Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / U2 At 50: A Retrospective [Episode 325]

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U2 At 50: A Retrospective [Episode 325] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: From boy to the Joshua Tree to Ottune Baby and beyond.
0:03
Speaker 1: We explore fifty years of You Two with author Bradley Morgan. Next,
0:09
Speaker 1: I'm booked on Rock.
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Speaker 2: We're totally booked rock and roll.
0:14
Speaker 3: I think I'll leave you. You're reading. Little Hands says
0:16
Speaker 3: it's time.
0:16
Speaker 1: To rock and roll, roll out.
0:19
Speaker 2: I totally booked.
0:25
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those
0:27
Speaker 1: about to read and rock. We have a returning guest,
0:30
Speaker 1: Bradley Morgan, back on the show. His latest book is
0:32
Speaker 1: titled You Two Until the End of the World. Bradley,
0:36
Speaker 1: great to see you again.
0:37
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me Eric. It's really wonderful
0:39
Speaker 3: to be back.
0:40
Speaker 1: Well to know when the publisher's get a fantastic job
0:42
Speaker 1: laying out this book, you gotta be psyched.
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Speaker 3: It really looks beautiful. I mean, the hardcover is fantastic, fantastic.
0:49
Speaker 3: The photos are bright, crisp and colorful and clear, and
0:53
Speaker 3: they really did a great job of the layout.
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Speaker 1: And you tell the story of you two throughout fifty years.
0:58
Speaker 1: The first chapter titled Another Time, Another Place, with the
1:02
Speaker 1: quote drummer seeks musicians to form band. According to the book,
1:06
Speaker 1: actually we're just over forty nine years from the exact
1:09
Speaker 1: day that the band came together for the first time.
1:11
Speaker 1: We're recording this on October second. It was September twenty
1:14
Speaker 1: sixth of nineteen seventy six. Ben not called You two
1:18
Speaker 1: right away, and there was a fifth member early on.
1:21
Speaker 1: If you could take us back to the origins of
1:22
Speaker 1: You Two.
1:23
Speaker 3: So it's nineteen seventy six in Dublin and it was
1:27
Speaker 3: Larry Mullen Junior, the drummer of You Two, who had
1:29
Speaker 3: posted up that notice up at the school Mount Temple
1:33
Speaker 3: Comprehensive School, and it's where all the members went to YouTube.
1:37
Speaker 3: All the members of You Two went to school there
1:38
Speaker 3: as teenagers. Bono back then was Paul Hewson, the Edge
1:42
Speaker 3: was David Evans, and then you had Adam Clayton to
1:45
Speaker 3: kind of round things out. And they weren't called You
1:48
Speaker 3: two at first when they initially formed. They were feedback
1:51
Speaker 3: because that was really the only musical term they knew,
1:55
Speaker 3: and then they called themselves the Hype and the name
1:59
Speaker 3: You Two actually came from Steve Averil, who went by
2:02
Speaker 3: Steve Rapid. He was a member of the punk group
2:04
Speaker 3: Radiators from Space and it was because the graphic of
2:07
Speaker 3: a letter and a number looked really pleasing on a poster.
2:11
Speaker 3: And as he became on to do all of YouTube's
2:15
Speaker 3: album covers and even become a great graphic designer outside
2:18
Speaker 3: of YouTube, you know, that was a very apt thing
2:21
Speaker 3: for him to put together. And you're right. There was
2:24
Speaker 3: a fifth member at the beginning, Dick Evans, who was
2:27
Speaker 3: the Edge's older brother, And it was on that date
2:30
Speaker 3: you mentioned, September twenty sixth, nineteen seventy six, that they
2:33
Speaker 3: first played together, and they all fitted really tightly into
2:36
Speaker 3: the kitchen of Larry's house, playing whatever covers of bands
2:39
Speaker 3: they liked at the time, t Rex, the Rolling Stones,
2:42
Speaker 3: Bay City Rollers. And during that kitchen rehearsal they were
2:46
Speaker 3: also joined by Ivan McCormick, who was the younger brother
2:49
Speaker 3: of Neil McCormick, one of their friends who would later
2:51
Speaker 3: become the music critic for The Daily Telegraph. But Ivan
2:54
Speaker 3: wouldn't last long, and neither would Dick, because he was
2:57
Speaker 3: a few years older and already in college while the
3:00
Speaker 3: others were still in high school. And you know, at
3:03
Speaker 3: that age, your really world's apart at just a few years,
3:06
Speaker 3: and so he had his own rhythm, his own pace,
3:08
Speaker 3: at that point and didn't quite mesh with the core
3:10
Speaker 3: unit that would develop of Adam Larry David and Paul
3:15
Speaker 3: Adam Larry, Bono and Edge. There was a rehearsal space
3:18
Speaker 3: in the early days called the Yellow House, where the
3:20
Speaker 3: band was called Feedback at the time, met every Saturday,
3:24
Speaker 3: a small cottage in the same graveyard where Bono's mother
3:28
Speaker 3: was buried. How young was Bono when his mother died
3:31
Speaker 3: and how would that affect him as a person, as
3:34
Speaker 3: an artist in the years to come. It really is
3:37
Speaker 3: such a sad story. So Bono was fourteen when his mother,
3:41
Speaker 3: named Iris Houston, passed away, and that is already a
3:45
Speaker 3: difficult thing, especially for a child. But what makes it
3:48
Speaker 3: even more tragic was how it happened. Iris had suffered
3:51
Speaker 3: a brain aneurysm while the family was attending the funeral
3:54
Speaker 3: for her father, so Bono's grandfather, and she had collapsed
3:58
Speaker 3: right in the middle of it. I think she perhaps
4:00
Speaker 3: collapsed as his casket was being lowered, but I'm not
4:04
Speaker 3: exactly too sure. And Bono recalls this in his memoir
4:07
Speaker 3: Surrender and just talking about the experience of seeing her
4:09
Speaker 3: being taken away, and I think he was like seeing
4:12
Speaker 3: like snooker balls, parting, just watching his mother being carried
4:16
Speaker 3: through the crowd, and he turned to music to help
4:20
Speaker 3: deal with that. And you know, with someone who has
4:22
Speaker 3: been performing as long as Bono has, you kind of
4:24
Speaker 3: assume it's something he's always done, you know, but you know,
4:27
Speaker 3: you think he was a singer from the very beginning
4:30
Speaker 3: and that he was encouraged to pursue that. But when
4:33
Speaker 3: Iris was alive, Bono had no musical ambitions and his
4:36
Speaker 3: mother certainly didn't see anything musical within him. But however,
4:40
Speaker 3: he needed a place to channel his grief and anger
4:43
Speaker 3: because his home growing up without his mother just being him,
4:47
Speaker 3: his dad and his brother, it was a place of
4:50
Speaker 3: concentrated male rage where the topic of Iris's passing was
4:54
Speaker 3: just never discussed. And it's something that has been, you know,
4:59
Speaker 3: with him that entire time, because he was an emotionally
5:02
Speaker 3: fragile teenager who needed music to process that grief and
5:05
Speaker 3: his mother became a topic in several songs within YouTube's catalog,
5:09
Speaker 3: and it's even something he revisits, not just in his
5:12
Speaker 3: memoir Surrender, but also in that stage show that he
5:16
Speaker 3: did Stories of Surrender in kind of recalling that and
5:20
Speaker 3: recalling what his relationship was father, growing up in that
5:24
Speaker 3: house without her.
5:25
Speaker 1: And they signed a contract with Island Records during March
5:29
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty and they promised a debut within the
5:31
Speaker 1: first year, and that would be the album Boy, which
5:34
Speaker 1: features the single I Will Follow. It's the only song
5:37
Speaker 1: you two has performed on every tour. What is the
5:39
Speaker 1: song about? And also can you talk about why it's
5:41
Speaker 1: such an important song for the band.
