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Sat, 14 Nov 1998 15:15:43 -0600
Agitpop beats Britpop in LP charts
Irish rockers U2 have beaten out bad-boys Oasis for
the number one album spot.
U2's greatest hits collection fought off a strong
challenge from the Oasis' B-side collection The
Masterplan in what was billed as a battle between
agitpop and Britpop.
When Oasis released their last album in August 1997,
they had the distinction of clocking up the most sales
in the first week of release with 690,000 copies sold.
This time around they had to settle for second place to
an album that has already broken sales records in
Ireland.
Both U2 and Oasis were well ahead of Alanis
Morrisette's new album Supposed Former Information
Junkie, also released this week.
Her first LP was the biggest selling debut album ever,
selling more than 25 million copies worldwide.
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>From Dotmusic:
U2's Best Of goes platinum.
The Corrs get fourth platinum
The Corrs� Talk On Corners became a quadruple platinum album last week as
Madonna�s Ray Of Light won its third platinum award from the BPI. Platinum
awards went to Embrace�s The Good Will Out, Jane McDonald�s self-titled
debut, U2�s The Best Of 1980-1990, Robbie Williams� I�ve Been Expecting You
and the
single Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust, with gold awards going to
Meat Loaf�s Very Best Of Meat Loaf, Oasis�s The Masterplan, the
compilations
Very Best Of The Love Albums and Heart Full Of Soul, and the singles
Millennium by Robbie Williams and To The Moon And Back by Savage Garden
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>From VH-1:
Where Were They When. . .
In the early era of punk, synthesized pop, and heavy metal, the Irish
band U2 reached pop stardom with a blaring sound, zealous post-punk rock
with political and religious overtones. U2 was starting a revolution and
frontman Bono was the ideal leader. In the early 90's, U2 reinvented
themselves as a post-modern rock band and gave extravagant arena shows
to get their message across. Throughout, U2 remains one the biggest rock
bands in history, and even if you're not a huge fan, their songs
probably remind you of where you were in the world when they were big.
Songs like "Where The Streets Have No Name", "Pride (In The Name of
Love)" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday". . . Now you can listen to them all at
once with U2's first (in a series of three) greatest hits album, The
Best of 1980-1990.
For more insight into what you're listening to, VH1 Online presents
Countdown U2 - The U2 Timeline the historical happenings behind the
songs on The Best of 1980-1990. Where was U2 when they released, "Where
The Streets Have No Name", "Pride (In The Name of Love)" and "Sunday
Bloody Sunday". Where was the world? Where were you?
1980: "I Will Follow" from Boy
U2: Signed a major international recording contract with Island records
in March for four albums over the next four years.
U2: Boy was released.
The World: Ronald Reagan was elected president.
The World: 52 American hostages were still being held in Iran. President
Jimmy Carter made a failed rescue attempt in April.
1983: "New Year's Day" & "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from War
U2: Released War and their first live EP, Under A Blood Red Sky recorded
at Colorado's Red Rocks. The EP entered in the UK charts at number two,
becoming the most successful live recording in British history and
establishing the band as an MTV staple.
U2: Bono set the precedent for "mashing" when he got carried away at a
concert in Los Angeles and jumped off the stage. "The crowd caught me,"
he said. U2 backed a bit away from their usual stage "histrionics" - but
only a bit.
The World: The U.S. Invades Grenada
The World: ARPANET begins to use TCP/IP protocol and the Internet is
born.
The World: Chrysler introduces the Minivan.
The World: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
1984: "Pride (In The Name of Love)", "Bad" & "The Unforgettable Fire"
from The Unforgettable Fire
U2: Teams up with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois to produce The
Unforgettable Fire
U2: "Pride (In The Name of Love)", a Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute, is
U2's first U.S. top 40 single.
U2: The band is named as part of "Rock's New Humanism" by The Washington
Post.
The World: Ronald Reagan beats Walter Mondale for his second term as
U.S. President.
The World: The summer Olympic Games are held in Los Angeles. Russia
boycotts them in retaliation for the U.S. boycott in 1980.
1987: "With or Without You", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking
For" and "Where The Streets Have No Name" from The Joshua Tree
U2: Spring, The Joshua Tree was released. It was proclaimed a
masterpiece and became the band's first U.S. number one hit. In England,
it set a record by going platinum in within 28 hours. The album and its
tour was the biggest musical success of 1987.
