U2’s ‘most personal’ effort ever

U2 made news last year when the band gave its new album Songs Of Innocence away for free on iTunes on the day it was Iaunched last September. No need to do anything if you were one of the over 500 million subscribers to the download service. Songs of Innocence was delivered to your account, spanking new and all paid for by Apple. An acoustic version was released a month later via the usual channels and had to be paid for. This has now been incorporated into the deluxe edition of the CD.

Now, not everybody was pleased. iTunes subscribers turned out to be a choosy lot. There were some of them who were not happy about having the album in their libraries. That is even if they did not have to pay for it. They termed the gimmick presumptuous as in U2 thinking it is indeed the biggest band of all time in existence and thereby presumed that everybody would want a copy of the new album.

Even some fans and colleagues were not pleased. They called U2’s deal with Apple, heresy. It was like a pact with the devil and for money at that. In a way, Apple’s iTunes, through the system of downloading, is among those responsible for the massive decline in the sale of physical CDs. Downloads pay artists less in terms of royalties. It also allows the practice of subscribers buying only selected cuts and not the entire album. Again less royalties for creators.

And now that streaming music is becoming popular, you know, it costs less and solves the problem of storage, artists are earning even less from the use of their works. Bono, who is admired all over the world for his crusade against AIDS and poverty, is now sleeping with the enemy. I do not know how much iTunes paid U2 for Songs of Innocence. The deal could be worth millions. On the other hand though, U2 has turned things around and made the devil pay. Great. But not all artists are as big as U2.

U2 is made up of Bono on vocals, The Edge on guitar, Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen on drums. The bandmates are now all pushing 60 and have been performing together for over 40 years. They are also friends. They have been so since they met as kids who wanted to be in a band in Dublin, Ireland back in 1976. The guys have since become one of the biggest bands, if not the biggest in the world, the one that can bring in over seven million people to arenas in a single tour.

Almost four years in the making, Songs Of Innocence is U2’s 13th studio album. Aside from the controversy generated by the iTunes deal, it is also up against not only today’s new rockers but also against U2’s impressive back catalogue. This includes such landmark albums as Boy, War, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, All You Can’t Leave Behind, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and Zooropa. Songs of Innocence has to be very, very good to survive the baggage. I am happy to say that it is.

The title Songs Of Innocence comes from a famous collection of poems by William Blake, the 18th century mystical poet of the Romantic Period, Songs of Innocence And Experience. Among these is “Smiles on thee, on me, on all/ who became an infant small/ Infant smiles are his own smiles/ Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.”

And that is just what U2 does in the two-disc album. The rockers beguile the listener by going back in time and reliving their innocence. The result takes on their youth and must be the band members’ most personal effort ever. It is a period filled with sadness, which at this point in their lives, U2 is now able to take apart and savor against the glow of success.

Here are memories of watching punk rocker Joey Ramone in concert and getting inspired to become a rock star, the anthemic The Miracle of Joey Ramone; of Bono’s mother, Iris, who died when he was 14, the sweetly lilting Iris (Hold Me Close); of the street where he lived in Ireland, the guitar showcase Cedarwood Road; and the remembered violence on the streets of Dublin in the exploding Raised By Wolves.

The ballads, slow and majestic, like Every Breaking Wave, Song For Someone and The Troubles come off best. This is all the more emphasized in the second disc, which contains the acoustic versions of the songs in the cut Acoustic Sessions. This is where you hear every instrument as it should be heard and Bono’s high-pitched emotional vocals at its most powerful.

Don’t shy away from this one just because U2 got into a deal with Apple. This is one of U2’s best. Besides, how else will you be able to enjoy the sequel Songs of Experience, which is said to be already in the works, without Songs of Innocence?