5:43
Speaker 3: I Will Follow is also the track that opens the
5:46
Speaker 3: album Boy, and I think that's a very bold move
5:49
Speaker 3: because it's one of those songs where Bono is processing
5:52
Speaker 3: his grief over losing his mother. It's a song about
5:55
Speaker 3: unconditional love that a mother has for a child and
5:58
Speaker 3: him wrestling with no longer hait that and it's something
6:01
Speaker 3: that he desires so much in the song that the
6:03
Speaker 3: lyrics are about a young boy following his mother into
6:07
Speaker 3: the grave, and that is you know, that's that's tragic
6:10
Speaker 3: to think about when you know, to think of a
6:11
Speaker 3: child wanting to you know, you follow your mother all
6:15
Speaker 3: your life. You know your hand is holding her hand,
6:17
Speaker 3: she leads the way, and when she's no longer there,
6:20
Speaker 3: his instinct is to follow her into that place that
6:24
Speaker 3: he can't go and he's left alone with that.
6:27
Speaker 1: You're right, well, Boy had been recorded in a little
6:30
Speaker 1: over a month, with sessions finishing in September nineteen eighty
6:33
Speaker 1: and would be the quickest You two would ever record
6:35
Speaker 1: an album. Reached number fifty two in the UK sixty
6:38
Speaker 1: three in the US, a solid opening. They followed that
6:41
Speaker 1: with nineteen eighty one's October, which has Fire and Gloria.
6:45
Speaker 1: The Edge assumed the band would work quickly to develop
6:47
Speaker 1: new ideas for songs after touring and building up confidence
6:51
Speaker 1: off of that, but that wasn't so, and making matters
6:54
Speaker 1: worse was an incident in March of nineteen eighty one
6:57
Speaker 1: involving a brave case. What was in that brief case
7:01
Speaker 1: and what happened to it?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so you two were working in a really tight
7:05
Speaker 3: deadline with touring. They weren't really making headway in the UK.
7:08
Speaker 3: So their key to success early on was trying to
7:12
Speaker 3: play these American markets, and it was really tight scheduled
7:17
Speaker 3: doing all these shows and trying to make what would
7:19
Speaker 3: become that second album, October, And so it was a
7:22
Speaker 3: time where a lot of things were just happening really fast,
7:24
Speaker 3: and during a gig in Portland, Bono had a briefcase
7:28
Speaker 3: that was stolen from the band's green room, presumably by
7:31
Speaker 3: a couple of women who came and visited during the show.
7:33
Speaker 3: And this briefcase, among other things like his work visa
7:37
Speaker 3: and letters from Ali, who was his then girlfriend and
7:40
Speaker 3: would become his future wife, this briefcase contained the lyrics
7:44
Speaker 3: and song ideas for what would become October. And naturally,
7:47
Speaker 3: this was an incredibly disruptive thing and Bono had to
7:50
Speaker 3: rewrite a lot of that material from memory. And you
7:54
Speaker 3: can hear this on October because some of the songs
7:57
Speaker 3: sound a little unfinished and more rough than when you
8:00
Speaker 3: listen to Boy Go and listen to Boy and October
8:03
Speaker 3: back to back. There is a lot of thematic overlap
8:07
Speaker 3: and even a lot of sonic overlap because they had
8:10
Speaker 3: to make it very quickly and with less time to
8:12
Speaker 3: get these song ideas together. And even then Bono wasn't
8:15
Speaker 3: much of a songwriter. He talks about songwriting as sketching,
8:19
Speaker 3: just him putting words to music, because they didn't think
8:23
Speaker 3: that lyrics were necessarily so important, and it was an
8:27
Speaker 3: experience that really left an impact on Bono. Whenever the
8:30
Speaker 3: band would play Portland, he would bring up the briefcase
8:32
Speaker 3: hoping someone would return it, which is what happened twenty
8:36
Speaker 3: three years later in two thousand and four, a woman
8:38
Speaker 3: in Tacoma, Washington named Cindy Harris. She had that briefcase
8:43
Speaker 3: in her attic, but didn't know that it was stolen,
8:46
Speaker 3: and so she had made arrangements to give it back
8:49
Speaker 3: to Bono. And there's a story of this. You can
8:52
Speaker 3: read about this in a book of edited essay collections
8:56
Speaker 3: called Exploring You Two, edited by Scott Calhoun, and there
9:00
Speaker 3: actually is a story from the person who returned it
9:03
Speaker 3: telling that it's a really interesting story.
9:06
Speaker 1: Staying with October, You're right. Quote you two's religious convictions
9:09
Speaker 1: can be heard throughout October. It was religion that almost
9:12
Speaker 1: broke up the band early.
9:13
Speaker 3: On right because three of the members of the band, Bono,
9:16
Speaker 3: Edge and Larry were members of an evangelical Christian group
9:20
Speaker 3: called the Shalom Fellowship. Adam was not a member of that.
9:23
Speaker 3: He was not a particularly religious person, and this fellowship
9:26
Speaker 3: was really strict about the proper way to be a Christian.
9:29
Speaker 3: They felt that you had to in order to be
9:31
Speaker 3: a good Christian, had to really dedicate yourselves to their
9:35
Speaker 3: following and their teachings, and the Fellowship kept telling the
9:39
Speaker 3: band that they couldn't be both in a rock group
9:41
Speaker 3: and a faithful follower of Christ at the same time.
9:44
Speaker 3: They had to choose one or the other, and that
9:46
Speaker 3: decision almost tore the band apart. Certainly, the Edge was
9:50
Speaker 3: having a crisis a confidence and told Bono that he
9:53
Speaker 3: was thinking about leaving the band over it, and Bono
9:56
Speaker 3: wanted to support his friend, and because if the Edge
9:58
Speaker 3: wasn't going to be in you two, then was he.
10:00
Speaker 3: And he tells the story in Surrender where he recalls
10:04
Speaker 3: that when they went to tell their manager, Paul McGinnis
10:07
Speaker 3: about quitting the band, Paul McGinnis had told them to
10:11
Speaker 3: ask God whether it was acceptable for them to break
10:13
Speaker 3: a legal contract. So basically you two kept from breaking
10:17
Speaker 3: up because they didn't want to upset God by not
10:18
Speaker 3: fulfilling their contractual obligations, like, oh God, would you know
10:22
Speaker 3: be upset if we broke our promise? And you know,
10:27
Speaker 3: I don't want to belittle that kind of crisis and
10:31
Speaker 3: confidence that they had because growing up in Ireland at
10:33
Speaker 3: that time a very religious country, and you know, them
10:35
Speaker 3: being a part of that environment. I mean, I think
10:38
Speaker 3: it's a struggle that every young person has in terms
10:40
Speaker 3: of trying to navigate their faith in what that means.
10:44
Speaker 3: And they were able to at that time and over
10:47
Speaker 3: the years since kind of process how to juggle being
10:50
Speaker 3: in a band and being you know, a good Christian
10:53
Speaker 3: at the same time. You know, there's a lot of
10:55
Speaker 3: people going to tell you what you should and should
10:57
Speaker 3: it do. And they were impressiable young men, and I
10:59
Speaker 3: think to the benefit of all of their fans, I'm
11:02
Speaker 3: glad they stuck together.
11:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were barely into their twenties, I think at
11:06
Speaker 1: that time.
11:07
Speaker 3: Oh, just teenagers.
11:08
Speaker 1: Teenagers. My first YouTube memories come from the third album
11:12
Speaker 1: War New Year's Day. The video was on all the Time,
11:15
Speaker 1: Two Hearts Beat as One, Sunday Bloody Sunday. Those are
11:18
Speaker 1: the two other singles. NTV played Sunday Bloody Sunday the
11:21
Speaker 1: live version all the Time Steve Lillywhite. He returned for
11:28
Speaker 1: his third producer credit. But you read about how Bono
11:31
Speaker 1: had considered using a different producer for each song to
11:36
Speaker 1: vary the album's sonic flow. It didn't happen. There would
11:40
Speaker 1: be a producer change on the next album, but talk
11:42
Speaker 1: about War. This was the band's first career defining album
11:46
Speaker 1: and it continues to resonate today.
11:48
Speaker 3: Bono did have the idea that every song would be
11:51
Speaker 3: produced by a different producer. That's the kind of break
11:55
Speaker 3: their stride of what they had been doing with Boy
11:58
Speaker 3: in October and on War, there is a track that's
12:01
Speaker 3: not produced by Steve Willie White. It's the Refugee and
12:05
Speaker 3: if you listen to it, it's a very new wave sounding.
