit purchase-able “leak” from the Australian Universal Records page…someone’s getting fired tonight 🙂

The Slip

went to the dr today and got a shot in my hip. now i can barely walk. thanks dr! i had to leave work at midnight cuz i just couldn’t stand it anymore, and literally couldn’t stand. arg

so i guess i’ll do my review of “the slip” now that i’ve spent a week listening to it, mostly in the car.

1. 999,999 – instrumental. reminds me a bit of “pinion”, in that it has a noise that builds through the song.
2. 1,000,000 – my favourite song on the album, which is a bit odd since it reminds me of “the collector” and “getting smaller” from with teeth. also i realized in the car last night that it reminds me of david bowie. it doesn’t really sound like any bowie song i’ve ever heard, except maybe the drums – they’re a bit like “rebel rebel”. but i dig this song. i can definitely see this being performed live.
3. letting you – the beginning of this one reminds me of the beginning of “you know what you are” from with teeth. the drums are similar, just with a few beats left out. it’s alright. it’s grown on me alot. political lyrics.
4. discipline – i like it. it is reminiscent of “only” from…with teeth…ha. it’s got that sped up “billie jean” type beat to it. it’s dancy and fun, nothing super profound.
5. echoplex – i think the beat was a preset on my casio keyboard back in 1984. at first i thought the song wasn’t so bad but i realized tonight that it really irritates me. and it’s the beat that is irritating. at the end when the beat stops, i really like it. perhaps i’ll download the multi tracks and make my own version without the casio keyboard bit.
6. head down – again the beginning beat reminds me of something. i can’t quite put my finger on what, i almost want to say “march of the pigs” but it quickly goes away. i like the chorus much better than the verses. chorus lyrics are quotable.
7. lights in the sky – sounds like the quiet song on saul’s niggy tardust album (don’t know the name of it). it’s all i keep thinking of. very quiet song, singing, piano. i see myself getting tired of it quickly, especially if performed live.
8. corona radiata – instrumental. too long. somewhat boring…or rather just uninteresting. sounds like science fiction, add a theramin and it’d definitely be background to an alien/ufo movie. already fast forwarding it
9. the four of us are dying – instrumental. i like it much better than the previous one. definitely has a ghosts feel to it, could possibly be an outtake.
10. demon seed – like the music for the most part. guitar has a ghosts feel to it as well, and it could possibly be taken from one of the ghosts songs. i can’t quite tell. i like the “chanting” end.

after a week of listening i’m finally starting to get into it. it’s definitely grown on me, but it took longer to get there than with teeth did. there’s something missing, i don’t know what. it doesn’t really fit in with nin’s catalog. i don’t see a progression from “year zero” to “the slip”, where i can see a progression between all the other albums (well maybe not PHM to broken hahah) to me it just doesn’t feel like a nin album. it has a nin sound, but then again it has the sound of all the openers and other indie/little known bands trent listens to mushed in with nin and i’m not particularly fond of that. oddly, to me it has a more aaron type guitar sound, than a robin type. i don’t think it’s anywhere close to trent’s best work (perhaps he needs years between albums instead of months/weeks), and i don’t know how much i’ll listen to it after this initial discovery phase ends. i can’t really picture myself being in a “nin mood” and putting this album on. i’ve never been one to want every album to be the same, for them all to sound like “the downward spiral”, but…there’s just something about this that doesn’t feel right to me. and i do want “year zero 2”, the complete picture about that world he created. i’m still convinced it’s recorded and out there – he kept talking about having a 2nd new album ready to go back during the spring performance 07 tour, which we know was not “ghosts” (recorded earlier this year) or this album (recorded the last few weeks). this was a nice surprise, but i’m hoping it’s a temporary distraction.

now that robin is back with nin, i wonder if we’ll get more fragile instrumentals live. i’d love to see “the mark has been made” again. any of them really…another presale tomorrow, but just one. hopefully it goes better than last week.

off to army crawl to bed. so much pain!

music

ashes divide – billy howerdel’s new project – released their cd today called “keep telling myself it’s alright”. since billy was the creative force behind a perfect circle, this sounds very much like APC. just with billy singing, not maynard. i’ve gotten through it once, and i enjoyed it. i even bought it!! i vowed not to buy another cd without listening to it online first, after just assuming maynard’s puscifer would actually be good and having it be horrible. it also helped that ashes divide was only $8 at target. if all cds were $8 i’d probably buy alot more of them.

i’ve also had the dreaming’s cd “etched in blood” sitting on the desk for what…a month now? more? and i haven’t listened to it yet. going to see them tonight tho!! haha. maybe i should dig up the pics of me and johnny haro (drummer) back in the econoline days and give them to him hah.

and alien ant farm is releasing a greatest hits cd…um…is that really necessary? didn’t they have like 3 songs? hahaha

i was out and about today trying out a new photo technique, and i found myself driving around love canal (oh sorry…they call it Black Creek now, because that’s a much better name to use for an area filled with toxic waste), and lasalle, down to the falls. turns out some punk(s) have been shooting cars with pellet guns around lasalle for the last week and have moved on to shooting moving cars on the lasalle expressway…which is where i was and how i go to work. of course i didn’t know this at the time, mom called after dinner freaked out that i was going to get shot at on my way to work hahah. obviously…i’m here, and i did not get shot at. i’d much rather have not been told about it tho because now when i drove by the 2 pedestrian overpasses, i got paranoid that i WAS going to get shot at. it was much better not knowing that i might have been shot at the entire last week. let’s hope it gets resolved during my 2 days off.

