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By Mark Reed
2007.08
“The Joshua Tree” is 20 years old this summer. 20 years is a long time. And recently, almost every band that’s been around as long as that has released a “Special Edition” of its back catalogue. Expanded with rare, out of print material! Remastered with new, previously unheard music! Demos, live songs, b-sides, finished ‘abandoned’ tracks, rehearsals and remixes! Every band seems to be doing it: releasing tenth, twentieth, thirtieth anniversary editions with new packaging, previously unseen artwork, unreleased songs, interviews and documentary DVDs.
But not U2. Never U2. U2 are about moving forward and exploring new territories. Not about looking back. U2 are an adventure – not a history lesson.
U2 will always leave you wanting more. For them, it’s not about sating demand, but about slowly, carefully releasing material so there is no such thing as an overdose. The albums are just the albums: relatively compact, complete artistic statements. Not ripe to be exploited with remasters or expanded editions. Every song is given time to be explored and listened to, relistened to and rediscovered so each listener can truly glean from it all the meanings possible. Even now, a decade later, I’m still finding new things in “Pop”, when I thought I had heard it all.
It is important to consider why this may be. U2 are artists and craftsmen. An artist doesn’t display his every piece of work, but only what he regards as his best. With some bands, regarded as amongst the best in the world, the best is The Best Of The Best.
U2 know the value of their band. They know the strength of the band as a brand. It is a strong name of no small commercial clout. When U2 put out a record, no matter what it is, it sells millions and millions. Even U2’s biggest commercial ‘flop’, “Pop”, has sold something like 7 million copies. Almost everyone in London could have their own copy.
U2 know that when they release a record it will be seen as an Important Artistic Statement. Academics will pour over the meaning of miniscule lyrics, and look for biblical references in the sleeve imagery. They know that if they stand on a stage to sing the material, that if they wanted to sell 70,000 tickets a night, they would. U2 know that it is not just what you say that matters, but what you don’t say. That what really matters in their music is not just what is not played, but also all that you can’t leave behind.
For U2, the album is a complete statement. It’s not merely a collection of songs. It matters that each record consists of a narrative and musical flow and that the record makes a cohesive statement.
Even the order of the songs matters. Consider what you think “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” would have sounded like if it had started with a gentle ballad of “One Step Closer” and ended with, say, “Vertigo”. Unlike a movie where the big explosions are at the end, a record must start well and end suitably. This is why most U2 albums tend to close on a piece of relatively gentle, elegiac music : “40”, “MLK”, “Mothers Of The Disappeared”, “All I Want Is You”, “Love Is Blindness”, “The Wanderer”, “Wake Up Dead Man” – all of these are suitable closing points for a record. All of these are songs that tend to summate the themes of the previous 50 minutes of music and form a piece of narrative and musical closure: in the same way the opening songs tend to be vital, important pieces of music that define the record in microcosm.
“That’s why I hate those reissues. Someone somewhere thinks that ‘Murmur’ ends with a live version of “We Walk”.” – Peter Buck of REM
Consider then, the U2 album as an artistic statement. Imagine if the last notes of the album weren’t “Walk On” or “Fast Cars”, but were instead a meandering, forgettable b-side, or perhaps a hastily appended demo where Bono hasn’t yet found the melody of the song and the lyrics are the gibberish that Brian Eno calls “Bonoese”: anyone who has heard the leaked 1990 demos will know that U2 have plenty of these.
It would devalue what has already been produced and add nothing to the legacy. Sometimes, magicians are good because they do not reveal their tricks. It is sometimes enough not to know how they weave their magic, only that there is magic.
To look behind the curtain and say that “It’s only Smoke and Mirrors” removes the power of the spell great musicians weave. A U2 record is a talisman, a spell, an artistic statement that is self-contained and a delicate blend designed to achieve and express a specific vision. A carefully constructed mixture of elements to create a unique chemistry that is more than the sum of the parts. To remove or add an element could be to destroy or weaken the equation. The painter knows that where he puts the frame is as important as what is in the frame.
That is why U2 albums are not appended in expanded “legacy,” “anniversary,” or “special” editions. The music contained within them, and every nuance thereof, is enough to create a lasting and important statement, to achieve the desired communication of great artists. To show the artist’s sketchbook and reveal all the extraneous material destroys the integral and vital mystery of the work in creating a complete and satisfactory artistic work. The record is a statement, and revealing the inner working of how it was created dilutes the vision. Leave the albums alone, they don’t need expanding. They’re more than good enough as they are.
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Published on
08-21-2007 at 10:48 PM |
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08-23-2007 03:47 PM -