12:08
Speaker 3: I really liked that track, but a lot of YouTube
12:10
Speaker 3: fans don't because it sounds.
12:11
Speaker 2: So new wave.
12:12
Speaker 3: But More is really the album that gave you to
12:16
Speaker 3: their breakthrough. The UK music press wasn't paying much attention
12:19
Speaker 3: to them because they were from Ireland, and which is
12:21
Speaker 3: why they toured their first two albums mostly in America,
12:24
Speaker 3: and it was America where they really found their audience.
12:26
Speaker 3: And those singles from the album that you mentioned, Sunday,
12:29
Speaker 3: Bloody Sunday in New Year's Day, We're getting a lot
12:32
Speaker 3: of play on college radio, which certainly helped the album.
12:35
Speaker 3: But when they released their first concert video in support
12:37
Speaker 3: of the War album, which was under a blood Red
12:40
Speaker 3: Sky that was recorded at the Red Rocks, Amphitheater in Colorado.
12:44
Speaker 3: That's where they became a sensation because clips from that
12:46
Speaker 3: video then became heavy rotation MTV, which you saw when
12:50
Speaker 3: you were younger. I mean, it has that performance where
12:53
Speaker 3: Bono's waving that white flag. It really became their first
12:57
Speaker 3: iconic performance, and just that symbol with him and that
13:00
Speaker 3: white flag. It's something that continues to endure in their legacy.
13:04
Speaker 3: Having seen YouTube perform at the Sphere in Las Vegas
13:08
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three, I mean, that white flag appears
13:12
Speaker 3: in some form, you know, in that so it's something
13:14
Speaker 3: that still they carry with them after all this time.
13:17
Speaker 1: Chapter two is titled in God's Country. It leads with
13:20
Speaker 1: quote the start of nineteen eighty four signaled a change
13:22
Speaker 1: in YouTube sound the Unforgettable Fire from nineteen eighty four.
13:26
Speaker 1: It has Pride in the Name of Love, co produced
13:29
Speaker 1: by the team of Daniel Lenois and Brian Eno. What
13:32
Speaker 1: was you two's reason for wanting that sound change.
13:36
Speaker 3: Well, it was after finishing war. You know, the band
13:38
Speaker 3: felt they really had done everything they could with that
13:40
Speaker 3: harder rock, post punk sound, and they felt they they
13:44
Speaker 3: could they had taken as far as they could go.
13:46
Speaker 3: I mean, if they probably continued with that sound, they
13:49
Speaker 3: likely would not have survived as a band. And even
13:51
Speaker 3: when we think of bands from that time who kind
13:53
Speaker 3: of maintain a consistent sound, you know, they're they're still
13:58
Speaker 3: kind of restling on their laurel, you know, for a
14:01
Speaker 3: lot of them, and for them making another album the
14:03
Speaker 3: same sonic aesthetic, which is be too repetitive. And you know,
14:07
Speaker 3: I'm sure it was not an easy decision to move
14:09
Speaker 3: on from that, especially with the success they were now
14:11
Speaker 3: experiencing with War and under a blood red sky. You know.
14:14
Speaker 3: You know, there's that saying, if it's not broken, don't
14:16
Speaker 3: fix it. But they wanted to move on to something else,
14:19
Speaker 3: and I think that's that's a very important thing for
14:21
Speaker 3: artists to do.
14:23
Speaker 1: The dynamic between the band and the producers at the
14:25
Speaker 1: start of recording is fascinating. Bono's quoted in the book
14:29
Speaker 1: about that period. He said, quote with Eno, we discovered
14:31
Speaker 1: the spirit of our music and a confidence in ourselves.
14:35
Speaker 1: The emphasis was on the moment in recording. On the spontaneity,
14:40
Speaker 1: Bono usually came in with lyrics rough lyrics and needed
14:44
Speaker 1: to be constantly singing in order to finish the song
14:48
Speaker 1: that seemed to be tough for the band, but Lenoi
14:51
Speaker 1: and Eno they liked that approach right absolutely.
14:55
Speaker 3: Eno is very much a believer in experimentation and trying
14:58
Speaker 3: new things, which is lastly why they wanted to work
15:01
Speaker 3: with him. And Eno had been integral to other artists
15:03
Speaker 3: who were in transitional periods, like Bowie during his Berlin years,
15:07
Speaker 3: and you two were big fans of Bowie and they're
15:09
Speaker 3: big fans of Roxy music that you know was a
15:11
Speaker 3: part of you know, also produced Peter Gabriel, who they
15:14
Speaker 3: were fans of. And you have to remember that you too,
15:17
Speaker 3: despite being their fourth album, were still fairly young and
15:21
Speaker 3: learning themselves. They had limited experience when they formed. They
15:25
Speaker 3: taught themselves to be a rock band and then decided
15:27
Speaker 3: to essentially start over with this new sonic identity. So
15:32
Speaker 3: there's certainly growing pains that be had with that sort
15:35
Speaker 3: of thing. But when you surround yourself with smart and
15:37
Speaker 3: talented people who can shepherd you through that, you know,
15:40
Speaker 3: you can get a lot of success. And Eno was
15:42
Speaker 3: the right person for them at the right time. And
15:44
Speaker 3: I've heard this joke from critics of U two's music
15:47
Speaker 3: that if you happen to be a fan of U
15:49
Speaker 3: two's music. It's only because you're really a fan of
15:51
Speaker 3: Brian Inoo.
15:53
Speaker 2: On rock podcasts. Will be back after this well.
15:58
Speaker 1: Well waiting, Bradley Morgan, the author of You Two Until
16:03
Speaker 1: the End of the World. Their appearance at Live Aid
16:06
Speaker 1: that sealed the deal. You two had arrived globally with
16:09
Speaker 1: their set, which you know was the band's closer for
16:12
Speaker 1: the Unforgettable Fire tour, and it sets up an even
16:15
Speaker 1: bigger album with Joshua Tree. Unforgettable Fire reached number one
16:18
Speaker 1: in the UK, twelve in the US, but with Joshua
16:21
Speaker 1: Tree number one in eight countries including the US, multiple
16:25
Speaker 1: smash hit singles with or without you, I still haven't
16:27
Speaker 1: found what I'm looking for Where the streets have no Name,
16:30
Speaker 1: And in one Album of the Year at the Grammys,
16:32
Speaker 1: you wrote an entire book on this album, twenty twenty
16:36
Speaker 1: one's Youtubo's The Joshua Tree Planting Roots in Mythic America,
16:40
Speaker 1: and you were on the show to talk about that
16:41
Speaker 1: book so people can find it, talk about how you
16:44
Speaker 1: two's experiences and understanding of America would directly impact the
16:48
Speaker 1: songwriting on The Joshua Tree.
16:51
Speaker 3: So you two, as young lads growing up in Ireland,
16:54
Speaker 3: they had this particular image of America. To them, America
16:57
Speaker 3: was a sort of promised land because it had historically
17:00
Speaker 3: been a refuge for the Irish to escape famine and violence.
17:04
Speaker 3: And at the time when they were growing up in
17:06
Speaker 3: the seventies, Ireland was going through a period of rapid development,
17:13
Speaker 3: you know, small towns being concentrated into cities and too
17:17
Speaker 3: high and into tower buildings, and there was a lot
17:20
Speaker 3: of economic problems. There was a lot of drug problems,
17:23
Speaker 3: other social problems, and so this became sort of a
17:27
Speaker 3: mythic idea for them America. But it was while touring
17:30
Speaker 3: America that they realized that there was a lot more
17:33
Speaker 3: to the country than they had realized. That we as
17:36
Speaker 3: Americans have our own economic and social and political problems
17:39
Speaker 3: that further marginalize the non powerful, you know, specifically like
17:44
Speaker 3: women and people of color. And this idea specifically came
17:47
Speaker 3: from observing Ronald Reagan's presidency and the impact I was
17:50
Speaker 3: having on Americans and people all around the world, whether
17:53
Speaker 3: it be his economic policy you know, labeled as Reaganomics,
17:56
Speaker 3: or the military interventions in El Savador and Nicaragua, and
18:01
Speaker 3: this had a profound impact on them. The edge has
18:04
Speaker 3: even said that they didn't understand their own irishness until
18:07
Speaker 3: they came to America. But however, instead of becoming cynical
18:12
Speaker 3: about that, they wanted to express the full entirety of
18:17
Speaker 3: their feelings about America, like the full America through music
18:20
Speaker 3: and that while there were a lot of problems that
18:23
Speaker 3: they saw, there was a lot of beauty, especially with
18:26
Speaker 3: the landscape, the music, the culture, and they really wanted
18:29
Speaker 3: to elevate and raise this idea that you could admonish
18:32
Speaker 3: something that you love, that you can criticize something that
18:35
Speaker 3: you love. And the album that would become The Joshua
18:38
Speaker 3: Tree was going to reflect that because it was originally
18:40
Speaker 3: going to be called The Two Americas, and the idea
18:43
Speaker 3: was going to represent the dichotomy of life in America.
