The Titans, Part 2: U2 & The Beatles

16. U2 - Discotheque (1997)
(File under: You Broke My Heart, Fredo: When Our Musical Heroes Betray Us)

I was somewhat shocked, when researching this, to learn that this single made the top 10 (#1 in the UK), and its parent album went to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Obviously it's not just the Boomers who are guilty of keeping well-past-their-peak artists viable in the marketplace.

Confession time: I am (or, more accurately, was) a U2 fan. I realize this destroys any hipster cachet I may have hoped to cultivate, but one of the nice things about getting old is I no longer worry about hiding the uncool aspects of my obsessions for fear of being mocked by the more image-conscious geeks of which I'm a subset. Which also means I no longer feel it necessary to invest time and money trying to appreciate acts like Modest Mouse or The Decemberists or The Mountain Goats or The Hold Steady or whoever the latest overhyped indie-flavor-of-the-month is, and instead am free to write them off based on my initial impressions (I'm pretty catholic in my tastes, and though I may be missing out on some things I'd conceivably enjoy, there aren't that many albums that require excessive time to reveal their charms - in other words, albums that will "grow on you".). Anyway, we all know that the music you listened to during your teens will always have a special place in your heart - this is how The Spice Girls were able to recently mount a successful stadium tour - and, at 14, "Pride (In The Name Of Love)" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" possessed the kind of moral certainty and constructive anger I needed as something positive to cling to amid the melodramatic confusion of early adolescence (melodrama also being a key to why I related to U2's music so strongly at the time). And though now I'd rather actually be tortured than listen to Bono preach about its evil as a practice, the guy (and the rest of the band) got me through some rough times, so I can't ever completely turn my back on him, no matter how banal the music gets. And it's gotten pretty banal. Case in point:

I remember, right before this album was released, a lot of press about how it was going to be their "dance/electronic/techno" move (which they'd said about the previous 2 albums as well - why I continued listening this late in the game is surely a testament to my loyalty), and then the first single was called "Discotheque", so I was intrigued. The intrigue quickly turned to boredom and the feeling I'd been gypped (again), however, upon hearing it. U2 could never be a disco band, of course, for a couple reasons: first, dance music requires an absolutely kick-ass rhythm section, and, though they're fine for rock, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. don't have the chops for disco. Second, dance music is fun, and U2 never showed any facility for stepping outside their personae as saviors and simply getting down mindlessly. Not that I doubt they sincerely admired those who could or that they sincerely tried - they did everything sincerely, which was part of the problem. In the end, the entire album came off as a hopeless mess. For those who care, this was near the end of their "ironic" period, which went over about as well as a big wet fart during a eulogy. Unfortunately for them and us, the only irony on display here is the fact that this came from an album called Pop, which was filled with songs you couldn't remember 30 seconds after the CD (mercifully) ended. A rote guitar riff, a half-thought-out hook that never sinks in, and Bono's suffocatingly self-important vocal style add up to a song tailored for Top 40 radio that ends up being even more monumentally inconsequential than the dumb pop surrounding it. At least Madonna was able to give and experience simple pleasure (dance music's raison d'etre) without being hamstrung by Christian guilt.



17. The Beatles - All You Need Is Love (1967)
(File under: When Good People Do Bad Things: The Worst Of The Best)

Let's be clear: Every artist has their share of worthless filler scattered throughout their albums. If I wanted to write about lame album tracks rather than singles, I could easily expand this list to 50,000 entries. But I'm more interested in writing about the hits (or at least songs that were popular among the artist's fans), because they occupy a loftier position in the culture at large, and are therefore more "meaningful", sociologically speaking. So while this is by no stretch the worst Beatles song in existence - with Ringo having contributed 2 of his very own compositions to the canon, this would automatically be at least their third-worst by default - it is the worst of their #1 singles ("Love Me Do" doesn't count, as it didn't top the charts upon initial release, and only hit in America after Beatlemania was in full swing and their U.S. label(s) were exploiting their back catalogue for all it was worth). Had Lennon written it a mere two years previously, his tone of sneering mockery would have been evident to even the most guileless teenybopper. Instead, perhaps because he was in the grip of heroin addiction (I feel duty-bound to search for any excuse, since he's probably my favorite all-around musician ever, if push comes to shove), he plays it straight, to the detriment of the song and the disappointment of any listener not a casualty of blissed-out mush-brained hippie ideology.

I'm not a musician - I play drums (rim shot) - but it seems to me even the melodic composition here is lazy (the laziness of the lyrics should be obvious to anyone who's able to walk upright). What is the verse - like, one chord? Strip away the excessive instrumental ornamentation they couldn't refrain from employing on every track during the period - the overbearing strings and brass and harpsichords and whatever else that ruined Magical Mystery Tour - and you've barely got a song here at all. It doesn't help that the verses consist of what I'm sure were intended to be "deep" insights that were in reality tautologies that failed to put across anything more meaningful than "Drugs aren't always conducive to creativity" and the chorus is a kind of sing-along chant that sounds like a nice, humane, "brotherhood-of-man" sentiment until you think about it for two seconds and realize how hollow it is, especially when coming out of the mouths of obscenely wealthy pop stars who likely wouldn't have the time to listen to you gush about how brilliant they were if you ran into them on the street (which you wouldn't). It's sad, because they had the opportunity (as well as the ability - and, I don't doubt, the desire) to use their platform (this song was performed as Britain's entry for Our World, the first global television broadcast) to make a statement on what was truly beautiful about modern life and humanity, as they had, directly and indirectly, so often in previous songs. As it stands, the song's got about as much to say about love in the real world as a commercial for Kay Jewelers. Only Lennon takes about 6 times as long to say it.