News, Reviews

Jack Bruce, R.I.P. 
Bruce died last Saturday at the age of 71. One of the great rock bass players, an accomplished songwriter and vocalist, known particularly for his work with the supergroup Cream in the late '60's, he brought great musical talent and an eccentric nature to his work.

Fame and success in the '60's were not good elements in combination with Bruce's mercurial personality.  He became addicted to drugs--needed a liver transplant some 10-15 years ago--and I am sure he was the proximate cause of Cream's breakup.  Still, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker thought enough of him to reunite the band in 2005 for a memorable series of concerts in London and New York, mostly to benefit him for his medical expenses.  He had a long career, both before and after Cream, playing with a variety of musicians, particularly in hard rock, blues, and jazz.  I'm no expert on the bass, but his lines were clean, powerful, inventive, and he had good improvisational skills.  His singing was unusually good for rock, musical and emotive; he was a tenor but could also perform well with falsetto.

My three favorite songs by Bruce:
"Theme for an Imaginary Western" (w/Pete Brown for the lyrics) - Bruce recorded it first, for his solo album "Songs for a Tailor" released after the Cream breakup;  Mountain (with Felix Pappalardi, Leslie West) made it famous at Woodstock.  Supposedly there is a hidden meaning about some of Bruce's pre-Cream band partners, but it works on the literal level, referring to the pioneers crossing the Plains to the Old West ("the sun was in their eyes"), the bravery of going out into the unknown. Bruce's version has some beautiful keyboards (not sure who), both piano and organ.   I'm still waiting for the music video, let alone the film with this as the track over the opening credits.

"We're Going Wrong" - Bruce didn't need Brown for this one; there are only about 10 short lines of lyrics, but their meaning, and Bruce's passionate delivery of the song, are crystal clear.  The music is hard to describe--extremely simple, slow-paced, with a biting Clapton solo which builds to a dramatic climax.  It's one of the lesser-known songs on Cream's greatest album, "Disraeli Gears", in the miraculous year for rock which was 1967.  All of the songs are excellent, but this one rarely fails to get my heart pounding.

"White Room" -  Number two of Cream's all-time hits (after "Sunshine of Your Love", of course, which Bruce also co-wrote with Brown); it came out a couple of years after Disraeli, by which time I was actually aware of the band (thanks to my cousin John, the most socially attuned of our little group of pre-teen intellectuals--he also gets "credit" for my discovering Firesign Theatre).  I had always thought it was about a guy in a prison cell;  now, with the benefit of lyrics posted online, I see that it was about a guy returning to his lonely hotel room after seeing off his love at the station.  But still, metaphorically, the prison room.   The Clapton solo on this one--to which Bruce played wild counterpoint runs--is a classic in the early use of the wah-wah pedal.

I bought, and still have, the 45 rpm record for "White Room"--the B-side was a song, not a great one, called "Those Were the Days".   Indeed.

A Couple Movies You May Have Missed (I caught these on a long plane trip recently)--CAUTION: some Spoilers!
The last movie released with Robin Williams in it before his suicide was "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn", and I would say it deserves to be seen.  It's your basic story of a guy told he has terminal illness, no treatment, and only hours to live, and how he chooses to spend them.

It came out in May and didn't do well; it was criticized (justly) for a fairly obvious plot dynamic, and I have to point out one completely ridiculous part of the story:  a cop stops the Williams character and his partner in misdemeanor, Mila Kunis' doctor character.  They are in a stolen taxicab; they convince the cop that they need to go to the hospital immediately (which they do need), the cop agrees to provide them an escort, then they go the other way.  And the cop isn't going to go after them?

Anyway,  three excellent elements to note:  Williams' performance as a typical angry New Yorker at the beginning of the movie, before he gets his terminal diagnosis (his litany of the things he hates in the City at the beginning is great stuff); Kunis' role as the harried young doctor, covering for her abusive lover colleague who dumped the case on her, who makes the mistake of telling Williams too much, and then her guilt drives her to track him down and help him; and a cameo with the great James Earl Jones, playing a pawn shop owner with a stutter, as he and Williams go through a variation of a classic shaggy-dog story.

I have to think this movie--shot in 2012, according to the imdb notes, to be fair--with its images of a suicidal Williams character (he jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, but survives it), may have weighed on Williams' mind (it ends with a tombstone of the character, with the correct years--1951-2014--of Williams' own lifespan) in those last days.  That gives it some extra weight for viewing it in the context of Williams' career and tragic ending.

In my fall movie preview, I suggested that The Book of Life, del Toro's fabulous film about zozobra (a Mexican celebration of the pagan holiday, the Day of the Dead) might be the favorite for the year's Oscar for Animated Film.  It might be, but I take back the casual guess and instead put forward "The Lego Movie", which is one great piece of work.  Which piece, exactly, I couldn't say, but it is a hand-crafted one that combines some great writing and production values (check out the voice credits) with millions of ordinary tiles assembled with the tedium required of stop-action.