18:46
Speaker 3: This promised land concept versus the reality dynamic that they
18:50
Speaker 3: had realized while they were touring.
18:53
Speaker 1: And before they reinvented their sound with Octune Baby, there
18:56
Speaker 1: was the release of nineteen eighty eighth Rattle and Harm
18:59
Speaker 1: which is a Lie studio album, a live slash studio
19:02
Speaker 1: album with the companion film. Jimmy Iovine brought in to
19:05
Speaker 1: produce the album Desire Angel of Harlem when Love comes
19:08
Speaker 1: to Town. All I Want is you. They'll come from
19:11
Speaker 1: this album. They reached number one in the UK number
19:13
Speaker 1: three in the US. You write the book quote. Despite
19:16
Speaker 1: the success of The Joshua Tree and its ensuing tour,
19:19
Speaker 1: you two were unable to earn the acclaim their first
19:22
Speaker 1: film Under a blood Red Sky had achieved. Though it
19:24
Speaker 1: became the highest grossing documentary at the time of its release,
19:27
Speaker 1: the film was much maligned by the press. So what
19:30
Speaker 1: were the criticisms and how do you feel about the
19:33
Speaker 1: album and the film.
19:34
Speaker 3: The Joshua Tree was you Two's way of commenting on
19:37
Speaker 3: America and what that meant to them as young men
19:39
Speaker 3: from Ireland, and you two has historically had this issue
19:43
Speaker 3: as a band, you know, throughout their career, and ratal
19:47
Speaker 3: Oahama is certainly the first example of this where they
19:50
Speaker 3: have this issue that once they have an idea they
19:52
Speaker 3: like and works in them, they really push it as
19:55
Speaker 3: far as they can go. So they continue this with
19:58
Speaker 3: Rattle and Humm, but more in a way that really
20:00
Speaker 3: drew out the influence that roots and American blues music
20:03
Speaker 3: was having them at the time, and essentially they were
20:07
Speaker 3: trying to sell American music back to Americans, but through
20:09
Speaker 3: their own lenses and audiences just weren't having it. They
20:13
Speaker 3: knew that music, they knew that sound, they grew up
20:15
Speaker 3: with it. You know. You two was excited saying, look
20:17
Speaker 3: at we discovered, Look how this is influencing us. But
20:20
Speaker 3: Americans had already seen it, and you two had only
20:23
Speaker 3: been releasing music for about eight years at that point.
20:26
Speaker 3: But now here they were covering the Beatles and Bob
20:29
Speaker 3: Dylan playing with BB King, and this left some audiences
20:32
Speaker 3: thinking that you two were placing themselves higher in the
20:34
Speaker 3: cultural hierarchy than many believed they should have at that time,
20:38
Speaker 3: and precisely because they were still relatively new and not
20:40
Speaker 3: the rock and roll Hall of famers we know today.
20:43
Speaker 3: You were asking me, you know, what would happened if
20:45
Speaker 3: they would have continued doing that war sound. Maybe it
20:47
Speaker 3: would have resulted in a similar kind of backlash that
20:50
Speaker 3: Rattle hom experienced and as a result they started to
20:54
Speaker 3: become a bloated show band. Bono talks about this in
20:57
Speaker 3: the documentary From the Sky Down about Raiding Octun Baby
21:01
Speaker 3: in the journey from Rattle and Ham to Octun Baby
21:03
Speaker 3: and and audiences back home in Ireland, he said felt
21:06
Speaker 3: that they were becoming less Irish and more American, almost
21:09
Speaker 3: becoming caricatures, and that was having an effect on the
21:12
Speaker 3: band that made them question what they were doing. And
21:16
Speaker 3: as far as my own feelings about the documentary, I've
21:19
Speaker 3: seen it a few times. I watched it twice for
21:21
Speaker 3: this writing this book, and has his entertaining moments. Certainly,
21:25
Speaker 3: there's this performance of where the Streets Have No Name
21:27
Speaker 3: as an absolute highlight, and it's worth checking out on YouTube.
21:30
Speaker 1: Agreed, Yeah, yeah.
21:32
Speaker 3: It's really cool from Arizona. But also I was a
21:36
Speaker 3: year old when the film came out, so it's legacy
21:39
Speaker 3: was already in the Milu of Utube's history, and I
21:43
Speaker 3: was aware of it by the time i'd seen it.
21:44
Speaker 3: So it's a cultural document that I appreciate, but it's
21:47
Speaker 3: not something that I returned too often with anything with
21:51
Speaker 3: you two. I always gravitate to the music more than
21:53
Speaker 3: I do the video stuff, and there's some really interesting
21:57
Speaker 3: things on that album, certainly the performance, so I still
22:01
Speaker 3: haven't found what I'm looking for with the with the
22:04
Speaker 3: New Voices of Freedom Gospel Choir is an absolute highlight
22:08
Speaker 3: of that, and there are some interesting tracks on their
22:11
Speaker 3: Heartland is kind of a Joshua Tree esque thing that's
22:14
Speaker 3: not as good, but it's still interesting. Dylan plays and
22:18
Speaker 3: performs on Love Rescue Me Desires, a cool single, There
22:22
Speaker 3: are some you know little It's an uneven album, but
22:26
Speaker 3: it's it's a pretty good one.
22:29
Speaker 1: Uneven is the word I was thinking.
22:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:31
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety one's Octune Baby released November nineteen ninety one,
22:35
Speaker 1: another massive hit album with five singles, The Fly the
22:38
Speaker 1: top ten, Mysterious Ways and One the top forty, even
22:43
Speaker 1: better than the Real Thing? And Who's going to Ride
22:45
Speaker 1: Your Wild Horses? A reinvention of You Two? A risk
22:49
Speaker 1: it paid off. How did the critical backlash that You
22:52
Speaker 1: Two received at the close of the eighties influence this album?
22:56
Speaker 3: So after rattling a hum there was a lot of
22:58
Speaker 3: debate in the band about what direction to go in musically.
23:02
Speaker 3: And there is a New Year's Eve performance where Bono said,
23:06
Speaker 3: maybe it's not in New Year's Eve, maybe it's actually
23:07
Speaker 3: like December thirtieth, where he tells the audience that we're
23:10
Speaker 3: going to go back and dream it all up again.
23:12
Speaker 3: And a new decade was dawning and a lot of
23:15
Speaker 3: walls were coming down, revealing new ideas like quite literally.
23:18
Speaker 3: The Berlin wallfell during November nineteen eighty nine, and at
23:22
Speaker 3: the same time there was all this exciting electronic music
23:24
Speaker 3: coming out of Germany and the rest of Europe that
23:26
Speaker 3: was bright, colorful and really signaled like the future possibilities
23:31
Speaker 3: of culture and technology and art. And you two having
23:34
Speaker 3: done everything they could with America as a musical theme,
23:38
Speaker 3: we're now setting their sights on Europe and helping figure
23:41
Speaker 3: out their future, essentially kind of a return to home.
23:44
Speaker 1: Essentially, Tensions within any band is expected at some point,
23:48
Speaker 1: but I guess it surprised me with YouTube because they
23:50
Speaker 1: seemed like they all got along great. But at this
23:52
Speaker 1: time a lot of there's a lot of dissension, a
23:55
Speaker 1: lot there's a lot of fights internally. Bono and Daniel
23:59
Speaker 1: Lenoi almost fought. Adam Clayton had a moment with Bono
24:03
Speaker 1: in the studio he read about he he hainted Bonos
24:07
Speaker 1: bass and basically said, you think you know how to
24:09
Speaker 1: do it, you go ahead and play. So things were
24:11
Speaker 1: getting things were getting tense. They were pretty close to
24:16
Speaker 1: breaking up during those recording sessions.
