Tag: U2

Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #90 U2 “With or without you” (1987)

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date October 28, 2023
4 Comments on Eighties’ best 100 redux: #90 U2 “With or without you” (1987)

The band responsible for track #90 on my “Eighties best 100” redux needs no introduction nor historical context. Ever since their near legendary performance at Live Aid in 1985, they’ve been a global act, fitting the bill of “biggest band in the world” for many of the intervening years.

Personally, I’ve never been able to call myself a big U2 fan but I am well aware of their contribution to music, especially that of their seminal 1987 album “The Joshua tree”. Even still, I gave away this very same compact disc to an acquaintance in university because I never listened to it. Despite all this, when Bono was convinced in 2005 by “friend” and then Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, to add Ottawa as a stop on their monolithic world tour of the day, I purchased tickets to see them at the Corel Centre (now the Canadian Tire Centre) for me and my wife. The fact that a hot new band called Arcade Fire opened the concert for U2 certainly sweetened the deal for me but I can freely admit that Bono, The Edge, and the rest of their company put on an excellent live show. By that point, however, they’d been at the game for close to thirty years so I would have been more surprised had the show been a snoozer.

Back in 1986, they were still young bucks, riding a high off their aforementioned Live Aid performance and the success of their previous album, 1984’s “The unforgettable fire.” U2 once again enlisted the production team of wunderkind, Brian Eno, and Canadian guitarist, Daniel Lanois, to work on what would become “The Joshua tree”, arguably the band’s best work. The trilogy of songs that lead off the album (“Where the streets have no name”, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”, and “Without or without you”) delivers a three punch knockout of beautifully textured music, with Edge’s trademark guitar sound at the forefront. The problem for me was that I rarely got past those first three tracks.

“With or without you”, the song that just builds and builds and builds, is easily one of my favourite tracks that U2 has produced but much of it is due to nostalgia. It just screams the eighties to me… That and high school dances.

Original Eighties best 100 position: #90

Favourite lyric: My hands are tied / My body bruised, she’s got me with / Nothing to win and / Nothing left to lose.” But nobody can really sing it like Bono.

Where are they now?: Still at it, of course. In fact, they’d been at the top of the world so long that when I was telling my wife about their current residency opening the Sphere in Las Vegas and she asked how relevant they were, I was dumbfounded. But it did have me pondering the same question.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.

Tags 1980s, Alternative, Alternative Rock, Best tunes, Bono, Irish, Retro, The Edge, U2

Playlists

Playlist: The first day of Spring

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date March 20, 2021
3 Comments on Playlist: The first day of Spring

Well, we made it. It’s the first day of Spring.

Yeah, this past winter has felt like an eternity but if I am being honest, it hasn’t even been that bad of a winter in these parts. It was relatively mild and we suffered through very few snowstorms, up until February, when, of course, all that went out the window. Even still, we’ve been seeing more mild weather again and the mounds of the white stuff have all but melted away.

And yet… and yet… it still felt like a long winter, didn’t it?

Well, it is officially over as of today. Mother nature be damned. And we are going to celebrate with a new playlist, the first of four seasonal themed mixes that I have planned for this year, all based on a theory my good friend Andrew Rodriguez has oft posited: there are certain songs that just “feel” like a given season.

Indeed, these are 25 songs that, even if not overtly Spring themed, they at least hint or evoke that certain mood. The playlist follows a chronological path, from the tentative first steps to the splashes in the rain puddles of April, from the traipsing through meadows of flowers to finally, a bit of a dance into June and the excitement of the summer beyond. Unfortunately, the song I really wanted to start this mix off with, The Gandharvas’ “The first day of Spring”, is not actually available on Spotify but I wanted to tip my hat to it nonetheless and replaced it with a similarly named track by Noah and The Whale.

Other highlights on this mix include:

- “April fools”, the first track I ever heard by Canadian singer/songwriter, Rufus Wainwright, and it’s a whimsical ditty

- “Rain”, a hazy number by The Clientele that evokes raindrops hitting against a steamed up window

- Emily Haines and Metric covering the Lou Reed classic, “Perfect day”, no other explanation necessary

- “June hymn”, off The Decemberists’ pastoral sixth album is a call for us all to go out into the woods and breathe deeply

- And of course, “Spring and by summer fall”, is a ray of sunshine by Blonde Redhead that leads us off into the new season

For those who don’t use Spotify or if the embedded playlist below doesn’t work for you, here is the entire playlist (complete with YouTube links) as I’ve created it:

