Note to Marks & Spencer: Whispering over the top of slow motion footage of food doesn't make it tast...
Note to Marks & Spencer: Whispering over the top of slow motion footage of food doesn't make it tastier or any less fattening.
Member since:22.05.2004
Reviews:143
Members who trust:153
OVERVIEW ---------------
I can see that it's been over three years since the last review of probably MY favourite ever rock album. Released in 1988, let's see how it all stacks up in 2004:
CONCEPT ---------------------
This album includes live hits from their world tour of 1988 to promote the previous year's "Joshua Tree" album. New tracks written and recorded on the road are also included in "studio form". A live track followed by a studio track makes for uneven listening at times, but don't let that minor criticism put you off. The live tracks ("Pride", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") are electrifying and breathe new life into them. The previously unheard tracks are generally ace. Here's a breakdown of the tracks with marks out of five.
HELTER SKELTER -------------------------- A live cover of the Beatles cut from "The White Album". It starts with Bono informing, "here's a song Charles Manson stole from Beatles. We're stealing it back". I was 16 when this album was released and didn't have clue what he was bloody going on about. It was a further twelve years until I found out! A blistering version of a song I've never really liked but Bono screaming "then you see me go" is the highlight. (3/5)
VAN DIEMEN'S LAND ----------------------------- A collector's item, this. The vocal is done by a nervous-sounding Edge over a sole electric guitar. It picks up in the third verse, and what you initially perceive to be a bad idea turns out to be one of "Rattle And Hum's" highlights. The best music
always works out that way. (4/5)
DESIRE ----------- The third new recording in a row, the first single release from this album and U2's first ever UK number one. I hate it. A Bo Diddley/50's skiffle rhythm informs the whole track and I feel this is possibly their worst single. Too much heavy breathing too! (2/5)
HAWKMOON 269 ------------------------ Starting with a fairground wurlitzer and a bang on a bass drum, this track builds to a crescendo six minutes later with everything kicking off: Bono's screams, Edge's piercing blues motif. Using analogies as to why Bono is so desperate for Hawkmooon ("Like a desert needs rain/Like a town needs a name/Hawkmoon, I need your love"), naff lyrics aside, this is a stunner. The crescendo saves the day. (4/5)
ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER --------------------------------------------- A live version of the Dylan tune and quite reasonably performed but there's no real PASSION. It certainly doesn't bring anything new to the party. Cynics could be forgiven at this point for thinking there was nothing left in U2's tank, but wait! (2/5)
I STILL HAVEN'T FOUND WHAT I'M LOOKING -------------------------------------------------------------FOR ----- This was never one of my favourite U2 tracks and I was very sceptical about how a live version would sound - especially of one clocking in at over 6 minutes. But I wasn't reckoning on the Harlem Gospel Community Choir turning the whole thing in a fealty to the Lord. The first two minutes feature Bono, the choir and a tambourine! No, really. The rest builds up into something approaching aural heaven as the rest of the band weigh in with the second best live track on this album. Divine (and I'm an aetheist). (5/5)
SILVER AND GOLD -------------------------- The start of a glut of cracking new material. I read and a lot about "spine-tingling" moments in music or songs making people cry and I used to urge these people to stop being so soft - until I heard this track. The spine-tingling moment comes about three quarters of the way in. After Bono has preached a dated sermon about apartheid and the west failing to support characters like Desmond Tutu, he asks the crowd: "Am I bugging ya? I don't mean to bug ya. OK, Edge, play the blues". And it's after the world "blues" that Adam's drums thump in and the Edge hammers out a shrill riff that just gets me every time. It all works so well. (5/5)
PRIDE (IN THE NAME OF LOVE) -------------------------------------------- Many people discovered U2 after this track. This is a sturdy live version of their ode to Martin Luther King. There's a strange bit at the beginning where the crowd doesn't instantly recognise the song and only until the second riff kicks in do they go wild. Very odd these Americans. (4/5)
ANGEL OF HARLEM --------------------------- One of the new tracks lifted from the album as a single. It's all about Billie Holiday ("Lady Day got diamond eyes" etc). Odd for a rock act like U2, it has a late 60's northern soul rhythm to it. Characteristically, Bono's in his element but you can hardly hear Edge over the soul horns that permeate this fine, if overexposed, track. (3/5)
LOVE RESCUE ME -------------------------- A country ballad. That's how best to describe this tune. Bono sounds distant and echoey and Edge's slide guitar weaves in and out of a forlorn tale of longing. Fans hoping for the tree-hugging of The Joshua Tree or offbeat anti-apartheid of The Unforgettable Fire will be disappointed. (3/5)
WHEN LOVE COMES TO TOWN -------------------------------------------- Another derivative black music hook-up, and another single release. BB King guests on this storming blues-rock workout and, for once, Bono is largely underwhelming. He appears to have met his match! (4/5)
HEARTLAND ------------------ Very much what U2's fans were expecting after the Joshua Tree. This slow burning, jangly epic would have fitted proudly on their 1987 monster and is an underrated track on this great album. It's subtlety sometimes gets lost amid the bluster of the live tracks and "Hawkmoon 269", but certainly worth checking out for the reappearance of Bono's falsetto near the end (last heard on "Bad" at Live Aid). (4/5)
GOD PART II ------------------ A quiet/loud/quiet track and very much an inspiration for the Foo Fighters ten years later! A real rip-roarer that references Lennon, Goldman, cocaine, speedballs and the Devil. Another use of analogies and the lyrics' use of opposites ("don't believe in excess/success is to give/don't believe in riches/but you should see where I live!") is very clever. My favourite track on the album. (5/5)
BULLET THE BLUE SKY ---------------------------------- An extended live version of the best non-single on the Joshua Tree. The drums are thunderous, Bono's voice steps up a gear and attains Herculean status and everything is just.....HUGE. Part spoken-monologue, part descriptive singing this was always a great track and in the forboding US arena setting it becomes simply stunning. (5/5)
ALL I WANT IS YOU -------------------------- Similar in many ways to the tact and sublety of "Heartland" and very much a precursor to "One" from their next album, "Achtung Baby". A gentle rhythm never takes off and there's no huge, stadium-sized crescendo as on other tracks on this album. 14 years later this was to covered by Irish girl-group, Bellefire, to disastrous effect. A pity. (3/5)
SUMMARY -------------- Duran Duran did this with "Arena" and the half live/half studio album is an effect that best matches U2's standing in rock music. It would be three years, and a temporary move to Berlin, before 1991's "Achtung Baby" would divide their loyal fanbase. Those wishing for epic soundscapes and Edge's jangly guitar will be happy here. Others looking for experimentation, should seek out "Achtung Baby" or even "Zooropa". Happy listening!
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A concert movie on an unprecedented scale, Rattle And Hum captures U2 - on and off the ... more
stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolor stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows, this is U2 at...
A concert movie on an unprecedented scale, Rattle And Hum captures U2 - on and off the ... more
stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolor stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows, this is U2 at...
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