Word: u2
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...other song ever had so much impact? Do They Know It's Christmas?, the sing-along single recorded by British supergroup Band Aid in 1984 to raise money for starving Ethiopians, was the beginning of a fund-raising phenomenon. The song, which brought together everyone from U2 to Wham! (an achievement in itself), went straight to No. 1 in Britain and raised some $18 million. We Are the World, an even schmaltzier American effort, and the accompanying Live Aid rock concert, which was screened to 1.5 billion people around the globe, raised millions more. Band Aid, the brainchild of scruffy...
...band, the most drugged-out campfire songs you’ve ever heard, and the long-awaited mainstream success of Modest Mouse. This is all on top of new full-lengths of varying quality from such rock warhorses as Sonic Youth, the Beastie Boys, R.E.M. and U2...
SLD’s sound isn’t altogether easy to define; there are elements of Built to Spill, U2 (in the soaring guitar riffs), various pop-punk bands, and even 3 Doors Down. That is to say, SLD favor controlled but nonetheless ragged guitar sounds, driving drums (deceptively light at times), simple bass lines and an singer frequently sounding at his wits end. If any of this sounds unappealing, you probably won’t like this album: SLD has identified their sound and hardly stray from it. There is a certain majesty, a more primal musical essence...
...album suffers from over-writing and over-conceptualizing—U2 has too much to say these days to fit their ideas into concise songs, and thus these songs lose the urgency that characterized U2’s early sound in their sprawling nature. The other persisting problem on the album is the even further emerging figure of Bono. With his personal celebrity aside, he is increasingly becoming the central musical figure of the band, with his vocal twists and turns of phrase more memorable than any guitar hook or bassline, recalling the later albums of another band fronted...
This is not to say that the songwriting is not at times excellent; the band has perfected and patented the formula for a good U2 song, and they show themselves in command of this on How to Dismantle... The songs are individually-wrapped candies that offer a familiar but fulfilling sensation with an ignorable degree of retread. It is short on innovation but immediately appealing in its familiarity, which is enough for now. But it means fans are still waiting for their third wave of reinvention and relevance...