U2 - "You're The Best Thing About Me" and "The Blackout"

In case you didn't already know...I'm a huge U2 fan. They're one of the few bands from whom a music release of any kind feels like Christmas to me. The way they express their Christian faith in a nuanced and unique way, their sense of melody, their versatility and inventiveness in creating different sound textures for their songs....I could go on saying good things about them all day. In my book, they're the greatest band of all time.

So a few weeks ago, when they announced they were sharing new music really soon, I got really excited. I was a caught a little off-guard, actually, because they were still on their The Joshua Tree Tour in celebration of the 30th anniversary of that album (a tour which I was kind of annoyed by precisely because it seemed like it was prolonging the wait for new music from them). I didn't expect them to drop new music while that tour was still going on. So it felt like an extra-special Christmas gift.

On August 30th, they debuted the song "The Blackout" through a Facebook Live video (which, by the way, clearly wasn't live...not sure how that works or why they decided to do it that way) of a live (at the time) performance of the song.

It's a song that's clearly a jab at Donald Trump and has some sly and rueful commentary in the verses, but posits a message of optimism against a dark backdrop of groaning guitar in the chorus. It's probably one of the grittiest rock songs they've done (up there with the darker stuff on Achtung Baby and the punkish "Vertigo" and "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)")...and yet, it's also a super-tight piece of songwriting in the pop song form--a really catchy chorus and neat, communicative verses. Bono sounded better than I'd heard him in five or so years. I was in love.

I was even more excited for the impending release of "You're The Best Thing About Me", which the band advertised would be their lead single for their upcoming album, Songs of Experience. I had already gotten a taste of this song about a year ago, because they had apparently commissioned Kygo to make a dance remix back then and allowed him to play it at an electronic music festival, a recording of which spread around the internet. From what I'd heard of that, I was already in love with the songwriting. It was a beautifully succinct yet profound lyrical concept...wonderfully romantic, evocative of a Christian view of romantic love, of two fleshes becoming one, the push and pull of opposite personalities in a relationship...and probably as U2ish as U2 ideas get. I had high hopes for a band version.

When I finally got to hear the song when they released it on September 6th, I was a bit shocked at what I heard. The version they released didn't feel right--it didn't even really feel like a recording that should have been released by any professional band. There were weird things with the mix...Bono's voice sounded kind of different between the verse and chorus. The transitions between different parts of the song sounded kind of sloppy and undercooked. And I'm pretty sure they could have gotten a better vocal take out of Bono than the kinda shouty one they used for the opening lines of the song.

To show you how much of a fanboy I am: I was so distraught by this whole thing that I literally texted a friend (who is also a U2 fan) to express my grievances. It was almost like, this can't be how U2 presents itself to the world for this album, can it? I thought they were going to come to everyone with this song and be champions, show everyone that they can make a great pop song despite being nearly 60? Will this seal the deal on them being a cultural punching bag? And don't I get a legitimate version of this song that I know I love underneath all of this weird production?

To my relief...they ended up releasing the official Kygo remix a week later. And man, do I like it so much better than the original. Such a better sense of dynamics in transitioning between song sections with a nice breakdown in the pre-chorus rather than a weird, off-beat quarter note tambourine slog. Bono's vocals sound way better (this sounds like a different take! Why was this take not used in the original?). The guitar part that's featured as a really strange, kind of empty-feeling solo in the original is reassigned to a role as a rhythm part, as it should be. And the sound of the mix itself just feels like it fits the sentimental tone of the song better.

So at this point, above all, I'm just happy I got a version of this song that I like, and I'm thankful to my U2 boys for delivering the songwriting goods once again. But I do have this thought of, man, I really wish they could have figured out a way to spend a little more time coming up with a hybrid of the Kygo mix and a band arrangment, similarly to how Chris Martin had explained (in a video for Beats by Dre that apparently doesn't exist online anymore--what the hell, Beats by Dre?) that Coldplay had done with Avicii for "A Sky Full Of Stars". And really, would it have been that hard? All they would have had to do would have been to put in some more live-recorded drums in the track, and they could have produced them to sound beefier...but the remix already has some fairly real-sounding drums...it's not as if it's all 808 sounds. Take out the vocal splice sections and replace them with (shorter?) guitar solos. Stick that missing bridge section in there. And you're basically done. I really wonder what goes through their head with this kind of stuff. They really seem to like dance music and they love commissioning dance remixes. Do they think they just can't pull off releasing something that dance-y and poppy straight up as the official version of their song without the cover of it being a remix? Do they think they'll be panned by critics as trend-chasing and being a bunch of old guys desperate for relevance? Or that their older fanbase will be outraged? From my perspective, if it was a really bad song and they did that, then sure...that could likely happen. But for this song? I think it would have gone over really well, and a lot of people would have been very impressed...even some baby boomers.

