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Passengers

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

In the early eighties, a guy, who worked for the same publisher that I worked for, invited me to come over to his place, because he wanted me to listen to a tape. He said it was the best music ever made. He told me the name of the band, but I had never heard of it. The tape was a recording of a concert and it must lasted at least five hours or more. I was so happy when it was over!
Later, when the LP came out, I learned that the band was called U2. I never liked their music, but I can see that these guys are okay. I even saw their movie when it came out, and that was worth seeing.
Last week I bought me first U2 CD. It was at a sale, where I went because our son wanted to go. He bought a larger pile of CD’s than I did. I still feel reluctance to pay money for CD’s; I rather spend my money on vinyl. But this CD is probably not available on vinyl. It is a collection of fake soundtrack songs. I didn’t know that, but after listening to the CD and reading the liner notes, I began to smell humour, so I did a Google search and read this on Wikipedia:
”Because the album is highly experimental, bespeaking the increasing influence of Brian Eno on the band, Island Records was reluctant to release it as a U2 album, so the invented name was devised instead.
There is some argument amongst U2 fans as to whether this is considered a U2 album or not, but it is usually not included in the band’s discography, due to the pseudonym under which it was released.
Because of the nature of the music and the decision to release it under another name, the album is easily the least known and worst selling in the U2 catalog.
Further, critical reaction from the press, the fans, and even the band members, has been mixed. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr., is noted for his dislike of the album: “There’s a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record.”
About half of the album is instrumental, and the vocal tracks generally stray from the clear hooks and melodies that usually define U2’s work. Of these, the delicate “Miss Sarajevo”, featuring Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti on vocals, is considered the most memorable. Reflecting on the album in 2002, Mullen stated, “It hasn’t grown on me. However, ‘Miss Sarajevo’ is a classic.” Bono objected to Mullen’s statement in the same documentary, claiming that “Larry just didn’t like [Passengers] because we didn’t let him play the drums.”
Here is one of the songs:

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And here are the descriptions of the fake movies:

Not all movies are fake: four have actually been made. The soundtracks to these movies are the least interesting to my ears. Here is another song from U3’s CD ”Passengers”:

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I asked our son to write something about the CD’s that he bought, but he is too busy building a website. More about that soon!

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