24:19
Speaker 3: That's right. Things were becoming really tense and the band
24:21
Speaker 3: was close to breaking up over creative differences. Bonno on
24:25
Speaker 3: the Edge wanted to explore a more experimental sound based
24:28
Speaker 3: on the electronic music that they were discovering at that time,
24:31
Speaker 3: bands like km FDM and The Young Gods, while Adam
24:34
Speaker 3: Larry wanted to stay rooted in rock and roll. You know,
24:37
Speaker 3: when they were growing up in Ireland to the seventies,
24:40
Speaker 3: they were kind of limited in what music was available
24:43
Speaker 3: to them, and so there's a lot of bands that
24:48
Speaker 3: maybe we take for granted that you know, they were
24:50
Speaker 3: just hearing and discovering for the first time and trying
24:53
Speaker 3: to figure out how that kind of fits with the
24:54
Speaker 3: core of what they were doing. And it's already difficult
24:57
Speaker 3: enough to figure out and understand what you want when
24:59
Speaker 3: you're unsure yourself in your own direction. I'm sure each
25:02
Speaker 3: of one of them, every single one of them, wasn't
25:05
Speaker 3: confident about the future of you two. But not only
25:08
Speaker 3: to figure that out for yourself, but have to factor
25:09
Speaker 3: in the same thing for three other people, all of them,
25:12
Speaker 3: all of them trying to understand themselves just as much
25:14
Speaker 3: you are with yourself. It can create a lot of
25:16
Speaker 3: tension and frustration. But it was the big breakthrough, The
25:19
Speaker 3: big break breakthrough that got the band through. That was
25:22
Speaker 3: the song one. It came out of a jam and
25:25
Speaker 3: they kind of formulated the song together. They found they
25:28
Speaker 3: found it and it was really what saved them and
25:31
Speaker 3: moved them through finishing the album.
25:34
Speaker 1: And for those who are curious, there are songs that
25:36
Speaker 1: they were working on that they put aside that they
25:40
Speaker 1: had started recording, and they're on YouTube. You can find
25:43
Speaker 1: them right. There are demos there versions, like totally separate
25:48
Speaker 1: songs along with songs that kind of morph into what
25:53
Speaker 1: we hear on Octunebaby, I believe if I remember correctly, Yeah,
25:57
Speaker 1: there are.
25:57
Speaker 3: There's a there's a big set that came out and
25:59
Speaker 3: for the twentyth anniversary that has all that and I
26:02
Speaker 3: think you can even stream.
26:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's on the deluxe edition, the deluxe.
26:05
Speaker 3: Edition, and actually you can stream a lot of that
26:08
Speaker 3: material for the thirtieth anniversary on all the streaming services.
26:13
Speaker 3: The one thing that thirtieth anniversary doesn't have that that
26:16
Speaker 3: twentieth does is there's that Kindergarten set. So it's a
26:19
Speaker 3: whole city of like early demo, it's the entire Octune
26:22
Speaker 3: Baby album, but like the early versions of those songs,
26:25
Speaker 3: and so you can hear those kind of early demos,
26:28
Speaker 3: and you can even hear not demos but final products
26:33
Speaker 3: of new music that they were making. They had made
26:36
Speaker 3: a score to a stage adaptation of a Clarkrook Orange
26:40
Speaker 3: by Anthony de Burgess and that is kind of like
26:44
Speaker 3: got a funky electronic vibe as well, so even before
26:47
Speaker 3: Octune Baby, you got a sense of what direction they
26:50
Speaker 3: were going in. They also contributed a cover of a
26:54
Speaker 3: Cold Porter song for that Red Hot and Blue album
26:57
Speaker 3: that was the benefit of the AIDS crisis, and that's
27:00
Speaker 3: got like a dark electronic vibe as well, and that
27:03
Speaker 3: precedes octog Baby.
27:04
Speaker 1: And there were two different locations recording locations, right yep.
27:08
Speaker 3: They were recorded in Hansa Studios in Berlin, where Bowie
27:12
Speaker 3: had worked back in the seventies. It used to be
27:14
Speaker 3: a vimar Era like ballroom and then it then became
27:18
Speaker 3: a recording studio and then I think they finished it
27:22
Speaker 3: up in Ireland.
27:24
Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this.
27:27
Speaker 3: I mean, there's like no way that we can just
27:28
Speaker 3: pause for a minute. You guys just go home and
27:30
Speaker 3: do your stuff and then tomorrow we can just like continue.
27:35
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, thanks so much. For checking out the Booked
27:37
Speaker 1: on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
27:41
Speaker 1: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
27:44
Speaker 1: and make sure you tell a friend, a family member,
27:46
Speaker 1: share on social media and let people know about Booked
27:49
Speaker 1: on Rock. And if you do like the podcast, make
27:51
Speaker 1: sure you subscribe give a five star review. Wherever you
27:54
Speaker 1: listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, run Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify,
28:00
Speaker 1: tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
28:03
Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
28:05
Speaker 1: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
28:09
Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
28:12
Speaker 1: to the show. As far away as Attune Baby was
28:16
Speaker 1: from You two's eighties roots nineteen ninety three is Zuopa,
28:20
Speaker 1: featuring the single's numb Lemon stay so Far, So Close
28:23
Speaker 1: you say represented YouTube, pushing themselves away from that sound
28:27
Speaker 1: even further than they did on Octoon Baby. Yet the
28:30
Speaker 1: band wasn't done pushing boundaries even further. In nineteen ninety seven,
28:34
Speaker 1: they released pop in It. Bono continues to satirize the media,
28:40
Speaker 1: but more from the intersection of irony and celebrity culture.
28:44
Speaker 1: You're read in the book quote making music influenced by
28:47
Speaker 1: what was happening in dance clubs. Pop also lyrically lampoons
28:51
Speaker 1: the culture by holding a mirror to its face. Discotheque
28:55
Speaker 1: Staring at the Sun, Last Night on Earth, Please, if
28:58
Speaker 1: God will send his Angels and Mofa. Those are all
29:00
Speaker 1: the singles. A lot of singles released, and it initially
29:04
Speaker 1: received favorable reviews from critics. It reached number one in
29:07
Speaker 1: thirty five countries, including the UK and the US, so
29:11
Speaker 1: the numbers were great. However, the album's lifetime sales are
29:16
Speaker 1: among the lowest in Utube's catalog, and it received only
29:19
Speaker 1: a single platinum certification. We talked about how the way
29:23
Speaker 1: the band was perceived by the end of the eighties
29:25
Speaker 1: and how it influenced where they went to start the nineties.
29:28
Speaker 1: Where is the band at in the aftermath of pop?
29:33
Speaker 1: In the massive Zoo TV tour?
29:35
Speaker 3: So just as Roland Hum saw you to push the
29:39
Speaker 3: theme of America and American music inspiring them as far
29:42
Speaker 3: as they could take it, so did they do the
29:44
Speaker 3: same thing with pop and the arrival of the nineteen nineties?
29:48
Speaker 3: Was this exciting time culturally and technologically. The Internet was
29:51
Speaker 3: on its way and the Joshua Tree depicted in black
29:54
Speaker 3: and white, these stone faced men looking serious in the desert.
