How To Ruin 40 Good Songs In Three Hours
U2's 'Songs Of Surrender' is a dreadful failure
Last November at Rough Trade’s Rockefeller Center shop, a stack of hardcovers of Bono’s recent memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story sat atop the book table. I flipped it open to a random page, scanned through some predictably pompous modern Bono writing, and I immediately wondered why anyone would consider paying money for it. I don’t criticize U2 merely to pile on them; at least half of their discography is very good, and Bono can write legitimately great songs when he feels like it. Still, defending U2 in the 21st century is increasingly difficult; hardly has such a monumentally successful band been so consistently and drastically out of touch with what anyone else wants. Post-Pop U2 has mostly been shallow stadium anthems lacking the nuanced lyricism or atmospheric construction of their classic work, and with each passing day, Bono’s “save the world for my ego!” messaging sounds increasingly worse. As a younger fan, I can’t say their generally negative current reputation isn’t undeserved. In my lifetime, they’ve only put out one good (albeit inconsistent) album, 2009’s textural and comparatively understated No Line On The Horizon. Everything since has been at best, unnecessary, at worst, deplorable.
Almost no one asked for 2014’s spotty, blandly produced Songs Of Innocence to be shoved into their iTunes library, and even fewer asked for a nearly three-hour compendium of mostly acoustic rerecordings from the catalog. Of course, U2’s latest project Songs Of Surrender, conceived by The Edge and billed as a companion to Bono’s aforementioned book, is exactly that. Supposedly, it provides a fresher, more mature, “intimate” perspective on these 40 songs you know and mostly love. Yet that misses the point of what made classic U2 so great, that oft-mentioned ability to amplify small observations to a global scale, and to personalize broader ideas.
Songs Of Surrender fails horribly by every measure. On a song by song basis, it’s a bland but listenable novelty. Accumulatively, it’s absolutely dreadful. A small dose of U2 ruining their own songs isn’t too bad, but one 10-track disc (physical or virtual) is a slog, and the exhaustion exponentially increases the further you get. A few of these new renditions are passable, merely because your expectations of an acoustic “Pride (In The Name Of Love)” or “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” aren’t particularly high to begin with. Yet Songs Of Surrender also suffers from pointless revisionism, with Bono amending some of his lyrics: “Walk On” is now “Walk On (Ukraine),” “Get Out Of Your Own Way” has rewritten verses, and there are many other shifts in perspective (“Bad”) or tense (“Red Hill Mining Town”). However, Bono’s been a mature, fully-developed lyricist since the early days; his rewrites here are unnecessary, and only detract from the songs. He didn’t need to further clarify “Bad,” or add “religion is the enemy of the Holy Spirit guide” to “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Both of those songs, and most of the others here, have the originals’ urgency completely sucked out of them (the live performance documentary hosted by David Letterman is equally unworthy—Ed.).
It gets worse as it trudges on. Achtung Baby tracks that originally sounded so cool and layered are now rendered sluggish and dead. Playing in the Kyiv subway is a nice gesture, but Bono and Edge didn’t have to replicate that aesthetic for the rest of the world via this new “Red Hill Mining Town” (which features Trombone Shorty) nor serenade each one of us with “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone).” The Songs Of Surrender acoustic guitar- and cello-based “Vertigo” is laughable, as is the included “Desire” arrangement, with its already-outdated stadium-amplified acoustic guitar, claps, synth bass, stomping kick drum, and grating falsetto vocals that makes you think U2 are selling beard oil and flannels.
Throughout the record, Bono’s vocals are often hushed to the point of sounding sleepy, though it’s a particular issue on “Stay (Faraway, So Close)” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” The worst part is his egregiously off-key yelping on “Get Out Of Your Own Way;” keeping that in instead of doing another take or using Melodyne isn’t “authentic,” it’s just inexcusably lazy and unprofessional. The original songs’ essential musical dynamics are gone. The Edge’s acoustic guitar playing is serviceable but dull, and as shown on the new “Two Hearts Beat As One,” his signature electric style simply doesn't translate to an acoustic guitar. Bassist Adam Clayton only pops up occasionally, and generic drum loops replace Larry Mullen, Jr. Instead of sounding intimate and personal, Songs Of Surrender feels antiseptic and corporate. It doesn’t bring me closer to the songs’ essence—in fact, its overly measured, sanitized nature pushes me away. It’s what loops on the SiriusXM Coffee House station of hell, reminding you of everything potentially bad about the acoustic/Unplugged format and making you forget why you ever liked U2 to begin with. It’s easily the worst thing they’ve ever put out, and due to its excessive length (the abridged version wouldn’t be much better), lifeless interpretations of originally great songs, and pointless existence, it’s one of the worst things I’ve heard in quite some time.
Oh yeah, the sound quality. The 48kHz/24bit Apple Music stream sounds fine though not “in the room” convincing. The recording is technically sufficient but lacks body, and the overly polished mix contributes to the album’s lifeless nature. For a band with practically infinite resources, U2 have somehow never made a thoroughly great sounding record. I’m sure the vinyl edition also sounds okay, though it’s hilariously overpriced ($46 for the standard 2LP, $50 for other color variants, $60 for the clear 2LP with four bonus tracks, and $125 MSRP for the relatively bare bones deluxe 4LP). That said, there’s really no reason for you to spend your money when you can listen to the far superior original recordings.