If you have not seen it, I recommend it, for you and all members of your family.  It is great humor, witty and satiric, but without the scatology, fascination with excrement, or politically incorrect crudeness of "South Park" or "Family Guy".   The basic story is a take-off on "The Matrix" but goes in all kinds of unexpected directions.  And it has a great Will Farrell cameo and a wonderful, catchy theme song.

Turn Blue
It has been a long, strange journey for the Black Keys.  They do keep trying to change, while keeping unchanged a couple of basic elements--the pounding drums, the soulful vocals.  They have come a long way from punks playing blues with a garage sound.  Now they have the current king of record producers, Danger Mouse, providing production atmospherics and a lot more keyboards.  I like the sound, but it will hardly please the purists who fell in love with them in their raw early days.  It's an old story, the "decline" from simplicity toward artistic complexity and sonic beauty.  Or, as some would have it, the sell out.

The turning point was "Brothers",  which will probably prove to be a peak that they will never be able to rise above.  Its inventive rhythms, extremely danceable but with plenty of edge and surprising twists, catapulted them into the mass market.  "El Camino" provided some big hits and kept the momentum going forward.

This newest album is a bit of departure, as the style of Danger Mouse, the current king of leading edge record production, comes close to taking over the sound.  He was also the producer for El Camino, but here we have an album that is a studio production in the extreme.  When I saw they were coming to town for a big arena concert, I had to see how it would play.

The first tune I had heard from this album on the radio is "The Weight of Love", which is also the first cut on the album, and the first song they played in the encore in their recent concert.  It allows guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach room to roam, with extended solos (a second guitar was a necessary concession they made live).  To me it suggested old Allman Brothers, a song that meanders, with its dynamics rising and falling.  It's a great piece, one of their best ever, and well-placed in the concert setlist.

There are a couple of the new songs--I would name "Bullet to the Brain" and "Its Up to You Now"--reminiscent of the steady rocking we associate with the band, but too many fall in the category of ballads, ones which suffer a bit live; even with the sounds reproduced by the concert group, they sound a bit too canned, with a bit too much concession to pop.  Less falsetto from Dan, more gutbusting bellowing, please.  I'm referring specifically to "10 Lovers", here, and I'm not a fan of their closing piece, "Gotta Get Away", with that awful line "I went from San Berdoo/to Kalamazoo/Just to get away form you".  Kalamazoo is not really far enough--it should be "to Timbucktu" to make the cliche more impressive. Their hit from the album, "Fever" is a 60's pop song, complete with Farfisa.  The theme of love as being a malady, with the specific reference to that condition characterized by elevated body temperature, had been explored fairly thoroughly, by name, a couple of other times in that period they recall.

Their concert did not disappoint the crowd--the big hits from "Brothers" and "El Camino" drew good reaction--though I think it might have disappointed the band.  Dan kept calling out "Chicago" to get more audience participation, but we are talking about 20,000 people now, and the sense of intimacy is gone, perhaps forever.

Lastly, I will mention "In Our Prime", the next to last cut on the album, and one that I don't think was played live.  It is an interesting piece, somewhat like one of the Beatles' later ones, starting with soft piano, whimsical lyrics in the midtempo middle section, and a hard guitar sound toward the end.  I have to interpret it as a comment on their own history; already they can look back and see the road they have traveled.

Bone Clocks

David Mitchell's writing skill shines above all else in this modern fantasy/horror story. I find this one more "cinema-ready" than "Cloud Atlas" (credit to those who defied the odds and commercial necessity and made that film anyway). In this novel, I saw that he is just as adept in building the story around a multi-faceted female main character (Holly Sykes) as he has proven in the past with his masculine heroes.

The sophistication of his references, both historical and fictional (Mitchell fans will find tie-ins to both "Cloud Atlas" and to "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet") gives the reader a good chance to learn something, while paging through a long story that is rarely dull. I found the subject matter--basically, demons and angels with superpowers--a lot less convincing than his previous novels. He does go on a bit long: Halfway through, I was comparing it to an Umberto Eco novel (specifically, "Foucault's Pendulum"), told better. It is confusing at times, but Mitchell successfully brings the strands together for an exciting climax. 

The denouement, though, is depressing: Mitchell shows himself once again to be a pessimist on the future of the great adventure that is human civilization. He leaves a bit of didactic possibility for us--"if only we could....", but I don't find him to be a believer in the promise of our collective future.

Apart from the basic subject matter--in which he draws on the literature of esoteric groups, gnostics, vampire legends and the like, not my favorite topics--Mitchell takes us on a whirlwind tour around the globe to a lot of very interesting locales (cinematic candy). We hear sometimes about an author "finding his voice": Mitchell is way beyond that, finding voices of people very unlike him and presenting their thoughts and dialogue convincingly. His strong points remain depiction of character, and placing them properly in place and time (past, present, and future).+

The book is an obvious must for Mitchell fans (they don't need me to tell them that, though); for those who are new to Mitchell and would like an upscale version of "Angels and Demons" or "Da Vinci Code", I recommend it: Mitchell is much more subtle than Dan Brown about signalling his future plot twists. For those new to Mitchell, I would still recommend Cloud Atlas above all others, though. 

