{"id":1052,"date":"2007-12-10T11:45:56","date_gmt":"2007-12-10T16:45:56","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-11-09T10:52:32","modified_gmt":"2009-11-09T10:52:32","slug":"i-coulda-had-a-u2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-coulda-had-a-u2\/","title":{"rendered":"I Coulda Had a U2!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QqrwUWeL7ZA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nOne of the benefits of spending time in the Halls of Rock is the opportunity to air <strong>petty grievances<\/strong>. For those of us who love rock &#8216;n roll, there are moments in a day when a thought comes to mind that no normal person who ever consider nor feel the need to share. Here, we do and we do.<\/p>\n<p>This morning I was searching for something decent for my wife and I to hear on commercial radio. As I flipped to a station playing U2&#8217;s <strong>&#8220;New Year&#8217;s Day&#8221;<\/strong>, I became quickly and mildly annoyed at the fact that any time I do run across a U2 song on the radio it&#8217;s rarely one of the half dozen or so well-known U2 songs I&#8217;d rather hear, that I could tolerate for a few minutes. It always seems to be the hit song from whatever album that I <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> get any pleasure from hearing! My wife told me that this is typical of me, claiming I only like any band&#8217;s obscure songs over their big hits. The she told me that it&#8217;s for this reason she&#8217;s always amazed that I consider The Rolling Stones&#8217; <strong>&#8220;Satisfaction&#8221;<\/strong> to be the greatest song in all of rock &#8216;n roll. I explained to her that it&#8217;s just a coincidence that my great taste sometimes coincides with the taste of The Masses, but I digress. Yes, my wife suffers on an almost daily basis with hearing me express some beef along these lines. <\/p>\n<p>Anyhow, following are songs by U2 that commercial radio chooses to play followed by hit songs I&#8217;d rather hear from the same album containing the track with radio programmer staying power. I could make a similar list for The Who, a band that I really do love yet for whom commercial radio programmers typically display equally bad taste in songs fit for broadcast. You may have your own examples regarding a band you either like mildly or love.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ztYTXd5dkJA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nFrom <em>Boy<\/em>, if commercial radio plays anything these days it&#8217;s &#8220;I Will Follow&#8221;. No complaints from me, although as with early Who, it&#8217;s rare that &#8220;Classic Rock&#8221; stations play &#8220;I Will Follow&#8221;. When the band first hit, other songs used to be played from that album too, but I&#8217;m not deluding myself into ever thinking I&#8217;ll hear one of those songs again.<\/p>\n<p>From the highly listenable <em>October<\/em>, commercial radio plays&#8230;nothing. Instead, &#8220;early U2&#8221; typically begins with the album <em>War<\/em>, which I never liked. This is the moment when all the heroic posturing of U2 was codified. It&#8217;s also the moment when it became clear that they only played variations on the same song or two.<br \/>\nThat said, I might have better tolerated the last 2 minutes of &#8220;Sunday Bloody Sunday&#8221; than &#8220;New Year&#8217;s Day&#8221; this morning.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;m going to lose sequence at this point, because from album #4 (whatever it was) on they all start sounding the same (with the exception of their &#8220;blues&#8221; album, you know, the one that accompanied the movie).<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s jump, if that&#8217;s the case, to <em>The Joshua Tree<\/em>. Maybe it&#8217;s my bad luck, but more often than not, when flipping channels on commerical radio, I&#8217;m hit with &#8220;With or Without You&#8221; or &#8220;Where the Streets Have No Name&#8221;. As much as it pains me to admit this, given those two options, I&#8217;d rather hear <strong>&#8220;I Still Haven&#8217;t Found What I&#8217;m Looking For&#8221;<\/strong>. As least I get a little bit of <em>DESIIIIIIIII<\/em>re and emotion out of all the 2-chord, same-dynamics emoting that Bono and the band go through on that number. <\/p>\n<p>These days, radio&#8217;s go-to track from <em>The Unforgettable Fire<\/em> is <strong>&#8220;Pride (In the Name of Love)&#8221;<\/strong>. I know that song stands for a lot of important things that occasionally stir my soul and make me proud, in the name of love, to be a righteous American, but I don&#8217;t get a kick out of hearing it. Years ago they used to play another track from that album, called <strong>&#8220;Bad&#8221;<\/strong>. I can&#8217;t for the life of me remember how that tune goes, but if you put a gun to me I&#8217;d imagine The Edge is playing a I-IV progression with lots of effects on his guitar while Adam Clayton plays eighth notes on bass and Larry Mullen does the swishy hi-hat\/constant beats on the kick drum thing. Bono probably starts out the song in a lower register and then jumps up into the higher octave. (He must have been a huge fan of Bowie&#8217;s &#8220;Heroes&#8221;, don&#8217;t you think?) Anyhow, I can&#8217;t remember how that song goes, but I used to favor hearing it on the radio when that album first came out. There may have been a live version that was more often played, but even that&#8217;s faded off the airwaves.<\/p>\n<p><em>Achtung Baby<\/em> is the only post-October U2 album I own. It&#8217;s got a number of songs I like, a few of which I really like. I can&#8217;t complain about &#8220;Mysterious Ways&#8221; holding on at the major hit from that album &#8211; and &#8220;One&#8221; is a good lighter waving\/tit flashing while sitting on your boyfriend&#8217;s shoulders number, but how &#8217;bout giving some radio love back to &#8220;Even Better Than the Real Thing&#8221;, with its recurring <em>Magical Mystery Tour<\/em>-style George Harrison guitar lick?<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, as U2 healed our nation and helped sell <strong>iPods<\/strong>, the songs with the most staying power have been &#8220;Elevation&#8221;, &#8220;Beautiful Day&#8221;, and &#8220;Vertigo&#8221;. I&#8217;d rather hear the secondary hits, &#8220;Stuck in a Moment You Can&#8217;t Get Out Of&#8221; and &#8220;Sometimes You Can&#8217;t Make It on Your Own&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mbpxWc6Zz04?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI won&#8217;t even get into the U2 song from that Wim Wenders film, <strong>&#8220;Stay (Far Away, So Close)&#8221;<\/strong>. I really like that song, but adding that to my list would confirm my wife&#8217;s initial suspicions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the benefits of spending time in the Halls of Rock is the opportunity to air petty grievances. For those of us who love rock &#8216;n roll, there are moments in a day when a thought comes to mind that no normal person who ever consider nor feel the need to share. Here, we <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/i-coulda-had-a-u2\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[115,208],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}