{"id":1604,"date":"2004-11-22T10:43:45","date_gmt":"2004-11-22T14:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/11\/22\/one-more-day\/"},"modified":"2004-11-22T10:43:45","modified_gmt":"2004-11-22T14:43:45","slug":"one-more-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/11\/22\/one-more-day\/","title":{"rendered":"One more day"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

From Rolling Stone’s review of the album<\/a>:<\/p>\n


\nHalfway through the excellent new U2 album, Bono announces, “I like
\nthe sound of my own voice.” Well-said, lad; well-said. Ever since
\nU2 started making noise in Dublin several hundred bloody Sundays
\nago, Bono has grooved to the sound of his own gargantuan rockness.
\nEgo, shmego — this is one rock-star madman who should never scale
\ndown his epic ambitions. As the old Zen proverb goes, you will find
\nno reasonable men on the tops of great mountains, and U2’s
\nbrilliance is their refusal to be reasonable. U2 were a drag in the
\n1990s, when they were trying to be cool, ironic hipsters. Feh!
\nNobody wants a skinny Santa, and for damn sure nobody wants a
\nhipster Bono. We want him over the top, playing with unforgettable
\nfire. We want him to sing in Latin or feed the world or play Jesus
\nto the lepers in his head. We want him to be Bono. Nobody else is
\neven remotely qualified.<\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

U2 bring that old-school, wide-awake fervor to How to
\nDismantle an Atomic Bomb<\/em>. The last time we heard from them,
\nAll That You Can’t Leave Behind<\/em>, U2 were auditioning for
\nthe job of the World’s Biggest Rock & Roll Band. They trimmed
\nthe Euro-techno pomp, sped up the tempos and let the Edge define
\nthe songs with his revitalized guitar. Well, they got the job.<\/p>\n

On Atomic Bomb<\/em>, they’re not auditioning anymore. This
\nis grandiose music from grandiose men, sweatlessly confident in the
\nexecution of their duties. Hardly any of the eleven songs break the
\nfive-minute mark or stray from the punchy formula of All That
\nYou Can’t Leave Behind<\/em>. They’ve gotten over their midcareer
\nanxiety about whether they’re cool enough. Now, they just hand it
\nto the Edge and let it rip.<\/p>\n

During the course of Atomic Bomb<\/em>, you will be urged to
\nponder death (“Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own”), birth
\n(“Original of the Species”), God (“Yahweh”), love (“A Man and a
\nWoman”), war (“Love and Peace or Else”) and peace (“City of
\nBlinding Lights”), which barely gives you time to ponder whether
\nthe bassist has been listening to Interpol. “Vertigo” sets the
\npace, a thirty-second ad jingle blown up to three great minutes,
\nwith a riff nicked from Sonic Youth’s “Dirty Boots.” “City of
\nBlinding Lights” begins with a long Edge guitar intro, building
\ninto a bittersweet lament. “Yahweh” continues a U2 tradition, the
\nalbum-closing chitchat with the Lord. It’s too long and too slow,
\nbut that’s part of the tradition
\n
\n…It’s a reminder that what makes U2 so big
\nisn’t really their clever ideas, or even their intelligence — it’s
\nthe warmth that all too few rock stars have any idea how to turn
\ninto music.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Rolling Stone’s review of the album: Halfway through the excellent new U2 album, Bono announces, “I like the sound of my own voice.” Well-said, lad; well-said. Ever since U2 started making noise in Dublin several hundred bloody Sundays ago, Bono has grooved to the sound of his own gargantuan rockness. Ego, shmego — this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-day2day"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-pS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}