It almost seems sacreligious to say anything negative about U2,
\nbut I have to commit blasphemy here: Even though I’ve owned
\nOctober<\/i>, the second release from the Irish quartet, for
\nnearly two decades, I still don’t get it.<\/p>\n
While there are some signs of improvement over their debut
\nrelease
\nBoy<\/i>, Bono and crew still seemed to be struggling with just
\nwhere they wanted to take their songwriting on this disc. The end
\nresult is an album that sounds a bit unfinished. (In retrospect,
\nthis seems understandable; recently Bono was reunited with a
\nsuitcase stolen from him 23 years ago, which contained the original
\nideas for many of the songs on this album.)<\/p>\n
\nOctober<\/i> may be best known for the minor hit “Gloria,” which
\nis a somewhat decent attempt at pop, if not a total success. But
\nthe more memorable songs on this disc are the ones which don’t
\nimmediately pop up in the listener’s radar screen. Tracks like
\n“Tomorrow” and “October” dare to turn introspective and act as
\nthought-provoking numbers (though the band leaves the line of
\nthinking up to the listener) without ever sounding overblown or
\npompous.<\/p>\n
If only that had been the strategy for the bulk of the disc. No,
\nI’m not saying that U2 is pompous on this album. (In my mind, that
\nstage was still ahead for them — and this is coming from someone
\nwho
\nlikes<\/i> the band.) Instead, U2 is left awash in
\nhalf-constructed ideas which don’t really seem to have a focused
\ngoal in sight. Take songs like “I Fall Down” and “I Threw A Brick
\nThrough A Window” — easily the dumbest song title U2 ever came up
\nwith. These songs aren’t bad, in all honesty, but they just seem
\nvery listless in their structure and their performance. It’s not
\nthat
\nOctober<\/i> is a bad album, but it never is given a roadmap to
\nfind potential greatness.<\/p>\n
That being said, one does hear the improvements over
\nBoy<\/i>. There seems to be more confidence and maturity in
\nBono’s vocals, and as much as I’m bashing the songwriting, one does
\nnotice steps in the right direction being taken. “Gloria” is growth
\nover “I Will Follow,” for example — better song structure, a few
\nmore chances being taken, and more confident delivery. Likewise, U2
\ndon’t try to be something they’re not by writing lengthy numbers —
\nthe longest track clocks in at just under five minutes — and they
\ndo try to funnel everything down a little more to its musical
\nessence.<\/p>\n
One has to wonder what would have happened had that suitcase
\nnever been stolen from Bono, and how
\nOctober<\/i> would have been affected for good or for bad. As it
\nstands, this disc still remains one for the diehard fans only, but
\nit does have a glimmer of promise for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5708],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-38157","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-u2","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38157"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38157"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}