Baby It's A Red Flag Day

December 23, 2017 10:10 PM

Red Flag Day is, I feel, the song that best encapsulates the new U2 album, Songs Of Experience. Inventive arrangements (morphing across the song), the feeling of four guys playing in a band, clarity in the production like never before... It's rock and roll for now, and old U2 fans might appreciate it.
posted by hippybear (26 comments total)

Great song. Like many U2 albums, the non-singles are the best material. Reminds me of the arrangements of the non-hit songs on War. The Pitchfork review asserted they’d copied the song’s sound from the xx, and I realized then they must’ve had a millennial review the album because the sound is so clearly a callback to War. (Also, U2 is one of Pitchfork’s weak points. I can tell you now, knowing nothing about U2’s next album, Pitchfork will pan it.)
posted by eustacescrubb at 10:59 PM on December 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Like many U2 albums, the non-singles are the best material.

QFMFT.
posted by hippybear at 11:06 PM on December 23, 2017

Excellent timing! I just listened to the whole album for the first time today.

You are absolutely right eustacescrubb, the non-singled tracks range from fantastic to solid, and the singles almost all sound better in context with the rest of the album. After enjoying the hell out of the live video verison of The Blackout, the album version sounds oddly sterile, but I still love it.
posted by monopas at 12:07 AM on December 24, 2017

wait there is a new U2 album? why is it not automatically on all of my apple products what the fuck
posted by 7segment at 12:08 AM on December 24, 2017 [12 favorites]

My favourite is still You're The Best Thing About Me. It's just this album's Sweetest Thing. I don't care that it's the lead single of the album. It's still my fave. American Soul is just fantastic though. That bridge...

Put your hands in the air
Hold on the sky
Could be too late, but we still gotta try
There's a moment in our life where a soul can die
And the person in a country when you believe the lie
The lie (the lie, the lie)
There's a promise in the heart of every good dream
It's a call to action, not to fantasy
The end of a dream, the start of what's real
Let it be unity, let it be community
For refugees like you and me
A country to receive us
Will you be our sanctuary
Refu-Jesus

Also, does Summer of Love's opening riff remind anyone else of that riff from Prayer in C?
posted by Talez at 1:25 AM on December 24, 2017

Also, Adam Clayton is still the weak link of the group. I mean, it's bass, but he's just there blending in with the furniture with middling competency.
posted by Talez at 1:28 AM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, Adam Clayton is still the weak link of the group. I mean, it's bass, but he's just there blending in with the furniture with middling competency.

He's no Derek Forbes, that's for sure.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 3:34 AM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Or Dee Murray.
posted by Talez at 4:00 AM on December 24, 2017

My review of Songs of Experience was that it was a perfectly decent album of perfectly fine songs that will sound perfectly good at arena concerts, and I stand by that review.
posted by jscalzi at 4:14 AM on December 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

When Fender released the Adam Clayton signature Jazz Bass a year or two ago, the gag was, it comes in both 2 and 3 string versions.

Tony Levin actually did once have a 3-string bass.
posted by thelonius at 5:28 AM on December 24, 2017 [2 favorites]

He's no Derek Forbes, that's for sure

It's Derek Smalls, I thought.
posted by thelonius at 5:32 AM on December 24, 2017

Remember when they used to make entire albums that sounded like this? I miss that band.
posted by davebush at 6:00 AM on December 24, 2017

Probably the first U2 song to which the National Lifeguard Association will need to issue a rebuttal.
posted by Flashman at 6:17 AM on December 24, 2017

Also, Adam Clayton is still the weak link of the group. I mean, it's bass, but he's just there blending in with the furniture with middling competency.

They were always more of a Larry Mullen project.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 8:03 AM on December 24, 2017

Also, Adam Clayton is still the weak link of the group. I mean,

yeah, if only Geddy Lee had joined them way back when, who knows what levels of popular and critical acclaim they may have attained?
posted by philip-random at 9:58 AM on December 24, 2017

Hating on Adam Clayton, that's some real next-level music criticism.
posted by riverlife at 12:46 PM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

oooooh guys you aren't next-level enough
posted by thelonius at 12:49 PM on December 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Also, U2 is one of Pitchfork’s weak points.

Pitchfork has strong points?
posted by blucevalo at 12:53 PM on December 24, 2017

Pitchfork has strong points?

They correctly picked Outkast's B.O.B. as the best track of the 2000s.
posted by Talez at 3:56 PM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm going to suggest anyone attacking Adam Clayton's bass playing listen to the linked song again, because he's doing really masterful things as far as intent and tone go on this song.

Honestly one of the things I really love about this new album is how the instruments are recorded. Adam sounds more alive and present than at any other recording during their career.
posted by hippybear at 4:53 PM on December 24, 2017 [4 favorites]

Like, honestly, I've been listening to this album a lot recently, and yes Clayton was doing lesser things earlier in the band's career but this album... fucking listen to the thing. Clayton is pretty brilliant across it. He's not Chris Squire fancy, but he's doing more than you give him credit for.
posted by hippybear at 8:01 PM on December 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

Pitchfork has strong points?

I’d say their strong points are reviews of indie and experimental music. Hip-hop reviews are ok but they often praise a lot of meh hip hop - if they held Drake up to the same impossible standard they have for U2 their reviews of his work would be very different, for example.

I agree with hippybear about Clayton’s bass playing. He’s not the same bassist who played on “With Or Without You.” Since he got sober he’s been steadily getting better and better with each record.
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:18 PM on December 24, 2017

Remember when they used to make entire albums that sounded like this? I miss that band.

Me too. And I hesitate to say because he gets so much adoration on MeFi, but I hold Brian Eno singularly responsible for making U2 stop sounding like a guitar/bass/drum/vox 4-piece band. Glad they're back.
posted by rocket88 at 7:26 AM on December 25, 2017

I know it's a total derail, but can I just say how much I miss R.E.M.?
SO. MUCH.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 1:46 PM on December 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

I bet you're the exact right person to do an R.E.M. post, then!
posted by hippybear at 8:13 PM on December 26, 2017

Incoming
posted by thelonius at 3:52 PM on December 27, 2017