I have no take on the iPhone 6 Plus, which looks like the Samsung Galaxy and other big phabonelets. I’m sure that I will eventually buy an iPhone 6 Megabundle, because the new built-in camera is banging, and I use my phone mostly to order food and take pictures. The Apple Watch looks like a Happy Meal prize, and it may or may not change health care by helping people “learn” to avoid junk food and run more, which is some groundbreaking intel.
Yesterday, to help celebrate the celebration of a phone and a watch and the omnipresent-overlord vibes of Apple, its C.E.O., Tim Cook, announced that the new U2 album, “Songs of Innocence,” was being added automatically to everyone’s iTunes library. That’s right, even if you didn’t ask for the new U2, it showed up in your iTunes music library. Except if it didn't. My iTunes Store cheerfully insisted that I already had the album in my library. I did not. Whether an iCloud mix-up or an iTunes glitch, early adopters and heavy users should beware of Apple products not working with Apple products (or iTunes Store copy leaving out a note about hinkty little preferences boxes that need checking). This heightens the feeling of the music and the gear—all of it—being for the casual user, and not of any great significance. What Cook and U2 probably wanted to duplicate yesterday was the organic delight when Beyoncé released an entire album out of the blue last December on iTunes. Instead, U2 stuffed a locksmith card in your doorframe, which you’ve probably already tossed. In case you didn’t delete this modern-rock wet wipe, here is my track-by-track guide to “Songs Of Innocence,” by those famous tax-avoiders U2.
- “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)”: One of those yo-ho-ho nautical camp sing-alongs that Coldplay loves to squeeze out. Not as good as “Pretty Hurts.” Also: don’t talk about Joey Ramone.
- “Every Breaking Wave”: That recursive U2 trick where they sound like one of the hundred bands who ripped them off. I think this one might be by Snow Patrol. Bono’s vocals sounds like they’re ten feet away from anyone else in the band. Not as good as “Haunted.”
- “California (Blah Blah Blah)”: The track sounds like seventeen different bands averaged out in Yelp and turned into an Active Rock Smoothie. Nowhere near as good as “Drunk In Love.”
- “Song for Someone”: Bono’s opening lines in this tender douche-fest are “You got a face not spoiled by beauty, I have some scars from where I’ve been. You got eyes that can see right through me, you’re not afraid of anything they’ve seen.” As an alternative to Google Translate, Apple will be releasing the Pick-Up Artists Translation Tool for Tools. It will be baked into the iPhone 7, which will be available only in whatever country U2 moves its tax haven to next. Not as good as “Blow.”
- “Iris (Hold Me Close)”: Sounds a lot like U2, at least. More lyrics generated by Mechanical Turk, but the Edge is Edgy. Not as good as “No Angel.”
- “Volcano”: Really nice bass sound, and it helps to remember that Adam Clayton is in the band. The least unpleasant moment so far. Don’t even compare this to “Partition.”
- “Raised By Wolves”: The mixing on this album is truly weird. A man makes sad asthmatic wolf noises and then a guitar louder than everything on the album goes HONK in the left channel and the rest sounds like Imagine Dragons. Not as good as “Jealous.”
- “Cedarwood Road”: This was cool when I thought it was a Sisters of Mercy cover, but it turned out to be a U2 song that maybe the band thinks is metal. I’m pretty sure that nobody in the band has ever listened to metal, so it seems to be a Red Hot Chili Peppers song about a cherry tree that leads to the sky. Not as good as “Rocket.”
- “Sleep Like a Baby Tonight”: Slow and synth-heavy. Not necessarily clear if anybody from the band attended the recording of this song. Not as good as “Mine.”
- “This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now”: Lots of men singing at soldiers. I am beginning to suspect that U2 hasn’t listened to U2 since the last time U2 released an album, because this, like many of the songs, sounds like a grab bag of bands from the past twenty or thirty years. The track resembles Interpol and Jane’s Addiction blended with whichever band does lots of chanting. Not even comparing this to “XO.”
- “The Troubles”: Features singing by Lykke Li, which relieves the tedium, sort of. Not as good as “Flawless,” or the three extra songs on Beyoncé’s album, but it would be mean to point that out.
Don’t shove your music into people’s homes. A U2 album that some would have taken seriously was instead turned into an album that seems as pointless as it probably is. Lack of consent is not the future.