1. Noah and the Whale “The first days of Spring”

2. Kurt Vile “Wakin on a pretty day”

3. Rufus Wainwright “April fools”

4. Fontaines D.C. “Oh such a Spring”

5. Blind Melon “No rain”

6. The Jesus and Mary Chain “April skies”

7. Frank Turner “The opening act of Spring”

8. The Clientele “Rain”

9. Ex Cops “Spring break (birthday song)”

10. Engineers “Come in out of the rain”

11. Sea Wolf “Dew in the grass”

12. Camera Obscura “Honey in the sun”

13. Crocodiles “Endless flowers”

14. Arcade Fire “Month of May”

15. Metric “Perfect day”

16. Neutral Milk Hotel “King of carrot flowers, pt. 1”

17. Cults “Go outside”

18. Sam Roberts Band “Spring fever”

19. Dum Dum Girls “Trees and flowers”

20. The Decemberists “June hymn”

21. Hey Rosetta! “Yer Spring”

22. Unkle Bob “Birds and the bees”

23. U2 “Beautiful day”

24. The Like “June gloom”

25. Blonde Redhead “Spring and by Summer Fall”

And as I’ve said before, I’ll say again: Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Until next time, enjoy the tunes.

For those of you who are on Spotify, feel free to look me up. My user name is “jprobichaud911”.

Albums

Best albums of 1987: #4 U2 “The joshua tree”

Post author By jprobichaud
Post date August 30, 2018
11 Comments on Best albums of 1987: #4 U2 “The joshua tree”

I bought “The joshua tree” on CD as one of my ten for a penny from Columbia House (or was it BMG? – I did both, take your pick) in my late teens, so likely a few years after its release. It was purchased on the basis of the first three songs on the album, each of which was tattooed in my brain from hearing them several times. When my package of discs arrived, I did enjoy those three songs on initial spins but rarely did I get past them, and it wasn’t long before the album was just a dust collector on my CD racks. Shortly after arriving at university, then, I gave the disc away to a young lady on whom I may or may not have had a crush. Either way, I didn’t miss it for many years.

In fact, I never fully grew to appreciate “The joshua tree” until the last decade or so, when it found itself back in my music library somehow. I was finally able to listen to it without allowing all the prejudices I had built up against the band and their bloated image to taint my experience. The Irish four-piece’s fifth album was their second to be produced by the tandem of Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. It kept the ambient underpinnings of “The unforgettable fire”, their previous record together, but returned some the harder hitting sensibilities of U2’s earlier work. Mix all of that with the furthering of Bono’s and The Edge’s musical history education, after hanging out with Keith Richards and The Waterboys’ Mike Scott, and you’ve got one heck of a record, much deserving of all the accolades that have been heaped upon it.

Indeed, I have plenty of new favourites on the album but you still can’t beat the triumvirate that begins the album so what other three tracks could I pick for you but those three?

”I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”: “I believe in the Kingdom come. Then all the colors will bleed into one, bleed into one, but yes, I’m still running.” While doing some reading up on this album, I learned how this song was built upon a drum demo by Larry Mullen jr. And if you listen to what he is doing here, you can really gain an appreciation for how great a drummer he really is, which makes the fact that he can easily be pushed out of the picture by the big personas of Bono and The Edge so unfortunate. The beat is augmented by Adam Clayton’s “one note groove” bass line and The Edge’s chiming arpeggios. And on top of all this, Bono is singing gospel at the top of his vocal register, mixing old with new, but pushing the universal theme of spiritual longing and the unending quest for meaning.

”Where the streets have no name”: “I want to run, I want to hide. I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside. I wanna reach out and touch the flame, where the streets have no name.” This was released as the third single from the album but it is the track that opens “The joshua tree”. And as great as The Edge’s guitar playing and effects work and (I suppose) the rest of the band’s performances are, I almost think they are secondary to the music video filmed for the song. Reminiscent of and likely an homage to The Beatles’ final live performance, the video shows the band performing live on the roof of a liquor store in Los Angeles. The performance was portrayed as being shut down by the police, which according to the director was as it happened, but it is obvious that it was all part of the plan and it all smacks of sensationalism. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the video back in the day and it’s rebel attitudes and the song has that same energy.

”With or without you”: “Through the storm we reach the shore. You give it all but I want more. And I’m waiting for you.” The first single released off “The joshua tree” was almost not a single and was in peril of never seeing the light of day at all. It was originally written in late 1985 but the band had to play with the arrangements for a few days before they were happy with it, coming near to scrapping it a few times. Their tenacity paid off because it was a huge hit for the band and their first number one in the US. It is notable for Clayton’s rumbling bass line, The Edge’s wicked sustained guitar effect, and Bono’s vocals, starting low and slow and building to explosion. To me, “With or without you” screams high school dances in the gym. It’s a troubled love song sure, but it was a sure fire hit with slow dancers. I definitely remember doing that slow turn and sway shuffle more than once to this song back in the day.