Album of the day (#2581): How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

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craola
crayon master



Location: pdx
United States

  • #71
  • Posted: 01/09/2018 23:26
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boyd94 wrote:
a kind cynicism that was so earnest it defeated itself.

well put.
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rkm





  • #72
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 00:04
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There's a kind of comfort in cynicism or fatalism for the realist, but for the idealist, anything short of endlessly hoping feels like death. This is the ground that Bono occupies: acknowledging pain but always bringing hope to the equation. I need that glass half full thing, because I don't possess it. I don't need blind optimism though, it needs to acknowledge the difficulty of life and attempt to make sense of it.

I think in this tune, and in other places, he's conflating sexual desire with spiritual longing, and conversely, that the love and grace of a woman can be a type of salvation in itself.


Excerpts from A MAN AND A WOMAN

True love never can be rent
But only true love can keep beauty innocent

You can run from love
And if it's really love it will find you
Catch you by the heel
But you can't be numb for love
The only pain is to feel nothing at all
How can I hurt when I'm holding you?

And you're the one, there's no-one else
You make me want to lose myself
In the mysterious distance
Between a man and a woman

I've been sleeping in the street again
Like a stray dog
I've been trying to feel complete again
But you're gone and so is God

The soul needs beauty for a soul mate
When the soul wants, the soul waits
For love and sex and faith and fear
And all the things that keep us here
In the mysterious distance
Between a man and a woman

How can I hurt when I'm holding you?
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AfterHours



Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

  • #73
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 00:36
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rkm wrote:
I think in this tune, and in other places, he's conflating sexual desire with spiritual longing, and conversely, that the love and grace of a woman can be a type of salvation in itself.


Perhaps this is what is being said/relayed. But why is this so significant in and of itself? Do you think this is expressed in ways that truly stands out to his contemporaries or to history? In as extraordinary and profoundly moving and powerful ways -- or even remotely close -- as, say... Van Morrison's Astral Weeks? Tim Buckley's Starsailor/Lorca/Happy Sad? Red House Painters (Rollercoaster album, especially, for these themes) ? Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata? In the Aeroplane Over the Sea? Blonde On Blonde (particularly Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands) ? Robbie Basho's Venus in Cancer? ...etc...
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rkm





  • #74
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 01:57
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AfterHours wrote:
Perhaps this is what is being said/relayed. But why is this so significant in and of itself? Do you think this is expressed in ways that truly stands out to his contemporaries or to history? In as extraordinary and profoundly moving and powerful ways -- or even remotely close -- as, say... Van Morrison's Astral Weeks? Tim Buckley's Starsailor/Lorca/Happy Sad? Red House Painters (Rollercoaster album, especially, for these themes) ? Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata? In the Aeroplane Over the Sea? Blonde On Blonde (particularly Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands) ? Robbie Basho's Venus in Cancer? ...etc...


I can't tell you how much I love Astral Weeks. However, I don't want to get into comparisons, because as soon as you declare something superior, it's easy to then dismiss the other work as worthless. Instead, what I'm trying to do here is move you from declaring the album is "Hilariously bad, superficial, arena rock -- just going through the motions and anthemic posturings... " to a position of considering that the album might have more depth than you gave it credit for, that it might have worth.
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rkm





  • #75
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 02:28
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AfterHours wrote:

Perhaps this is what is being said/relayed. But why is this so significant in and of itself? Do you think this is expressed in ways that truly stands out to his contemporaries or to history? In as extraordinary and profoundly moving and powerful ways -- or even remotely close -- as, say... Van Morrison's Astral Weeks? Tim Buckley's Starsailor/Lorca/Happy Sad? Red House Painters (Rollercoaster album, especially, for these themes) ? Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata? In the Aeroplane Over the Sea? Blonde On Blonde (particularly Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands) ? Robbie Basho's Venus in Cancer? ...etc...


Why is it significant? In my opinion, a good album has songs that inform other songs in a way where the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. In the context of the album, and the way it relates to other songs, the significance is that it's answering a question.

I talked about "Vertigo" being an allusion to the temptation of Christ. In that story, The tempter was offering Christ things that were essentially already his, if he wanted them, but twisting them.