29:57
Speaker 3: But Octune Baby was about turning that round in full
30:01
Speaker 3: technicolor fanfare, and they kept pushing that throughout the throughout
30:05
Speaker 3: the nineties, and when they toured Octang Baby for Zoo TV,
30:09
Speaker 3: they had constructed a stage that had these giant video
30:12
Speaker 3: screens that played TV programming as a commentary on the
30:15
Speaker 3: saturation of mass media and its influence on our culture
30:19
Speaker 3: and in our environment. But by the time of Pop
30:21
Speaker 3: Martin nineteen ninety eight, which was rushed by the which
30:24
Speaker 3: was rushed by the way that the album pop, they
30:27
Speaker 3: they they didn't finish it to their liking because they
30:30
Speaker 3: had to have these touring commitments. So it was already
30:33
Speaker 3: kind of marred from the start from from the start
30:35
Speaker 3: because it wasn't fully realized, and when they started the
30:38
Speaker 3: tour they hadn't rehearsed a lot of the songs as
30:41
Speaker 3: well as they should have, so there was a lot
30:43
Speaker 3: of problems. But by the time of Pop Martin ninety eight,
30:46
Speaker 3: instead of a bunch of screens, it's now one giant
30:48
Speaker 3: screen flashing pop culture references like Laura Croft, you know,
30:53
Speaker 3: the video game character, and also the band would do
30:56
Speaker 3: things like descent onto the stage, riding inside a giant
30:59
Speaker 3: and Marina marabal Lemon, almost like an Andy Warhol esque
31:03
Speaker 3: parody of mid to late nineties culture. And I don't
31:06
Speaker 3: think a lot of people understood it at the time
31:07
Speaker 3: because it seemed like the joke that had started with
31:10
Speaker 3: Octune Baby and Zoo TV just started to go on
31:12
Speaker 3: for too long. And again, just like with the eighties,
31:15
Speaker 3: them becoming now this showboat American band, they're nearly becoming
31:20
Speaker 3: caricatures of what they were. And since then, over the
31:23
Speaker 3: last thirty years, pop has seen a more positive reevaluation.
31:26
Speaker 3: And I think there are a lot of great things
31:27
Speaker 3: from that part of their career, even if it does
31:30
Speaker 3: at time seem like okay, fellas, we get it. But
31:32
Speaker 3: you know, if they do a kind of release with
31:34
Speaker 3: some extra material from that, I would be really interested
31:37
Speaker 3: in that, or even just like, you know, here's how
31:41
Speaker 3: we originally wanted pop to be if we had the
31:43
Speaker 3: time to do it.
31:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't think they play any songs off
31:46
Speaker 1: of that album on tour live.
31:48
Speaker 3: Not really no. I mean Staring at the Sun perhaps,
31:53
Speaker 3: but not a lot.
31:54
Speaker 1: Of them, which is more like their previous work, so
31:56
Speaker 1: it makes sense that they would do that. But I
31:58
Speaker 1: think the album's got some good moments on it as
32:02
Speaker 1: a whole. Not a huge fan, but boy, there's some
32:05
Speaker 1: songs on there I really love. So I guess if
32:08
Speaker 1: you're a YouTube fan, you can find something in every album.
32:11
Speaker 1: But moving on now to late October two thousand, All
32:15
Speaker 1: that you Can't Leave Behind was released the lead single,
32:18
Speaker 1: Beautiful Day. It has stuck in a moment, you can't
32:20
Speaker 1: get out of elevation and walk on all hit singles.
32:24
Speaker 1: They repossessioned themselves in mainstream music culture. YouTube known for
32:30
Speaker 1: taking risks, but here they proved they knew when it
32:33
Speaker 1: was time to get the train back on the tracks.
32:36
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you feel about this move by
32:38
Speaker 1: the band? I mean, if they recorded another album like
32:40
Speaker 1: pop It, I don't know if they could have recovered
32:43
Speaker 1: from it.
32:44
Speaker 3: So how do I feel about it? I'm a little
32:45
Speaker 3: biased about this because this is my first utwo CD.
32:48
Speaker 3: I bought this at thirteen, and I bought it in Ireland.
32:51
Speaker 3: I bought it in Waterford, Ireland on vacation to visit
32:53
Speaker 3: my family because at thirteen, Beautiful Day was big elevation
32:58
Speaker 3: which had this kind of harder rock remix for the
33:02
Speaker 3: two Raider movie. I mean that was just perfect for me,
33:05
Speaker 3: and I think I was aware of YouTube other than that,
33:08
Speaker 3: but sort of like going to buy my first like
33:11
Speaker 3: my first You two CD, it was that one. So
33:13
Speaker 3: it has a special place in my heart. But looking
33:16
Speaker 3: back on it over the last twenty five years, it's
33:18
Speaker 3: an album that typically gets thought of as YouTube re
33:21
Speaker 3: turning back to basics, but I don't think that's an
33:23
Speaker 3: accurate way to see it. You know, it does represent
33:26
Speaker 3: them moving on and adjusting to the culture as it
33:29
Speaker 3: was at that time. And certainly there are some tracks
33:32
Speaker 3: where you can hear pops lingering electronic influences. Certainly the
33:36
Speaker 3: opening A Beautiful Day, you have a couple like little
33:38
Speaker 3: tonal notes of that electronic work, and even the track
33:42
Speaker 3: New York, which is heavily electronic, does you know, you know,
33:46
Speaker 3: really showcases that. But it the album does things on
33:50
Speaker 3: its own that the earlier albums do not. You could
33:53
Speaker 3: argue that they didn't take as many risks as they
33:55
Speaker 3: had with earlier albums, but the very idea that they
33:58
Speaker 3: were trying to hone a more temporary and a more
34:01
Speaker 3: adult sound that you know is coming with them being
34:04
Speaker 3: men getting older, while not strayed too far from the
34:08
Speaker 3: core of their band, I think is a type of risk.
34:10
Speaker 3: They certainly didn't try to do what they had already
34:12
Speaker 3: done before with that album.
34:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, interesting point, Yeah you rt quote. When you two
34:17
Speaker 1: went back into the studio to record a new album
34:19
Speaker 1: in February of two thousand and three, they wanted to
34:22
Speaker 1: continue the band focus dynamic established during All That You
34:25
Speaker 1: Can't Leave Behind, but also focus on producing a harder
34:28
Speaker 1: rock sound while improving their songwriting, and the result would
34:31
Speaker 1: be the two thousand and four album How Did Dismantle
34:34
Speaker 1: an Atomic Bomb? Vertigo Sometimes you can't make it on
34:37
Speaker 1: your own City of Blinding Lights and all because of
34:40
Speaker 1: you number one in thirty four countries, including the US
34:44
Speaker 1: eight Grammys. But things didn't get off to a great start.
34:47
Speaker 1: The early sessions talk about those with producer Chris Thomas,
34:51
Speaker 1: who had produced The Sex Pistols previously.
34:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they.
34:55
Speaker 3: Wanted to get into this harder rock sound to kind
34:57
Speaker 3: of go to their roots and the music that had
34:59
Speaker 3: inspired them. So they wanted to work with Chris Thomas,
35:01
Speaker 3: who had produced the sex Pistoles because they love the
35:03
Speaker 3: sex Pistoles and they love that album never mind the bollocks,
35:07
Speaker 3: But what ended up being how to dismandle The Atomic
35:10
Speaker 3: Bomb is not that harder rock album. There are certain
35:13
Speaker 3: elements of it, so they pretty much had a complete
35:16
Speaker 3: album ready to go that he produced, but they couldn't
35:19
Speaker 3: get the full band to agree on it. And one
35:21
Speaker 3: thing that sets you two apart from a lot of
35:23
Speaker 3: other bands, and also explains why they've been together for
35:26
Speaker 3: so long, is that they only do things that the
35:28
Speaker 3: whole band agrees and they share everything equally. And with
35:32
Speaker 3: this early version of the Atomic Bomb album, the band
35:35
Speaker 3: was split pretty much as split as they were on
35:37
Speaker 3: the direction of octun Baby Bottom on the edge liked
35:40
Speaker 3: the album, while Larry and Adam felt the songs lacked
35:42
Speaker 3: a certain something like that oomph. They just weren't feeling
35:45
Speaker 3: that oomph. So they reached out to Steve lilly White,
35:48
Speaker 3: to their first producer in somebody whose opinion that they
35:51
Speaker 3: could trust, and he listened to it and he described
35:54
Speaker 3: the album as as having the weight of the world
35:57
Speaker 3: on its shoulders, but that it wasn't any fun. So
36:01
Speaker 3: they went back and worked on it and with Steve
36:03
Speaker 3: producing the album, which he hadn't done since War twenty
36:06
Speaker 3: years earlier.
36:07
Speaker 1: There were sessions with Rick Rubin. Were those What's the
36:11
Speaker 1: story behind that?
36:12
Speaker 3: I don't know a lot of details about it. There
36:15
Speaker 3: are like two singles I think that came out of that.
