Quote:
Originally Posted by grilldanmo
This is funny to me in a good way.
I turned 50 this year. I remember when "classic rock" became a thing, as stations that were playing the edgier stuff from the '60s and '70s wanted to distinguish themselves from the stations playing '50s and '60 rock/pop...the "golden oldies". I also distinctly remember when U2 got scant airplay on MTV (mostly via I Will Follow, being "old" at that point) then the Gloria video came out and it was uphill for a decade after that.
U2 may now be see as classic rock, but they were part of something clearly new and different when they came out. My sister and I watched MTV pretty from the first day it aired until the mid-90s or so. Our dad was a music junky, so we were listening to music ALL of the time. He enjoyed the jazz and pop of his youth (including what his parents listened to), but also loved hearing/finding new music. MTV was (at the time) an obvious evolution of radio, but it made image far too important..."back when I was a boy..."
Anyway, I've fallen in and out of love a few times w/ U2. My wife and I were just talking the other day about how amazing Achtung Baby as the first real FULL studio follow-up to Joshua Tree. Rattle & Hum wasn't a fully realized studio album, more of an ambitious attempt to pay tribute to American musical heroes/legends and document their creative process (their Let It Be). The band was clearly still riding the understandable massive success of JT and several of the tunes, especially All I Want Is You, are coming from a similar place as the music on JT. But AB was astonishing...they really grappled w/ their success to that point and decided they needed to break their mold...and holy shit did they. For me Achtung is their best album by a LOT, and I love War, TUF, JT, & ATYCLB. Zooropa & Pop are definitely U2's ED & SU...not for me.
In the end, it's not a contest. You can compare/contrast any artists, but there's no objective measure of who's better. We can unequivocally state that U2 was more popular than DMB, but that's not a measure of quality. Both are world class bands, but it's interesting that one is made of new musicians searching for and finding their voice while the other was at least a pair of evolving world class musicians and at least two becoming excellent as well. The core for both bands was great songs and passionate singing from singers that you'd never mistake for anyone else.
Cheers folks.
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This is a great take on the subject. Although younger, I agree with basically everything you said about their discography. Zooropa and Pop are not for me as well, though a few songs I've enjoyed live from those records: Stay, Staring at the Sun, Gone, Please.
Achtung is far and away their best, most ambitious album, and they absolutely nailed it. Taking the best of their sound from the 80s and pushing themselves further. Any U2 fan knows the struggles they had with the album until "One" unlocked everything else.
Comparing the two bands is unequivocally difficult because both are somewhat in classes of their own. U2 does massive world tours every 4-5 years. DMB plays the same sheds every summer.
And for what it's worth, I did quite enjoy the most recent U2 effort, and think they have more left to say as a band.