U2 Songs of Experience - initial impressions

Though this is a review ostensibly based on “initial impressions” I have actually heard this album a few times since I started working on this post.  So, some of my initial impressions are being revised, which feels like an oxymoron.  But here goes.

 

I’ve been a U2 fan since they put out War in 1983.  I think I saw the live performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday during the US Festival with Bono waving that huge flag and I was on board, even though my thing was heavy guitar rock ala AC/DC and Van Halen these guys also stuck a chord with me.  I listened to them often and wore out my cassette of War and was well on my way to wearing out Unforgettable Fire when Joshua Tree came out.  That album resulted in a major escalation in my fandom for these blokes as it instantly sounded like a classic.  I remember half way through my first listen in the little college radio station I was volunteering at thinking we’ll be hearing this on the radio 20 years down the road.  It’s gonna be huge.  I went out of the little listening room that the radio station had set up and accosting all of the other DJs in the area saying “you gotta hear this.  It’s the best thing they’ve ever done.”  I remember being floored by one guys response “It’s not as good as October.”  Wait what?  Obviously that guy is the guy who just wants to be cooler than everyone else: proto-hipster.  But the fact is, that album was huge and 30 years later it’s a staple of classic rock radio and still one of my favorite albums.

 

But after all this time I want another Joshua Tree.  And when I say I want another Joshua Tree, I’m not saying I want another U2 album that sounds like it came from the same influences of roots rock and Americana that Joshua Tree came from.  I want something that moved me as much as that album did.  And on a first listen, Songs of Experience isn’t doing that for me.  Remember, Joshua Tree didn’t grow on me.  It hit me between the eyes.  I loved it like I loved Back in Black.  It was an instant classic in my mind.  But as I listen to Songs of Experience it is starting to grow on me the way Rush used to do for me.  Often for Rush, my favorite band in the 80s other than AC/DC I would have to listen to their albums 3 or 4 times before I started to lock in.  (Not for Moving Pictures, but for most of the rest of them.  Moving pictures was one of my between the eyes albums along with Back in Black and Joshua Tree)  I really wanted this album to be my BackInBlackMovingPicturesJoshuaTreeNevermind moment, but I think my expectations have made it harder to appreciate this album as much as I want to.