In a recent issue of Hot Press, Neil McCormick talks about the upcoming U2 album (due Nov. 23, first single, “Vertigo,” due Sept. 21), commenting:
“It’d be interesting if U2 could ever make a marginal or personal or intimate record again; in a way they can’t because they’ve raised the stakes to such a level that they have to knock a stadium monster out, they have to knock that ball out of the stadium every time.”
While only a newbie when it comes to U2-fandom, I’m sure if I agree. Certainly U2 would be hard pressed to make a marginal album (any votes for marginal album? Zooropa? I’d have to say that even the albums I like the least have some amazing moments that are better than a lot of other bands’ best work), but what about personal or intimate?
I think what I like best about U2 is their uncanny ability to be both universal and intimate. Bono sings about the grandest themes of life in the most intimate way possible. Perhaps not every album, but most of All That You Can’t Leave Behind feels that way for me. Especially after 9/11. Even the fly-boy posturing of Achtung Baby or the detached soul-searching at the end of Pop strike me as intensely personal.
At the same time, McCormick’s right. Nearly every U2 album has that grand, stadium sound that’s reaching out to a million people. And that’s what I love about it.
Ummm. Right. I’m a bit confused by at least the personal part, as All That You Can’t Leave Behind is intensely personal. Kite, Walk On, and In A Little While are about very personal feelings for Bono, as is Stuck in a Moment and… much of the rest of the album. I think the question is, as you said Kevin, whether they can continue to kick out tunes that are personal AND stadium busters.
Marginal? They could probably make a crappy album, though I think they’d break up before releasing a crappy album. If he means marginal as in Zooropa marginal, they easily could as well.
So I’m not sure I agree. The guys are committed to making great music (and have said they’ll stop doing so when it isn’t great anymore). To do so will probably require the things McCormick says they can’t do (which is odd, given this has been their characteristic from the get-go: I Will Follow is about Bono’s mother who had recently died).
I think I follow what Neil Mc is talking about – not so much are the topics personal, but is the “feel” intimate, like a conversation between a small group of friends. Is the scale of the artistic vision containable in an intimate space? Could U2 make music that would be a natural for a small club without feeling as if it were too Big, as if it really needed to expand? Could they make, not cathedral music, but house-church music? Not really, not anymore. (The issue reminds me of the problems they were having in about 84-85 where they were playing halls that were too small for the energy they were generating and would regularly have to stop the shows to try and get things under control in the audience.)