Swept to The Edge : You , U2 - me too !

First there was With Or Without You in the hot New Delhi summer of 1987 India. Then  Joshua Tree in January 1988. It's the soundtrack to my Year 10 school exams in March. I played it a million times a day during those two months of prep leave. Who wouldn't ! 

I didn't like Rattle And Hum and that was that.  I've been pretty much inside of the 1980-1990 compilation ever since. I couldn't bring myself to check out the new direction of Achtung Baby either when it came out . It was my hippy music phase in the early 1990's. By the time I came out of that particular bit of stupidity , I was older and even stupider - checking out new music didn't figure very high on the list of priorities ! 

Surfing through my playlist last week, I got down to the 1990-2000 hits -and my word, 'tis a mighty canon! 

It's one thing to have the pad of big success to launch into the outer space of new frontiers, quite another to do it well. U2's genius lies in how they've blown it out of the fucking water. 

Now the 1980s U2 was a totally different sound from the rock music of the time. And The Edge's guitar clearly had so much to do with it. The clean tone shimmer and ring, those breezy chimes, that thousand-string twang of some joyous jingle jangle guitar-tambourine, that percussive chug chug of a songengine. We hadn't heard anything like it before. 

But while the world raved, I only wondered why. I was a hard rock lead guitar nut in those days - Blackmore, Eddie, the NWOBH cats, all of that. The Edge didn't do lead guitar, see.

It's only recently that I have begun to get  the whole talent behind it and rate him up there. Fast and faultless solos are still godly but creating a whole sound isn't too bad is it ! 

Hearing this lot now has been a big step forward into that reevaluation. Obviously the collective  intelligence, creativity and drive of the band in their decision to successfully go someplace new - hard , industrial, electronic, dancey- shines through. At the very least, you can see the flash of Bono's brilliance lighting up the shop floor.  But The Edge's guitar ?  Still at the centre of the factory.

Now he's got the dirty distortion and the darkly riff. He's got the heaving mojo, the heavy funkyo. He's got dirt and grit and grind and gold. He's got the rich tapestry,the rabid texture. He's got the randy chord and the raunchy hook. 

He's still not got the solo but he's got your big toe grinning and leaping out of your left shoe like some shameless cretin Beelzebub sozzled senseless.

Waxing weird I know but I'm tripping so hard! The last few days have been a full circle from those Joshua Tree days 26 years ago.  Can't wait now to dig into these other  albums, Achtung onwards. 

Midlife? Who knows? But yeah you've been all over and it's been all over you. 

This video is Discotheque. Plug it into a decent speaker if you care to and crank it way up. The roof could come down in a rain of endorphins but who cares. You just can't get enough of that lovey dovey stuff!