36:18
Speaker 3: One of them is Windows in the Sky, which appears
36:20
Speaker 3: on the You Two eighteen Singles compilation. And I think
36:25
Speaker 3: it was just a matter of just creative differences in
36:28
Speaker 3: terms of the process. You Two is a band that
36:31
Speaker 3: likes to experiment in the studio. They don't come in
36:34
Speaker 3: with really any solid ideas. They work together until they
36:37
Speaker 3: find a groove or an idea that they like, and
36:40
Speaker 3: they fleshed out from there. From what I understand in
36:43
Speaker 3: terms of Rick Rubin as a producer and the way
36:45
Speaker 3: that he likes to work, is that he wants you
36:47
Speaker 3: to have a solid idea of what you want when
36:49
Speaker 3: you come in, and then he just takes you over
36:51
Speaker 3: the goal line. And I don't think he really messed
36:56
Speaker 3: with their way of working. I don't think they meshed
36:58
Speaker 3: with his way of working and just couldn't come to
37:00
Speaker 3: kind of any kind of agreement. And since over the
37:04
Speaker 3: last twenty years, you know, they haven't released that many albums,
37:08
Speaker 3: and it's because they now they're at a place in
37:10
Speaker 3: their life where they want to spend more time on
37:14
Speaker 3: something until they get it the way that they absolutely want.
37:16
Speaker 3: And I think that's a I think that's a learning
37:19
Speaker 3: experience from the pop debacle. So no one's rushing you
37:22
Speaker 3: to make an album. They make whatever they want to make,
37:25
Speaker 3: you know, good or bad. But they and they want
37:27
Speaker 3: people to understand that. And so that's my that I
37:31
Speaker 3: think that I think that's what happened with them was
37:33
Speaker 3: just that Rick wanted something that was more complete than
37:37
Speaker 3: they came.
37:37
Speaker 1: With, and that was around the time of dismantling Atomic Pop.
37:42
Speaker 3: YEP, a couple years after Okay Yeah.
37:44
Speaker 1: Two thousand and nine's No Line on the Horizon has
37:46
Speaker 1: some of my favorite YouTube songs, including Magnificent and I'll
37:50
Speaker 1: Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight. Also on
37:53
Speaker 1: their get on Your Boots and I'm Missing One other
37:57
Speaker 1: one right.
37:58
Speaker 3: Moment of Surrender.
38:00
Speaker 2: That's it.
38:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. Moment of It was not a single though, was.
38:03
Speaker 1: Not a single, but a great you two song commercial success,
38:08
Speaker 1: debuted at number one in thirty countries, It didn't earn
38:11
Speaker 1: the accolades and acclaim received by the previous two albums,
38:15
Speaker 1: why do you think that.
38:16
Speaker 3: Is well, predominantly the music landscape was changing. Rock as
38:20
Speaker 3: the dominant genre in music for several decades, was losing
38:24
Speaker 3: its place in the cultural hierarchy with the rise of
38:27
Speaker 3: hip hop and rap, and the Internet and the advent
38:30
Speaker 3: of streaming media was changing people's relationships with music, how
38:33
Speaker 3: they consumed it, what they had access to, more options
38:36
Speaker 3: and more availability. And while You two were still a
38:39
Speaker 3: huge touring band, and the U two three sixty tour
38:42
Speaker 3: in support of that album that would become the highest
38:45
Speaker 3: grossing tour at that time, but You two for many
38:47
Speaker 3: young people discovering their musical taste, you know, as teenagers
38:51
Speaker 3: or college students at the time, You two was their
38:53
Speaker 3: dad's favorite band. You know, teenagers thinks to the Internet
38:56
Speaker 3: had more musical outlets than those did when You two
38:58
Speaker 3: was dominating the charts the eighties and nineties, when you
39:01
Speaker 3: had fewer options and opportunities to discover new music.
39:07
Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcasts, will be back after this?
39:10
Speaker 1: Never ever, ever, under any circumstances, say I'll be right back,
39:13
Speaker 1: because you won't be back.
39:14
Speaker 2: I'm getting out of the berrial on one. Yeah, sure,
39:17
Speaker 2: I'll be right back.
39:22
Speaker 1: Find the bookdown rock website at booked on rock dot com.
39:25
Speaker 1: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
39:28
Speaker 1: the latest episode in video and audio links to all
39:31
Speaker 1: of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
39:33
Speaker 1: plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
39:38
Speaker 1: and x. Also check out the Booked on Rock blog.
39:41
Speaker 1: Find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
39:45
Speaker 1: hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
39:47
Speaker 1: the Booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
39:50
Speaker 1: on Rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
39:55
Speaker 1: The music industry drastically changed file sharing eventually services. Their
40:01
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen album, Songs of Innocence was released, and it
40:07
Speaker 1: was free to iTunes customers. This is a well known
40:10
Speaker 1: story you write quote though they were reportedly paid a
40:13
Speaker 1: lump sum and Apple spent one hundred million dollars on
40:16
Speaker 1: marketing for Apple Music in the album. Many musicians and
40:19
Speaker 1: industry experts criticized YouTube for allegedly sending a message to
40:23
Speaker 1: consumers that suggested music should be free as opposed to
40:27
Speaker 1: being purchased as someone's art and livelihood. There was also
40:31
Speaker 1: public outcry accusing Apple and you two of adding music
40:34
Speaker 1: to people's libraries without permission, stemming from an opt in
40:38
Speaker 1: feature on iTunes or in iTunes that automatically enabled music downloads.
40:44
Speaker 1: You two again known for taking risks. Some paid off,
40:47
Speaker 1: some didn't. I'm curious as to what you think about
40:49
Speaker 1: the band's decision doing that. Looking back on it now
40:52
Speaker 1: eleven years later.
40:54
Speaker 3: I think people are thinking about the wrong thing when
40:56
Speaker 3: they talk about the Apple music fiasco with that album,
40:59
Speaker 3: because you know, people pro release, which are largely a
41:04
Speaker 3: lot of YouTube fans, They're like, well, that's a free thing,
41:07
Speaker 3: you know, what does it matter?
41:09
Speaker 1: And I it's whatever.
41:11
Speaker 3: I don't really think about that. But it's the other side.
41:13
Speaker 3: It's this, you know, this side of I didn't give
41:15
Speaker 3: permission for this music to be added to my iTunes. Okay,
41:20
Speaker 3: you signed this giant terms of agreement and usage for
41:23
Speaker 3: a proprietary platform developed on a proprietary device by one
41:28
Speaker 3: of the biggest technology companies in the world. You don't
41:32
Speaker 3: own that. Even the stuff that you purchase on their
41:35
Speaker 3: store digitally, whatever movies or TV shows or music, you
41:38
Speaker 3: really don't own that. And so I think that, you know,
41:43
Speaker 3: people tend to forget that this is not your music collection.
41:47
Speaker 3: It's a it's a collection that's curated in a space
41:49
Speaker 3: that you don't own or control. And so to me,
41:52
Speaker 3: that's the larger thing. And you know, you two can
41:55
Speaker 3: be you know, the punching bags for this, you know,
41:58
Speaker 3: all they want, But it's really the technology companies, really Apple,
42:01
Speaker 3: that really should be getting the criticism, and I don't
42:04
Speaker 3: think they get the criticism enough because you know, I,
42:07
Speaker 3: you know, it's that's the device I have, that's the
42:09
Speaker 3: computer I have, you know, and I like those things.
