Lean On Me - U2 are not a Video Band

Lisa Miller ([email protected])
Thu, 15 Oct 1998 14:17:28 -0700

Hi All,
  
I saw the video for Lean On Me yesterday on BET and I absolutly love the
song, Bono is so cute and he sounds wonderful. My sister who is the R &
B queeen said he is out of place, my opinion is that Kirk Franklin is
out of place. He amasses all these great singers and homey can't sing
and he makes the money go figure.

It is my humble opinion that U2 can not make good videos. I do no like
the Sweetest Thing video, I think it could have been done MUCH better.
U2 have to realize that we are a visual society and that often times
videos make the difference between selling an album/song or not selling
a album/song. I think the videos are a major reason Pop didn't do so
well with sales and air play. A lot of times you can't have the message
of the song in a video which is what U2 did with the majority of Pop
songs. Please could have taken off and so could Staring At The Sun if
the videos had been done better.
  
IMO U2 have only made 3 top notch videos, The Fly, Even Better Than The
Real Thing (upside down camera angles) and the video that got me
interested in them Where The Streets Have No Name.
  
When they changed their style from JT, Rattle and Hum to the more Rock N
Roll feel with Achtung Baby they also had more imaginative videos did
they not? Every video from Pop to me sucked, especially Last Night On
Earth. I was hoping they realized their mistake and Sweetest would be
good, but not so. Not everybody is going to get the idea that he is
apologizing to Ali for missing her birthday and that he is sorry
that their lives have been like a circus. And poor Ali only got 5
seconds of fame, not 15 min. If you walked in before the opening shot,
you wouldn't know she's there. I would have went a totally different
way with this video. The concept is good but they need to hire video
directors that have a since of what sells and what the public would want
to see. You need to attract casual U2 fans by making videos that are
worth showing. You wont see it on MTV or VH1 for long. Look at the
Spice Girls they had some of the most creative vidos running last year,
and they helped sell albums. The song The Sweetest Thing is great but,
the video I can do without. I hate it when they focus mainly on Bono,
U2 is a group.
  
This is just my opinion. New Thread - Why do you like the video The
Sweetest Thing? Tell me why I should turn my head away from reading a
book or something to look at this video, when the song is the best thing
about it, and I can just listen to that.
  
Bye for now,

Lisa M.

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Thu Oct 15 1998 - 14:17:39 PDT