Acthung Baby!

It has been nice not having written real posts about Christmas or New Years, for the sake of the world I decided it was best to leave the self loathing and deep reflection for others more qualified for the job.

That being said, I will now indulge into a musical rant that may or may not end up digressing into a rant on third world poverty, existentialism or the fact I am rather hungry:

So I woke up a half hour ago and turned my laptop on and by chance winamp was playing through the album Acthung Baby by U2. For those who sift through my music collection it is not a shock to realize I happen to enjoy the band but there is just something that is absolutely amazing about this album.

There are so many factors as to why I enjoy U2 so much...emotion, honesty, irony, complexity, atmospheric sound, relate ability among other things. But this one particular album goes well beyond that.


From first glance (or listen rather) it seems like U2 had completely lost their mind between the years 1989 and 1991, long gone are the metaphorical references to the western United States, over references to Christianity and the in your face approach to political activities. Instead there is a dangerous album that seems overly simplified.

There is an emphasis on personal relationship in the lyrics and the music almost makes it feel like you have arrived at a party. It's not until you have heard the record for the dozenth or so time do things really sink in and one can get a sense as to how dark this album is.

Dark irony as it were, a dozen songs that taken as a whole begin the first part of a story of leaving behind the stories you were told as a kid and trying to find out what is true by experience. Which in and of itself is not the best way of discovering life but it is the path most choose because it is so hard to simply sit back in life when you can go yourself.

The thoughts I rationalize myself would most likely scare the vast majority of people away from me so I don't intend to sound judgmental in the least, so often i want to just leave everything behind and really go into the world. I know I don't exactly have to live wild and stupid to get the point that there are problems in this world and that eventually you have to stop seeing yourself as the center of the universe.

Bah.

I wanted to write about the album but there are so many strings and so many directions of thought associated with that album that it is almost impossible for me to keep a single thought in place long enough to write it down. Maybe I'll just have to come back and write about individual songs before I can write about the album as a whole.

My point is this:

Most people I meet either love or hate U2, I do not judge you for either of these actions but I would advocate finding this album and taking a long listen. I very well could have horrid musical tastes but that hasn't stopped me yet.