U2: Gives impromptu outdoor concert in San Francisco's financial
district. They gave another one in Los Angeles which became the video
for "Where The Streets Have No Name". (Bono also caused trouble in San
Francisco by spraying a huge modern sculpture with the graffito, ''Stop
the traffic, rock n' roll".)
U2: Appears on the cover of Time magazine in April.
The World: Andy Warhol dies.
The World: Reverend Jim Bakker admits to being blackmailed for a 1980
"sexual encounter". He is stripped of his ordination with the Assemblies
of God.
The World: Lt. Colonel Oliver North tells his version of the Iran-Contra
story to a spellbound Congressional committee.
The World: Black Monday: the U.S. Stock Market crashed on October 19.
1988: "Desire", "When Love Comes To Town", "Angel of Harlem" and "All I
Want Is You" from Rattle & Hum
U2: Won two Grammys for The Joshua Tree including "Album of the Year".
U2: Released Rattle & Hum a documentary about their American Joshua Tree
tour. The film was supported by the double-album soundtrack which had
live Joshua Tree tracks as well as new material. The record and film
received weak reviews. U2's exploration of American roots music like
blues, soul, country and folk did not sit well with critics. U2 decided
to shed its image as "rock's conscience". The band decided to take a
hiatus.
The World: George Bush beats Michael Dukakis in the Presidential
election.
The World: Pan American flight 103 crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland
killing 258 people on the flight and 15 on the ground. A bomb was
determined to be the cause.
For now, the contents of U2's expected releases of two more "greatest
hits" collections are a mystery. They will most likely include songs
from albums Actung Baby and Pop , and hopefully, some surprises along
the lines of the limited-edition B-Sides of their current release. U2
has created a far greater amount of music than just their standard hits,
and we are anxiously awaiting the release of some of these goodies.
-- Elizabeth Gariti
The VH-1 review of the Best of can be found at,
http://www.members.home.net/u2-news/gh_reviews.html
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Thanks to Pierluigi for the following translation of an Italian interview
with The Edge.
The title is "U2: Drums of peace" and was conducted by Paolo
Zaccagnini in Rome.
You can find the original text (in Italian) at:
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19981109/01_NAZIONALE/SPETTACOLI/EDGE.htm
And you can see the newspaper cover (with U2 photo) at:
http://www.ilmessaggero.it/hermes/19981109/19981109.htm
E: We are recording our new album; that's why I couldn't phone yesterday,
sorry. I'm calling from the studio, not Windmill Lane, a smaller one...
Z: When the new album could be ready?
E: We don't know; it'll be ready when we are satisfied by new tracks, only
then. We learned the lesson with last album, we won't tell anything to the
record label till it's ready, because they would hasten us.
Z: What about the producer?
E: Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. They're great. Together we are a good team.
Z: What about the Best Of?
E: We wanted to make listen to a story, our story. We sat at a table and
chose; there was who wanted Gloria, who 11 O' Clock Tick Tock, or Bullet
The
Blue Sky, Running To Stand Still, or Sunday Bloody Sunday with his old
traditional violin. Finally we all agreed. The idea of making a Best came
after the tour. The songs I like most are Walk To The Water and Luminous
Times. And also Love Comes Tumbling.
Z: What about bad reviews of Popmart?
E: They came mostly from England newspapers, and we answered at Wembley
stadium... Las Vegas' failure was our fault, no excuses, we didn't
rehearse
as we need. We chose Las Vegas because of the position, you can't debut in
a
big city. A rock concert is not like a movie where you can even make
corrections after festivals, before it is released. Anyway then everything
went alright: this is rock n' roll. And we don't complain...
Z: Fame, money...: has all this changed you in some way?
E: Not much, because we kept our feet on the ground, and we went on looking
inside us. Dublin and Dubliners were useful, it is all very realistic,
luckily nobody reveres you, living as a rockstar isn't easy, it's not like
in the U.S.A., because here you can go and buy milk, newspaper, cigarettes.
Z: How will the new album be? Celtic tradition maybe or again technology?
E: At the moment I can say we are four people spending 10, 12 hours in a
room telling each other ideas, notes, memories. Till now no technology, as
for Pop, where (ironic, but true) all was played by us, apart from the very
first days, when we used a lot of loops, sequencers and samples, because
Larry got problems with his hands. Now we want to go back only to the four
of us, to our personalities. And maybe, but it is soon to say it, to more
traditional sounds.
Z: After all this time what are you talking of and doing in the recording
room?
