New album: Songs Of Innocence
Artist: U2
Label: Island Records
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Everyone has their drawers in a knot over the new U2 album. The free version of “Songs Of Innocence” delivered via iPhone/iTunes has generated more hot air on social media than Rick Ross after a bean burrito lunch. I’d like to take this opportunity to address everyone who is busting a vein over being given a free album: Please shut your pie hole.
It’s not like U2 and Apple got together and secretly dumped old sofas on the lawns of their customers overnight. In an age where most mainstream music consumers just want something they can seat-dance to for the 13-minutes a day they’re in a vehicle, artists have to be creative when it comes to getting the word out about their work. Add to that the fact that more albums are illegally downloaded than purchased, and what you have is record companies pushing the types of “artists” who may have no talent other than being able to generate t-shirt sales.
Pete Townshend licensed three Who songs to the “CSI” television franchise and within months they had a whole new generation of fans. It’s idiotic to think artists should go through the process of creating art and then not promote it, so on behalf of the clear-headed side of the room I find U2 not guilty of felony crimes against music consumers. Sadly, I’m going to have to write them a citation for misdemeanor making a flat album.
There’s nothing truly horrid about “Songs Of Innocence,” but the whole affair is a bit limp. If there were just a couple of memorable guitar riffs or vocal hooks....but it was not to be.
You’d think a song called “The Miracle Of Joey Ramone” would get things moving, but instead sounds more like Coldplay doing a wimpy version of U2 — which let’s face it happens quite often. The Edge’s guitar — usually the most colorful section of the U2 sound — sounds as if it’s wrapped in a wool blanket for most of the album. Around track seven it sounds as if Edge is waking up, but aside from a few cuts that recall Adam Clayton’s old metallic bass sound, nothing about this album is interesting. Even Bono sounds incredibly uninspired throughout “Songs Of Innocence.”
In the pages of Rolling Stone Magazine, David Fricke said this album “is a triumph of dynamic, focused renaissance: 11 tracks of straightforward rapture about the life-saving joys of music...” Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and my opinion is David Fricke is either A) kissing the band’s butt because he needs access to them for interviews or B) Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner is such a good friend with Bono he wouldn’t let any of his writers be honest.
U2 have made many great albums and they may make more great ones in the future. Every great band has at least one misstep in their catalog, and this is U2’s. That being said, it’s premature to write the band off. Hopefully the tepid response to “Songs Of Innocence” will inspire the band to greater heights next time around.
Classic album: Close To The Edge
Artist: Yes
Label: Atlantic/Rhino
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
With the punk revolution/media campaign of the late 1970s came the notion that progressive rock was daft. Any band that played more than three chords and bathed more than once a week were deemed pompous and eternally uncool. One of the biggest targets of punk was the band Yes.
Released in 1972, “Close To The Edge” is now regarded as a classic by fans and critics alike. Sure the title track filled up an entire side of the album, but “Close To The Edge” represents that moment when the ambition of progressive music intersected with talent, taste and restraint.
Clocking in at 18 minutes, the title track is the sound of Yes at the top of their game. Propelled by the jazz/rock drumming of Bill Bruford and Chris Squire’s slicing bass work, the track smoothly shifts from quiet passages to explosive crescendos like a well paced movie. Guitarist Steve Howe weaves in styles as diverse as rock, jazz and folk, but in subtle ways that allow the disparate styles to mesh into a totally unique sound.
Vocalist Jon Anderson shines throughout, as does an unusually tasteful Rick Wakeman. Instead of turning the keyboard sections into recreations of his favorite ice cream truck melodies*, Wakeman lays down beds of piano, organ and Moog that are sumptuous without being showy. Wakeman’s interplay with Anderson on the soaring “Siberian Khatru” and the epic “And You And I” is truly sublime.
Yes would go on to make more great albums, but they never hit the bulls eye as perfectly as they did on “Close To The Edge.”
Jon Dawson’s books available at www.jondawson.com.
Jon Dawson’s album reviews appear every Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com.