Episode 172: Bono Mumbo Jumbo

On the TFT Podcast, Ryan, Matt, and Rachel interview Zella Day and listen to and discuss U2’s third album, “War.”

Ryan, Rachel, and Matt listen to and discuss U2’s War, and interview special guest Zella Day.

In the interview, Zella discusses her musical influences, compares making music in small towns versus big cities, and the secret shame of being a fan of Sublime’s 40 Oz. to Freedom Listen to the interview segment below and check out her new album, Kicker.

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Syllabus

4 Comments on “Episode 172: Bono Mumbo Jumbo”

  1. Rich #

    This album sold 4 million copies in the US, but I wonder how many were sold the year it was released. I would love to see the sales chart year over year.

    I remembering getting into U2 when the live album Under a Blood Red Sky came out. This was the year they started to get radio play in Philadelphia. On the radio at least, U2 is not a post punk band. They were seen in the linage of rock bands coming out of Europe. This is not a reaction to punk, but a side step of that moment.

    I am surprised you did not comment on Bono’s Band Aid line on Do They Know it’s Christmas “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.”

    For the last two albums I am surprised you did not comment on the impact of MTV. Both Cindy Lauper and U2 got such a big boost from the MTV push? I have not been listening to all your episodes, I have been cheery picking the back catalog, at some time music will be made with MTV in mind.

    Reply

  2. Josie M. #

    Well, you’re always talking about alienating and confounding your audience. And you finally did it by making me listen to “Santeria” for the millionth time.
    I’m not sure how often you are subjected to music you hate just because it’s somehow around you always, but there it is.

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  3. Josie M. #

    The career arcs of U2 and REM are similar but not the same. Part of the epic essay-length comment that got eaten when my laptop died was mentioning that the parallel would be better if you’d been discussing REM’s fourth album, Life’s Rich Pageant, from 1986. For one thing, that album much more than Murmur is the sound they were trying to get back to in the “return to form”-narrativized era. For another, that marks roughly the same point in REM’s musical evolution as this one does in U2’s, from the change in recording production technique to the increased clarity of the vocals and even the vaguely political lyrics.

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  4. Josie M. #

    Also one thing about Sunday Bloody Sunday is that it’s lack of specificity in the rest of the lyrics besides the titles meants it has lent itself to some really interesting and unusual covers. The that come to mind immediately – both from about a decade ago – are the one edited together from George W. Bush speeches http://youtu.be/PXnO_FxmHes and the version by the poet and rapper Saul Williams on “The Rise and Inevitable Liberation of NiggyTardust”, his collaboration with Trent Reznor. http://youtu.be/keqAQk1yuOs

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