In "A Man and a Woman" above, there's a passage I left out:

Brown eyed girl across the street
On rue Saint Divine
I thought this is the one for me
But she was already mine
You were already mine

In this picture, Bono has fallen in lust with a woman across the street, and then realises it's his wife. The revelatory idea is that we already possess what we need. Often the things we desire and pursue, to the detriment of ourselves and others, are a counterfeit for something closer to home, that we already possess.

In "Vertigo", the girl with crimson nails with Jesus around her neck, the object of desire, is a counterfeit. In the same song, "the night full of holes" is a counterfeit for "The City of Blinding Lights". That's a beautiful picture right there. More on that later.
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AfterHours



Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

  • #76
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 03:54
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rkm wrote:
I can't tell you how much I love Astral Weeks. However, I don't want to get into comparisons, because as soon as you declare something superior, it's easy to then dismiss the other work as worthless. Instead, what I'm trying to do here is move you from declaring the album is "Hilariously bad, superficial, arena rock -- just going through the motions and anthemic posturings... " to a position of considering that the album might have more depth than you gave it credit for, that it might have worth.


Sorry, only in a world where the heights of such emotional depth were, say, the love songs of Please Please Me by The Beatles would I consider a work like this more "significant" or "creative" than most and of more value than most. It is mildly effective-to-below mediocre or poor, variously, throughout the album, but so are literally thousands of albums that have been of almost no creative consequence to the musical expression as an art form. Sorry, but that's okay if one is interested in generic, mildly effective forms of entertainment (though perhaps it's more than this to you), but that doesn't cut it for me or inspire me or awe me or make me consider anything new or enlighten me or challenge me (etc). Call it elitist or just having high standards or what you will, but it's very difficult to bother with such a work when there are so much more extraordinary experiences to be had -- such as the music listed above (and many others). Or in painting, such as Gustav Klimt (and many others). Or in film, such as Bergman (and many others). And so on, many many times over throughout the history of art.
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rkm





  • #77
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 04:22
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Afterhours, that's fine. I don't feel compelled to convince you of anything if you've already made up your mind.

I like Klimt a lot. I've also been enjoying Egon Schiele's work, who was a student of Klimt. I stumbled upon this music, which was apparently written for a live theatre/dance production about Egon Schiele's life. Not sure if it will float your boat or not, but I hope you like it...


Music For Egon Schiele by Rachel's
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AfterHours



Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

  • #78
  • Posted: 01/10/2018 06:36
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rkm wrote:
Afterhours, that's fine. I don't feel compelled to convince you of anything if you've already made up your mind.

I like Klimt a lot. I've also been enjoying Egon Schiele's work, who was a student of Klimt. I stumbled upon this music, which was apparently written for a live theatre/dance production about Egon Schiele's life. Not sure if it will float your boat or not, but I hope you like it...


Music For Egon Schiele by Rachel's


Thank you, it's quite good. My initial impression is that it reminds me (somewhat) of a cross between Shostakovich's and Schubert's later chamber works, with touches of Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

I like Schiele quite a bit too (hard not to if one is a fan of Klimt, one of my favorite painters of all time).
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guilhermesoi





  • #79
  • Posted: 01/12/2018 15:08
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U2 is my favorite. This is my reviews for every track:

1. Vertigo (85)
2. Miracle Drug (90)
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own (100)
4. Love And Peace Or Else (80)
5. City Of Blinding Lights (90)
6. All Because Of You (85)
7. A Man And A Woman (85)
8. Crumbs From Your Table (80)
9. One Step Closer (75)
10. Original Of The Species (100)
11. Yahweh (80)
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rkm





  • #80
  • Posted: 01/12/2018 19:05
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Afterhours,

I'm listening to Steve Reich right now, the end of Drumming Part II. I've often thought this but never voiced it. Dont you think there's a similarity to the rhythmic textures Edge achieves with delays? It's very reminiscent of "Where The Streets Have No Name". I'm not suggesting a direct influence, just independently achieved similar effect.


Drumming (1987) by Steve Reich
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