monday is saul williams in toronto, i keep forgetting.

halo twenty six

having finally gotten the ghosts package through unofficial means…almost done listening. so much makes me think of david bowie, or perhaps brian eno (tho i don’t know any of eno’s own work, just with bowie). i have a bowie cd of instrumentals of regular songs, all saints i think it’s called, and that’s what i keep thinking of.

the pdf credits list the label as “the null corporation” which i find amusing for some reason. it doesn’t appear to be a real corp, so i find it funny that they felt the need to list a label at all.

the photos are nice…nothing to write home about. i really think rob is so completely overrated by the nin community. anyone can take live photos using the burst function, and the book photos are just location…beach…desert…sky…in studio…blurry, whatever. but i still can’t figure out what iv:32 is, which was posted on the blog a few weeks ago. the one i like the most, for some odd reason, is ii:18. it reminds me of the passenger concourse ramps.

so the album…it’s all instrumentals so what can you really say. there are definitely stand out tracks – don’t ask me which they are lol – and some that are very repetitive (i can think of one from part i) that i’ll probably skip. it’s very chill, will be good background music for get togethers where you need some noise but not necessarily anyone screaming at you (which is what i use all saints for as well). i could use more piano, but that’s me. some say parts sound like old albums, but except for very few tracks i didn’t really hear it. iv:34 definitely sounds “fragile/still” era (piano!), but most sounds definitely “now”. it sounds as trent described, soundtracks to daydreams, scenes…a movie that doesn’t exist. i wonder if it’s something he put together for a year zero movie that is supposedly in the works (or is maybe no longer in the works, hence the release). who knows. all i can say is that it was a great surprise, and hopefully there are more surprises to come.

and now i await my REAL download to work, and the delivery of the special edition in may (sent to my parents house in case i move by may haha)

*edit* is it really possible that the full album torrent on pirate has 6232 peers?!?!

 

dream +

had a bizarre dream about a new nin record, that was supposedly year zero. there was all sorts of hidden stuff in it that had to deal with the arg…like if you looked at a certain part of the packaging it told you a certain part of a song to listen to for a clue…which was turning the speakers really loud during the first song and you’d hear a voice say a number – which i forget now – that was the actual “year zero”, meaning that the album was taking place actually in the late 80s (?). i was trying to get to a computer to write up my review of the album, though i never got past the first song which had a woman talking softly on it, like la mer.

and in that spirit, time for my review of the new econoline crush cd, ignite. last thursday i went up to canada to find the cd. i have no idea where to buy cds in canada so i had asked around, with my first stop being walmart. well nothing is ever easy for me when driving around an unfamiliar place. i looked up where the closest one was, as opposed to just going to the one i know in st catherines. it is at morrison at qew…no problem. except qew doesn’t exit at morrison, the only exit once driving past walmart is thorold stone road. so i exited figuring it’d be easy to back track…not so. never saw the walmart again, eventually was almost back into the tourist area of the falls before crossing morrison rd. cool. took the road, finally found the walmart, which was back where i had exited qew. LOL. and they didn’t have the cd. fine, i’ll go to future shop in st catherines which i also know where it is. the kid working was about 12, i asked if they had the cd and he went to look it up. couldn’t spell it so he asked, and i told him…it wasn’t on screen, but he would have had to keep scrolling to see it and didn’t. whatever. i said i wasn’t from the area and where else could i buy cds. he said best buy. i asked where it was, he said 4th…AS IF I KNOW WHERE 4th IS! i thought it may be close and easy to find so i drove around a bit, didn’t find it. fine off to pen center, which i’ve accidentally found once but wasn’t sure i’d be able to find again. i did find it, but at this point it was almost time for me to head back home to go to the board meeting so i had 15 min to run in find HMV and find the cd. they DID have it. thank god. so off for home…figuring glendale went back into the falls (it doesn’t) so i had to back track back to 401 or 104 whatever the road is, and finally made it back into the states. the cd better have been worth it.

overall i guess it was. it was only $11, and though it’s short, 11 songs (i hate that), it is more gritty and rock-ier than “brand new history”, but nothing like “affliction” and definitely not as good as that or “devil”.
could have been – the yelling vocals sort of bother me, but the song has grown on me alot and is pretty cool
dirty – first single, average
psychotic – one of my favs, has a weird cool female vocal part, very unexpected
get out of the way – very stadium rock and roll with the “hey, hey” shouting, reminds me of gary glitter or something. another fav, it’s fun.
hole in my heart – sorta cliche, slower, not really my thing but not horrible
unbelievable – good music, but the chorus sorta bugs me, not sure why.
the love you feel – i think it’s supposed to be a “razorblades and bandaids” comparable song, the drums even sound similar, but doesn’t hold a candle haha. it’s good enough
heaven’s falling – my #1 fav from the album. rock-y and neat
burn it down – another fav, rock
bleed through – best “slow” one, tortured rock
you don’t know what it’s like 2007 – remix/rerecording of the song from brand new history, it’s got neat piano and sounds down tuned or something. it’s a “hidden track” actually track 23 or 24.

i considered taking sunday off to go see them in st catherines but i really need to work, it’s been so slow everyone’s been having to go home early or sit around doing nothing for 3-4 hrs a night, which is actually pretty horrible. EC will tour for ages around here as usual, so no big deal to miss the show.

monte carlo in vegas is on fire.