Oh well. Hopefully the dance remix will overtake the original version in number of worldwide streams and you'll finally learn your lesson, U2.

But anyway...you're still the best. Looking forward to Songs of Experience.

"Don't Dream It's Over" performed by The Head and The Heart, originally by Crowded House

This one popped up on my Release Radar playlist on Spotify.

This song is funny with me...I like the spirit and message of it, and I'm a fan of longer, ambitious choruses that still make sense and fit, which this song has. But for some reason, up until last year, I'd always just kind of filed this song away as this kind of jazzy, arty, stuffy song that didn't do much for me.

Then Neil Finn from Crowded House was a guest on the Nerdist podcast at the end of last year, and there was a live performance included in the episode, which got me into the song a little more.

I found a version from Sixpence None The Richer not too long after that that I kind of liked more than the original version. This new version by The Head and The Heart is probably the best version I've heard so far. I think I'd really like to hear a version that messes with the chords a little and gets rid of that lounge-y feel...something a little more punk.

Lyrically, the biggest standout detail, which Finn highlighted himself in the live performance heard on that Nerdist podcast episode: "When the world comes in \ They come, they come \ To build a wall between us \ We know they won't win" turns out to be a pretty relevant piece of writing all this time later in the year 2017, for better or worse.

"Shop Around" by The Miracles (#500 in Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time)

Listened to this (consciously) for the first time for this post.

Surprising advice to hear coming out of the year 1960...I mean, I guess this was around the time the sexual revolution was getting going, but to my ear this sounds like a sentiment that's very contemporary, whereas I imagine the past as being more about getting married ASAP. I guess the lyrics are still innocent enough...today's version would probably be called “You Can Always Take It Back” or “Keep The Receipt”...hmmm.

I like the sort of hard-hitting, short, front-loaded chorus...interesting that they're able to get the chorus in basically four times in less than three minutes.

Overall the song feels like a tight and compact work around a solid theme...straightforward enough to easily understand but clever enough that it's fun. I would dance to this. Seems like a good number to get all the single people out on the floor.

I like it. 4 out of 5 stars.

Welcome to my blog. Here's an intro.

What's up? I'm Brad. If you're reading this, you're probably a friend who found this blog through Facebook.

Music is a huge part of my life. I've got some musical ambitions of my own that I'm slowly making progress on...but I won't get too far into that here.

I listen to a ton of music, but most of it falls within the confines of pop, rock, alternative and folk from the 1980s to the present day, with a healthy knowledge of classic rock hits going back to the 60s. But I wanted to do something to increase my knowledge of older popular music...so I thought doing a blog based around listening to Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and writing about them might be a good way to do it.

Then, I thought...why not just make it a blog about thoughts I have about songs in general?

I have lots of thoughts about music in general, and many years back I'd sort of tried to start a music blog. I kind of stopped because I just got busy and didn't care enough about it. Looking back I can see that I was really unfocused and, uh, very inexperienced in developing ideas...there were two posts about a very undercooked idea of an extremely fanciful, hypothetical type of technology. It was too much freedom and I had no idea what I wanted to do with it.

Since then, I'd had thoughts about writing about music, but I countered it in my mind with, "I don't want to become known for writing about other people's songs...I want to become known for writing great songs myself."

And that's still true--I haven't given up that ghost.

But it's fun to write about music. And I don't feel a need to make this a huge thing.

Just a repository for some of the many opinions I have. We'll see how it goes.

So I'll do the Rolling Stone's Greatest 500 Songs of All Time thing, starting from 500 and working my way down, trying to do one per day, but giving myself some leeway and just taking however long it takes. And then if I happen to have some thoughts on any other songs that capture my attention, I'll write about those too.

Hope you enjoy whatever small insights into music you might gain. I'm not setting out to do any groundbreaking writing here though, and I will likely sound pretty naive about a lot of things--ha!