This is the second part of the U2: Retrospective. You are not allowed to view links.
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Login After listening to the album now, in the present day, the main part of each post will be to vote for your three favorite songs from each album. The next parts can be optional (well, the whole thing is “optional”), but I’ll structure my posts like this:
• When did I first listen to that album? What is my history with the album?
• How do I feel about the album when I listen to it today, versus how I’ve felt about the album in the past?
Top three songs: “Gloria,” “Tomorrow, and “Is That All?”
I can begin all of my retrospectives for the first few albums the same way… Ahem… Soooo… I initially heard
October sometime in 1989-1990, after I started to become a bigfanTM and was going through U2’s back catalogue. When I was doing this (what a great time! hearing a “new” U2 album every couple of months in less than a year’s span!), what I remember most about
October is that I listened to it incessantly after I bought it. Then it just sort of faded away. This is in contrast to the other U2 albums from that time, where I’d listen to them, and then they’d keep growing and growing on me. I’ve historically listed
October as my least favorite U2 album. That being said, I like all U2 albums…
Hearing the album again this week, after recently listening to
Boy I was struck by how “Gloria” and other songs on the album are more evolutionary steps than I give them credit for. Every member of the band plays a vital role. I’ve always loved that song quite a bit. Other things I noticed… I’ve NEVER been a fan of “I Threw a Brick Through a Window.” But listening again, there are a lot of interesting things going on that I couldn’t remember. I’ll revisit that one. On the flip side, if I don’t hear “I Fall Down” or “Fire” again for ten years, I think I’d be “okay.” On the flip-flip side, I forget how special of a song “Scarlet” is, and I’ve always been in the minority around here to like “Is That All?”
On
October, The Edge starts to mess around on some keyboards and seems to have upped his level of “echo” on the guitar a couple notches. Adam got a bit more funky. Larry is on the cusp of coming into his own signature sound. Vocally, Bono delivers with increased passion from the previous album. Lyrically he’s not quite as sharp, but we all know about the briefcase full of lyrics story… He sings about adolescence on the first album, then God on the second. Directly and without allusion. I saw this album at a Christian book store in the early ‘90s and thought it was bizarre (both myself being in the store and the album, actually). But then again, not really.
I remember sitting in my room after I first became a fan, listening to concert bootlegs… Listening to some of these songs being performed live and thought of them as weighty classics… As U2 were making a name for themselves as a live band in the mid ‘80s, these songs were essential. To me, U2 music doesn’t typically sound as dated as some other bands songs do. I always presumed it was because their sound is so unique. But this album might actually sound a bit dated, in parts, for me. And though it’s not my favorite, there’s still plenty to like.
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