E: We enjoy ourself and joke as the first day; if it wouldn't be this way,
we wouldn stop . We are proud for what we made till now, and now we want to
make a different record, we want to go on, knowing how to look back, and to
get something from our roots.
Z: You played in Belfast for Nobels Hume and Trimble; next record will be
the first in a time of peace...
E: We met Hume as he knew about the Nobel, he thanked us for what we did,
though we only played music. The Nobel Prize was very important and
emotional for every Irish. All that tragedy really influenced us, deeply,
think of Sunday Bloody Sunday, and peace, I have no doubt, will do the
same.
Bono ha written a lot and just on the peace. Everyone in Irland really
hopes
that everything will be alright up there. Maybe the bodhran, the
traditional
war drum, will be for sounds of peace.
Z: What abou the cinema?
E: Wim Wenders will shot The Million Dollar Hotel and so we'll do something
for its soundtrack. We didn't record much for the cinema... The whole
Passengers album got to be a real soundtrack, but we didn't find the
subject...
Z: There's a photo in the Best Of booklet...What remaines about the
Dandelion Market years?
E: We have the same spirit, the sense of humor, and self irony, we still
want to be together and confront, even to quarrel, but to be anyway and
always friends. If it wasn't this way when we started, U2 would never
exist,
we couldn't do anything. And I don't think any of us could play music
withou
a band like us. It was punk era, but we were different, because when in
London most thought to the hairs or dresses of musicians, not many, apart
from the poet John Cooper Clark or the Clash, talked about social problems
and we did. We were only simple boys who wrote and sang hard political
lyrics that people liked and we could come out.
Z: Do you remember what was the first song you have ever written?
E: Yes. The title was Child Of The Tall Tree. But in those years we
supplied
the lack or original songs with the energy, the strenght, the will to have
success... We only need a melody we considered good enough... then Bono
pretended to sing and we played and people stay and listen to us.
-------------
>From AOL Today(Thanks to Sherry for the following):
U2
By Evan Hosie
U2 is undoubtedly one of the most influential bands of the last twenty
years.
Formed in a Dublin kitchen in 1976, the teenagers first went by the moniker
Feedback (which apparently, is what their music sounded like at that time.)
A
self-produced and released EP titled U2:3 gave them their first local hit
and
convinced Island records to sign them.
"Boy, " with the passionate single "I Will Follow," was their first US
release but only critics and some club goers lucky enough to see the group
on
tour became converts of the band. It wasn't until the release of 1983's War
that they scored the big hit they needed with "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" a
song
about the violence in Northern Ireland. It cemented the band's reputation
as
political dynamo and a live force to be reckoned with.
War was followed by Under A Red Sky, which became one of the best live
albums
of all time and established the band worldwide. The next studio album -
1984's
Unforgettable Fire - was produced by Brian Eno and captured their political
fire and love-hate relationship with America with songs such as "Pride (In
The
Name of Love)" a song about the assignation of Martin Luther King Jr.
But it wasn't until Joshua Tree (1987) that U2's popularity was truly
reflected in the charts as the album entered the UK charts at #1 and sped
to
#1 on the US charts and stayed there for an amazing nine weeks. It spawned
the singles "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm
looking
for."
Rattle and Hum, Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop followed through the years
and
for many, crystallized the true spirit of rock n' roll. Now we have a
collection of "A" sides (singles) and "B" sides to celebrate. More than 20
years after their inception, U2 is still making music that matters and
there
are very few bands you can say that about.
A review accompanies the above article and can be found at,
http://www.members.home.net/u2-news/gh_reviews.html
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ST is #10 in Australia....
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U2 has been chosen as Fallout Magazine's "Before They Went To
Hell" Artist for November 1998. Previous winners include "The
Verve", and "Stone Roses"...
The article that accompanies the "award" follows:
U2 The Joshua Tree Island Released: 1987
I almost decided not to do the U2 before they went to hell,
because for anybody born before 1980, we know they went
to hell, and we all know when exactly it happened. Yeah,
there was the movie and the companion album and that
was the end. "Rattle and Hum" was the last good album
U2 made, but it seemed that upon it's release that we all
knew that U2 was about to make a change. Who knew it
would be so anticlimactic?
Before they went to hell, there was The Joshua Tree, the
album that truly marked U2's place among the best bands
of all time. The great thing about The Joshua Tree was that
it spiraled downward. The first track, Where the Streets
Have No Name, is poppy and jangly with watermarks of
tension and frustration. From there The Joshua Tree only
seeks darker territory.