42:11
Speaker 3: And really, you know, so Apple spent one hundred million
42:17
Speaker 3: dollars marketing this Apple Music app and they needed some
42:20
Speaker 3: big name to sell that, and any other artists I
42:23
Speaker 3: think would have had the same response, whether it be
42:25
Speaker 3: Beyonce or Taylor Swift. I think it would just be
42:29
Speaker 3: a lose lose for the artists in general. And it
42:34
Speaker 3: still kind of coming up eleven years later, it's become
42:37
Speaker 3: to take my wife please of music journalism hacks. I
42:40
Speaker 3: saw this article somewhere on the Joshua Tree that it
42:43
Speaker 3: was it was like a modern review of the Joshua
42:45
Speaker 3: Tree and opened up with this this Apple Music thing,
42:48
Speaker 3: and it was like it was like before the Apple
42:50
Speaker 3: Music fiasco, and what does this twenty fourteen thing have
42:55
Speaker 3: to do with this album from the eighties. It's a
42:57
Speaker 3: very lazy way to frame it. And you know, it's
43:04
Speaker 3: and it's not a bad album. It's actually a pretty
43:06
Speaker 3: decent album. I mean, songs of the album that came afterwards,
43:09
Speaker 3: Songs of Experience is not that creative an album, but
43:11
Speaker 3: Songs of Innocence I think stands and you know, in
43:15
Speaker 3: the top half of their discography for sure, and some
43:19
Speaker 3: critics have some critics have lightened up a bit about
43:21
Speaker 3: that when they saw YouTube play those songs for the
43:24
Speaker 3: Innocence and Experienced tour in twenty fifteen, saying that the
43:28
Speaker 3: release really impacted their views of the songs initially, but
43:31
Speaker 3: when they got to see them live, got to really
43:34
Speaker 3: appreciate the songs for what they were. And so, you know,
43:37
Speaker 3: if you've stopped yourself from listening to that album because
43:41
Speaker 3: of the Apple Music thing, actually, you know, if you're
43:44
Speaker 3: open to if you're open to YouTube, give it a listen.
43:47
Speaker 3: And really, you know, for as much criticism as they
43:51
Speaker 3: as they got for it, I think it worked way
43:54
Speaker 3: in ways that aren't really obvious several of their albums
43:58
Speaker 3: and a compilation went back into like the top forty
44:00
Speaker 3: on the iTunes charts, you know, because they found people
44:04
Speaker 3: who didn't know who they were, who were who was
44:06
Speaker 3: willing to check them out. It was a big risk
44:08
Speaker 3: to say, look, there's you know, as big as you
44:11
Speaker 3: two is, as many people like you too, there's a
44:14
Speaker 3: ton more that don't even know who you two is,
44:16
Speaker 3: and this is a way for them to become aware.
44:20
Speaker 3: And I think just that awareness is a type of success.
44:24
Speaker 3: Was it a bad decision? I mean, I don't really know.
44:27
Speaker 3: I think it's I think bands, especially legacy bands, are
44:30
Speaker 3: struggling with how to get their music out there.
44:34
Speaker 2: You know.
44:35
Speaker 3: Certainly like you know, uh, you know, like The Cure
44:38
Speaker 3: is Is is a band that has to constantly tour,
44:41
Speaker 3: you know, in order to be successful. So it's I'm
44:44
Speaker 3: a little softer on it than I than the critics are.
44:48
Speaker 3: But I think generally the framing is wrong. It's the
44:51
Speaker 3: if you the onus needs to be on Apple and
44:55
Speaker 3: not this idea that oh I own my iTunes library.
44:59
Speaker 1: Every Breaking Way is a song that's held up very well.
45:02
Speaker 1: That's one of the best latter era YouTube songs. And
45:05
Speaker 1: that does have Iris the song Iris about Bono's mother
45:09
Speaker 1: on there. Miracle of Joey ramone song for Someone, another
45:15
Speaker 1: great one Raised by Wolves I was always a fan of.
45:18
Speaker 1: So definitely worth Sleep like a Baby Tonight is another one. Yeah,
45:21
Speaker 1: it's definitely worth giving a listen. If if there's anybody
45:25
Speaker 1: that's listening to this that kind of gave up on
45:26
Speaker 1: YouTube because of it, go and listen to that album.
45:29
Speaker 1: Now you lead Chapter five, which is titled Love is
45:33
Speaker 1: All We Have Left with quote the new millenniums saw
45:36
Speaker 1: YouTube enter an era in which they could look back
45:38
Speaker 1: on their career while still defining it. Songs of Innocence
45:42
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen explores the band member's adolescent years in nineteen
45:45
Speaker 1: seventies Ireland, Songs of Experience in twenty seventeen that gets
45:49
Speaker 1: into the more mature themes of loss and mortality, and
45:53
Speaker 1: Songs of Surrender in twenty twenty three, a collection of
45:56
Speaker 1: forty re recorded and reimagined songs from the band's history,
45:59
Speaker 1: reflecting on their past to understand their present and future.
46:03
Speaker 1: You Too recently had a successful residency in Las Vegas
46:06
Speaker 1: at the Sphere, which you said you were one show.
46:09
Speaker 3: Did you go to I would. It was, yeah, the
46:11
Speaker 3: U two UV in October. I can't remember what number
46:14
Speaker 3: show it was, but yeah, it was a great experience.
46:17
Speaker 3: It was in October of that of twenty twenty three.
46:19
Speaker 1: Okay, so that was towards the beginning of it, because
46:21
Speaker 1: it started in September of twenty twenty three, went to
46:24
Speaker 1: March twenty twenty four. And you right at the end
46:27
Speaker 1: of the book quote, after fifty years performing as a band,
46:30
Speaker 1: you two show no signs of standing still. What do
46:32
Speaker 1: you think the future holds for you two? What do
46:34
Speaker 1: you hope for?
46:35
Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm looking forward to finding out.
46:38
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm looking forward to finding out
46:40
Speaker 3: what they're going to do. And I don't really have
46:44
Speaker 3: anything I'm hopeful for. But it's rather that I'm just
46:47
Speaker 3: glad they're still around doing the stuff. I never really
46:49
Speaker 3: care when people tell me they don't like you two,
46:51
Speaker 3: or that they're not good anymore. It's like, who cares?
46:53
Speaker 3: You know, the great albums are still great, and I
46:55
Speaker 3: think it's inspiring to see a group of friends still
46:58
Speaker 3: going strong after fifty years, because no other band has
47:00
Speaker 3: accomplished that. They are the longest running band with no
47:04
Speaker 3: lineup changes. And they've been smart for the most part
47:06
Speaker 3: about how they handle their legacy. And they've been an
47:09
Speaker 3: important part of my life for twenty five years, and
47:11
Speaker 3: I'm very thankful to them for the music and memory
47:14
Speaker 3: of the years. And so they could do what they
47:15
Speaker 3: want and I could choose to listen if I want,
47:17
Speaker 3: and I think that's quite a nice arrangement.
47:19
Speaker 1: Perfectly stated. I feel the same way I said. I
47:23
Speaker 1: was just saying to somebody the other day, I said,
47:25
Speaker 1: some of these artists like a YouTube are ones that
47:27
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of, that I've been a fan of,
47:28
Speaker 1: that have been a part of my life.
47:30
Speaker 2: As you said, they.
47:31
Speaker 1: Could literally fall flat on stage, and that doesn't change
47:35
Speaker 1: what they did before. So and everybody loves the Levy
47:38
Speaker 1: loves on Nowadays they go to YouTube and they like
47:41
Speaker 1: to poke fun at these artists and how they sound
47:44
Speaker 1: and how they look, and it's just I try not
47:46
Speaker 1: to even look at the comments anymore because these are
47:49
Speaker 1: once these bands are gone, and these artists are gone.
47:53
Speaker 1: You know, there never will be another like them, and
47:55
Speaker 1: you too, is absolutely just the body of work is
48:00
Speaker 1: second to none. I'm a huge fan. So in this
48:03
Speaker 1: book here you too, until the end of the world.
48:06
Speaker 1: It's out October seven. You said that's correct, Okay, October seven.
48:12
Speaker 1: Go out and get a copy wherever books are sold,
48:15
Speaker 1: look forward at your nearest independent bookstore. If you want
48:18
Speaker 1: to find your nearest independent bookstore, go to book down
48:20
Speaker 1: Rock dot com. And where can people find you online?
48:22
Speaker 2: Bradley.
48:23
Speaker 3: My website is Bradleydashmorgan dot com. You can also find
48:26
Speaker 3: me on blue Sky and Twitter at Bradley Morgan. I'm
48:30
Speaker 3: pretty easy to find.
48:31
Speaker 1: Awesome, Bradley, Thanks again, it was great seeing you. Great
48:34
Speaker 1: to have you back on.
48:36
Speaker 3: Really appreciate the opportunity. Eric, thank you so much.
48:45
Speaker 2: That's it. It's in the books.