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Salvage a track from a widely savaged album

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It would be fair to say that U2 are not the most widely loved of bands here, and that even within those open to the charms of the One Hitmakers Rattle and Hum is not the most widely loved of their work. I’ve recently struggled through it again and boy is it awful, some of the worst cover versions – All Along the Watchtower, Helter Skelter – possible. It’s peak Bono with the preaching, sanctimoniousness and unloveable bluster…there’s so much to dislike about this album.
But yet. Hidden amongst the classic rock audition numbers is Heartland. It’s quite subdued, has that fragile and shivery Edge loveliness, Bono singing and not preaching, and sense of space that made Boy so appealing, in fact tone down the production a bit and you could imagine it from that album.
You may or may not agree, but please let’s have your hidden jewels within albums (thinking Live It Up aka ‘Moon Sausage’, Chinese Democracy, the Durans cover album, or Love Beach here for example) that are universally reviled.

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Comments

  1. Van Damiens Land, God Part 2, All I Want Is You, Desire & Angel Of Harlem -all great. Even Love Rescue Me and Hawkmoon ain’t bad. The gospel section of ISHFWILF is aces. The covers are crap I grant you and Silver n Gold Bono preaching.

    The album is better than the film which is far more objectionable

  2. Everyone knows Bowie’s Tonight sucks big time. But I like the title track. Far prefer it to the Iggy version in fact. I’ve always had a soft spot for a bit of cod-reggae and I like Tonight’s simplicity. Plus I like playing it on acoustic guitar (verse: A / E / F#m, chorus: D / A / E / D / A / E).

  5. Desire was on Rattle and Hum. A cracking track.

    But the bit in the film where Bongo says something like “did someone tell me that I can find the blues in here?” is worth the admission price alone.

  6. The Jam – The Modern World.
    Not a bad album – Its got This Is The Modern World and Standards on it for a start, and the cover of Midnight Hour aint half bad.
    Not loved when first released, and regularly falls a the bottom of The Jam lists.
    But it also contains this:
    Life From A Window

    • No idea what you are talking about.

      I’m going to stretch the OP. I have to confess a distaste for Imperial Bedroom. I regard it as the weakest of Costello’s imperial phase albums, too grandiose, too ponderous, somewhat confused and fewer catchy tunes and pithy lyrics. I know I’m in a minority on the Afterword.

      However, Beyond Belief is perhaps his best track. Unfortunately, you have to accept an early version from youtube.

      • What about Man Out Of Time? Possibly my favourite Elvis song. Or at least it’s up there with Guitar Man, King Creole and Fort Lauderdale Chamber Of Commerce.

        • Imperial Bedroom is the album that people now point to as the one where Elvis got too clever – clever.

          He’s actually currently touring the USA playing IB in it’s entirety alongside choice cuts from surrounding albums. I hope he plays that over here as the song that got me hardcore into Elvis but before this tour he’s played literally a handful of times I have never heard him play and (like the rest of the album – you little fool) its a belter

      • “I know I’m in a minority on the Afterword.”

        You’re right there, Tigger.
        From where I’m sitting, virtually every second of every song on Imperial Bedroom is perfect. Maybe “Boy with a Problem” gets 9 out of 10, while the rest of the album gets an impeccable 10.

        Elvis’s cover design is shite, though.

  8. I was going to salvage a track off Give Out But Don’t Give Up, but when I looked at the tracklist I remembered that they are all pretty good. The album gets a bad rap because it couldn’t have been less forward thinking than Screamadelica, but on its own terms, it’s a winner.

    • Top album – my favourite in their canon.
      The main reason it gets looked down on is that it wasn’t Sceamadelica Part 2, and there was just a touch of “trying to be too Stonesy” about it (even down to nicking a song title).

      Rocks like a b*stard, and funky as f*ck!

      • I’ve recently gone back to it. At the time it came out I liked the rock and funk tracks and didn’t give so much time to the ballads. But recently Free and Sad And Blue came up on the iPod and got me listening to its slower tracks. Of course it’s not as special as Screamadelica, but it’s a very fine album.

  9. Uncle Len’s Death of a Ladies man is by no means his best album but am quite partial to the title track.
    Elvis Costello reckons Goodbye Cruel World is his worst album. If it is then Love Field should be saved from its destruction. The Comedians is a great song, sung badly and I like the melody of Joe Porterhouse but I can see why he was less than pleased with the album.

      • Hurrah! Now we’re “salvaging” the top 3 hit from an album, I feel the thread has loosened its tie enough for me to post. See, I can’t come up with something which satisfies both the “salvage” and “savaged” criteria. However:
        “Savaged” – from an album the critics were so eager to pile into some even forgot to use the word “sophomore”: Billy Don’t Fall is a great pop song from Terence Trent D’Arby’s Neither Fish Nor Flesh…
        And the ultimate salvage job was passing an unremarkable and derivative tune from Primal Scream’s second album through Andrew Weatherall’s digestive system to discover, floating in the bowl, the template for the 90s in Loaded.

        • Now we’re cooking, Neither Fish… was much more at the level I was thinking. Don’t Give Up… , Blow Up Your Video or Imperial Bedroom are not the artists best, but hardly critically reviled. Still no takers for Chinese Democracy though.
          Others surely we could cover: Dirty Work, Saturnz Return, Primitive Cool (Jagger) My Beauty (Rowland fishnets), Lou Reed and Metallica Lulu…

          • Neither Fish…. was a fookin bostin’ album. Stands up vastly better than The Hardline… which squillions of people bought then and no-one listens to now.

            Imperial Bedroom was the highest-rated EC album in the NME’s Top 100 albums of all time poll in 1985 (above My Aim and This Year’s Model). Quite right too.

          • I Can’t Tell The Bottom From The Top is crackin’. Rowland’s voice quavers & swoops with characteristic passion plus it takes me back to the early days of meeting Mr andielou *blushes*
            (In reply to Moselymoles)

  22. 76 comments in and still no-one will admit to even having listened to Chinese Democracy. I know I haven’t.

    As a sub-genre I present The Album That Just Goes on Too Long
    Be Here Now is certainly not loved much and was recently the subject of an excellent article in The Guardian on why it is so loathed:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/06/flattened-by-the-cocaine-panzers-the-toxic-legacy-of-oasiss-be-here-now

    Inspired by this I’ve recently listened to it (am I the only person in the world who didn’t Oxfam it after a year) and though All Around The World is as awful as I remember it, many of the tracks would be redeemed – or at least much improved – by clocking in at say the 4 minute mark rather than 6 plus. And the production is pretty rubbish too.

  23. Simple Minds See the Lights. Ok, it’s a bit big music but It does have groove, honestly. Off Real Life which is rubbish. ( I’ve never listened to it natch but it’s called Real Life so it’s bound to be rubbish. And the video isn’t official and has a very early picture of them on it for some reason.

  26. I know I’m ridiculously late to this thread but I suppose that’s kind of fitting as here’s a track from The Chinese Democracy!

    I actually really like the album. It’s a departure rom their earlier work and horrifically overproduced but I reckon Better is up there with some of their best work.

    In other news, my favourite Oasis album is Be Here Now…

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