Experiencing U2's Songs of Experience

Hello. Welcome to Daily ish number episode number 225 for 12/01/2017. It is, minus seven. Feels like minus 13 outside, but this is not a weather podcast. It is, however, U2 fan podcast of sorts.

And, today's, songs of experience day. It's the, U2's new album has been released. It's out in the world, out on the iTunes. You can click the link in the show notes if you'd like to buy it, which you should. It's, I'm about halfway through the album so far.

I got interrupted by a little helper who's sitting beside me listening to some of the music on her, air quotes, her phone and headphones. And, there's gonna be a two parter, because I'm gonna stop recording and finish listening to it and then come back to finish recording after I've finished listening to it, if that makes any sense. So no time will transpire for you, but potentially forty five minutes, two hours. Who knows? I'm just gonna apologize for skipping yesterday.

I everybody can get a full refund on their coupons, their Cyber Monday coupons, because I missed yesterday's recording. For some reason, I I just got busy with work and stuff, and so didn't get around to hitting the record button on yesterday's daily. I shall hope you'll forgive me and move on, move forward. Alright. I'll be back after I finish listening.

Because this is a lot of YouTube albums out there. Why would anyone want another one?

Alright. I'm back having listened to the new album, Songs of Experience. And I won't bore you with a whole bunch of details right now. There'll be, At YouTube podcast coming next week where we do a full on review discussion of the album. There'll be, maybe a blog post I'm gonna look look to writing sort of reviewing the the, album on my blog, chrishens.com.

And, and then I tweeted a bunch while I was listening to it as well. So twitter.com/ichris if you're curious about my thoughts. I will say if you've heard any of the singles or stuff they've released, Get Out of Your Own Way, American Soul, You're the Best Thing About Me, and The Blackout are the four you may have heard in some form or another. The rest of the album is similar, but, definitely has some different sounds than what you're at least whatever you might associate with YouTube, there's a whole lot of different sort of sounds, sonically sounds, theme thematically, the whole album really is feels like a cohesive unit in the way that they haven't really had since, I don't know, Actung Baby, Europa era. It's not that, like, not the same theme as those albums, but, just a sort of unifying vibe or theme that you get from listening to the record or when you're listening to the record.

The standout track is actually one that's, on the deluxe edition, Lights of Home, the Saint Peter's string version to me is I'm sure there's other songs that'll grow on me. Don't send me hate mail if you're a YouTube fan, but it's, there's Lights of Home is a track number two on the actual album, but then there's a sort of a different version of it on the deluxe edition. And that's the one I think that is gonna stick with me the most so far anyways. But, yeah, they do a lot of interesting callbacks to like, obvious callbacks to the previous album, Songs of Innocence, in a way that is similar to what, like a movie producer, Edgar Wright, somebody, movie maker that might do or literary, folks would do maybe poetry, that kind of thing. And it's based on sort of the idea of, I'm gonna butcher it all here, but William Blake's book of poetry, Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, etcetera.

Songs of Ascent is the next one. And so it's a common thing in that sense and but something that I at least from what we've seen from YouTube fans, it's kinda like causing a bit of consternation and stuff where like a whole chorus or or a type of a chorus from a previous song is completely included in this next one. So it's it rings of like, laziness or or something like that, I guess, to some people. But to me to my ears anyways, it's it's a brilliant way of, invoking and referencing previous work, without within a new context, I guess, and sort of reminding you of where they were and where they are now. And then presumably someday, you know, if they the the there's been talk anyways of a third album in this series, Songs of Ascent would come out and sort of complete that idea.

So, yeah, there's a lot of it's a it's a fairly heavy album if you dig into the lyrics and the liner notes that, Bono wrote go into a lot of explanation of it. There's a reference a lot of reference in in the liner notes and in his sort of talk and promotion of the album of this incident, the health ins related incident that kinda took him to the to the edge almost as it were, no pun intended, and, and how that influenced where the songs and the lyrics sorta came from and what they changed to after that happened. Last Christmas was sort of the around the time frame for it, it seems. And so, yeah, there's it's life, death, joy, hope, love, all those kinda themes that that penetrate a lot of what YouTube writes about and sings about, but in a way that feels very personal. And and, like, it's like he has said, Bono said, kinda like going on and writing this as if it's the last album he had to write or if he wasn't even gonna be here to hear it being heard, played, etcetera, by friends and family.

So there I ended up doing a quick little mini review. I think it's worth getting if you hated Songs of Innocence for some reason. It's completely different. Don't sonically anyways, musically, it's it's it's a YouTube record for sure, but don't use the past album as an indicator of this album. And if if you haven't been a fan for a while, I think it's it's different enough that, there's they take enough risks, I guess, musically to take a chance on it yourself if stuff like, How to Disman an Atomic Bomb or Beautiful Day, that kind of era of U2 was kinda like too poppy, too top 40 hit, grabbing or attention seeking kind of music.

This, I think, has elements of it that are different and sort of pull you in a different direction. Plus, Adam Clayton, the bass player, is phenomenal throughout in various ways. Not just like obvious, you know, funky riff kind of stuff, but just in terms of the low end bass pedals and stuff that he's doing, lots of fun to be had there, especially if you've got it on a good stereo. So or headphones or whatever. Alright.

I'm gonna go back and listen again, and, hope you have a great day. Be sure to pick up the album. Link is in the show notes. And if you're a YouTube fan or wanna check out, more what, hardcore YouTube fans are are saying about it, be sure to follow the, at YouTube podcast, goodstuff.fm/atu2 is where you can find all the details on that show if you're not already listening. Okay.

Hope you have a great day. Bye.