Re: Dallas Observer Reviews "Best Of"
Robbie Robinson ([email protected])
Wed, 11 Nov 1998 23:33:03 -0800
Matt McGee wrote:
>
> >From the Dallas Observer <www.dallasobserver.com>
>
> U2
> The B-Sides: The Best of 1980-1990
> (Island Records)
>
> Hard to believe U2's first record (Boy) hit stores 18 years ago; harder
> still to believe they're regarded as futurists even now, the fathers and
> sons of post-modern rock and roll. Until this double-disc
> "limited-edition" collection arrived last week, it felt like not so long
> ago that George Gimarc was playing "New Year's Day" and "I Will Follow"
> on his old Sunday-night show, promising a new-rock revolution around the
> corner. But listening to these songs so many years later reveals that
> they've turned to empty echoes, their promise having been reduced to
> threats (cf. Live). Never mind that from the get-go, U2 made music for
> the arenas; never mind that their obvious role models weren't so much the
> punks but the dinosaurs who had yet to turn to oil (Zeppelin was, after
> all, still around). Somehow, U2 has managed to keep on keepin' on by
> staying one step ahead of the trend without getting too far out front.
> That they're heralded as revolutionaries (Achtung Baby, maybe Zooropa,
> definitely not Pop) with each successive disc must make quite the joke to
> the kids who've grown old listening to Bono Vox turn into Robert Plant.
>
> Almost two years after Pop went poof � and the ABC-TV special U2: A Year
> in Pop became the lowest-rated television show in the history of the
> medium � comes this best-of-and-rest-of, divided into the ubiquitous
> A-sides and B-for-Better-Left-Alone sides. In other words, here are songs
> everybody in the world already owns, and a few you didn't need. The
> A-sides that make up disc one � every damned one of 'em, save the add-on
> "rare" single "Sweetest Thing" � are monster hits, the stuff of
> classic-rock radio triple-shots. From "Pride (In the Name of Love)" to
> "Desire" to "All I Want is You," there isn't one that would sound out of
> place on KZPS-FM; ain't a single one of them you didn't burn out on a
> decade ago, before Bono fell in love with himself and the Edge discovered
> Ambient 1: Music for Airports.
>
> There's nothing here post-Rattle and Hum, none of the ironic,
> between-the-quotes rock and roll that would propel U2 from the arenas to
> the stadiums. Also missing are the deep cuts that make the early records
> bearable; would that "The Electric Co." was among its odds-and-ends.
> Instead, both discs include "Sweetest Thing," as though such a winsome
> toss-off was worthy of double duty; ironic how a band given to
> grander-than-life aphorisms could turn in such a muted Elton John yelp.
> The Patti Smith cover, writ in such histrionic understatement, is outdone
> only by the droningly overwrought "Unchained Melody." Proof that U2 is
> and always has been "alternative" only for people who don't really like
> new music and wonder whatever became of the Alarm.
>
> � Robert Wilonsky)
Uh, I take it that this guy is not a fan of U2?
Maybe he likes Henry Rollins?
A bitter remnant of the Punk era?
I seem to vaguly remember that somebody trashed
Popmart in the review of the Dallas show. Was
it this guy?
What kind of paper is the Dallas Observer?
Is it one of the handouts or a neighborhood paper?
I lived in Dallas until I was 27 and I don't seem to
remember it.
Thanks Matt for this wonderfully insightful article
sure to make all the U2 fans here on Wire feel warm
and fuzzy :]
Robbie
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on Thu Nov 12 1998 - 22:40:04 PST