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For still remains
more on the pop side of things as a man seeks his religion,
while With or Without You follows a classic tale of
obsession, comparable to The Police's Every Breath You
Take. Bullet The Blue Sky is the intense ode to finding
refuge in wartime and the now famous heroin ballad,
Running To Stand Still, watches the decline of yet
another character facing moral and spiritual choices.
The remaining songs on the album deal with standard U2
fodder, religion,abandonment and internal conflict. From
the out and out "rock" song, Trip Through Your Wires, to
the pain ridden Mothers Of The Disappeared. Who
could've guessed that this pretentious lot of Irish guys
would've turned out to be such jokes?
U2 has dismissed their new image as a mockery of pop
music, but when you're the band that validates religion bred
pop, techno-tronic bred pop and a return to big budget
stage theatrics, who's laughing last?
-------------
>From Dotmusic:
The Top 5 UK albums are:
1. THE BEST OF 1980-1990 & B-SIDES U2 (Island)
2. THE MASTERPLAN Oasis (Creation)
3. SUPPOSED FORMER INFATUATION JUNKIE Alanis Morissette
(Maverick)
4. I'VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU Robbie Williams (Chrysalis)
5. THE BEST OF M People (M People/BMG)
ST is currently #10 on the charts and falling.
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U2Lemon, a mailing list, [email protected] now reports that
the "Best Of" debuted at #1 in the U.K. You heard it hear first folks!
For proof, go to:
http://www.dotmusic.com/UKalbums.shtml
Also of note, "The Sweetest Thing" spends its
third week in the U.K. top 10. It debuted at #3 and
held steady at #4 the following week. This week
it dropped to #10. The success of this single in the U.K.
exceeds U2's last 3 singles, "Last Night on Earth" and
"Please", which each spent just one week in the U.K.
top 10 (peaking at #10 and #7 respectively), and "If God
Will Send His Angels" (which spent just one week
in the U.K. top 40 when it debuted at #12).
-------------
Thanks to Dan Eliot, [email protected], for this...imaginative
take of ST:
eBay Item #40737804 says:
>This is a Hard to find CD PROMO single "Sweettest Thigh" from U2.
To the tune of Sweetest Thing:
My love her legs are... long and lean
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
And when the floors dirty, they can really clean
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
Baby's got strong thighs..
And they're tanned...
So brownly for me...
You know she likes SPF
Number eight
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
I'm touching them
Oh oh oh...
I'm touching them yeah
Ain't thighs the coolest thing
(The coolest thing)
I want to see them run and see them crawl
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
They catch fire, if she jogs too fast
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
You know I got white thighs
And they burn, so quickly in sun
Mine is SPF thirty-five
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
I'm touching them
Oh oh oh...
I'm touching them yeah
Ain't thighs the coolest thing
(The coolest thing)
White thigh guy, meets brown thigh girl
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
You can see the contrast
If they stand too close
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
Baby's got brown thighs
And I love them so muuuuuch
You know we got a SPF kind of love
(Oh oh oh, the Sweetest Thigh)
-------------
Thanks to Haydee for the following rough translation from a
Mexican Newspaper:
"El Universal" in the entertainment section says:
" U2 sells 40,000 records. [...] Another new record is "U2
The Best of 1980-1990/The B Sides" which, as stated in the title,
assembles the irish band best songs. Released just a few weeks (sic)
from now, the album has sold 40,000 copies just in Mexico. [...]
The album has broken all the sales records in Mexico City, by selling
more than 1000 records in an hour and a half in just one record shop.
To the date, this album is the best selling in Mexico`s most popular
stores."
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ST is #23 in Belgium...
-------------
>From Newsweek:
The Divas Were Divine
You could say it took an act of God to bring Mariah Carey and
Whitney Houston together. Next week DreamWorks will release
their first duet, a syrupy ballad called "When You Believe" for the
animated Biblical biopic "The Prince of Egypt." There's a lot riding on
the song's success: in addition to being the first single off the Moses
epic's soundtrack, it's also the first single on Carey's greatest-hits
collection, "#1's," and on Houston's new album, "My Love Is Your
Love," both due Nov. 17. "A lot of people were expecting this to be
a heavyweight prizefight: two superstars in the ring together," says
the music video's director, Phil Joanou. But through it all, he says,
the divas behaved like perfect angels. Must have been the divine
inspiration.
-------------
Prarit.....
[email protected]
http://www.members.home.net/u2-news/u2.html
This page is brought to you by the letter "U" and the number "2".
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