A recurring theme (also present in Cloud Atlas) is the social tribulation and commercial challenges of being a bestselling novelist--he presents them humorously, through a character (hopefully) quite unlike himself. This one isn't Mitchell's Desiccated Embryos*:  that's a reference to the most famous book of the writer character (Crispin Hershey), which in the critical and popular view put all the others in the shade; one might guess Mitchell is laboring under the spell of some such fear.   As for myself, I have no fear that Mitchell will get in a rut of repeating himself, his range seems nearly endless; though I would hope, for his sake and that of his readers, that he is not in a contract that requires him to deliver product on a short schedule.  His kind of writing takes time. 

+One minor beef, though: two references to "stoner", as a word, pre-date the words's entrance into common dialogue without the shock quotation marks. I should know!

*-"Desiccated Embryos"--I looked it up. It may be a reference to "Powdered Eggs", by Charles Simmons, from 1964. A great first novel (as deemed by some, won awards as such), with later follow-ups deemed not so great. Definitely some parallels to the Hershey's arc of publication history.

Here Come the Helicopters!

The zone just south of Milan's Duomo where I currently have my humble apartment is normally very quiet in the evenings:  the students at the Universita' go home (most of them) and the businesses close up early.  This week, though, we had helicopters coming in low twice in the late evenings.  Milano is heating up.

Wednesday I noticed, for the first time in months, fully-uniformed local police with their fancy white helmets on all the major street corners, making a show of directing traffic.  I was a little concerned at first, thinking that their presence might be due to an unknown threat of terroristic nature, but I was advised of a major conference of European and Asian heads of government taking place in Milano. Some 50 heads of government, from powers large and small, including China, Britain, France--with Italy as host.  The idea of the conference is to facilitate trade, and assistance, between regions.

Great, not terrorism.  Also good that they don't need the Americans to get involved in every cross-national endeavor--not that we're not interested, or that we are quite ready to dispense with the notion that we are indispensable, or as the politicians like to say, "exceptional". .

Wednesday while lunching in the park near my office --a beautiful day, I might add--I noticed helicopters coming in to the city center ("Il Centro"), I guessed they were from Linate Airport, the one nearest the city.  There were also various escorts of police and other unmarked cars with flashing lights moving people around, and the police directing them through traffic as needed. When I went home in the evening, more helicopters.

The real surprise was the sound of helicopters, flying low, at 11 at night.  Turns out it was Russian Vladimir Putin, making a big, late entrance after the gala dinner held at the Palazzo Reale (in the Piazza Duomo, just blocks away).  Milano mostly has a low ceiling in the Centro, except for the Duomo itself and the ugliest building in town, the Torre Velasca (even closer to my place), so it would not be too hard to navigate, but I have no idea where a helicopter could land (maybe the Arco della Pace, in the Parco Sempione?  It's a pretty big open space.  The piazza itself could serve, but only if it was cleared--which normally wouldn't be too hard at 11 p.m.)

Putin kept German Chancellor Angela Merkel waiting for two hours for their meeting--Merkel, the closest thing he has to a friend in the European Union.  (He had stayed longer than planned in Serbia, where he is a hero.)  Then he bopped off to see his buddy Silvio Berlusconi at 2 a.m.--they have a lot in common as media manipulators and politicians with big business interests, probably similar proclivities in partying, too;  the only difference being that Berlusconi is outside the local power center, looking to get back in.  Putin got up early for a meeting with the Ukrainian president, with a couple leading European lights there to referee and provide any letters of credit Poroshenko might need.  The deal was struck, at least for this winter--the one that counts;  Ukraine will get its gas, but not on credit.   Everyone left at various times Thursday or Friday and things went back to normal.

Saturday, though, the helicopters were back.  This time, they were police helicopters, monitoring a large gathering of the Lega Nord.  This is a party which has major support in the regions of Northern Italy, and its entire program is based on provocation, status anxiety and xenophobia.  Its rise to significance drew upon the resentment of many Northern Italians to the preferential treatment given to the underdeveloped South, along with that region's evident inability to rise despite the assistance. This is due to a number of factors, including organized crime and disorganized local government, but there is also the fact, which both complicates and aggravates the argument, that large numbers of Italians from the South work in the Northern cities.  So, the appeal, historically, was to the working-class people of the North who felt the Southerners were taking their jobs, and to the elites in the North who felt their tax dollars were being wasted, and the program was to call for a referendum on separation from the Italian state.

That never happened--it probably never would have won in any significant portion of the North, it was more a bluff and a focus for the party's complaints.  At any rate, the LN has changed its program, seemingly accepting the inevitability of staying in Italy (and trying not to antagonize the South quite so much, for purposes of remaining viable on the national level) and turning its focus to repelling the invasion of foreigners.

The term "foreign invaders" does resonate with Italians.  The unification of Italy (the "Risorgimento") dates back to the 1860's-1870's; before that there is a long succession of foreign powers occupying most of the peninsula, often using it as a battleground for their power plays.  (The 1943-44 battle for Italy between the U.S./Britain allies, relatively benign invaders, and the Nazis, who occupied it militarily when the domestic Fascists were insufficiently vigorous in keeping the Allies out, is a modern example of the model of how it often played out in the medieval and early modern periods). As a nation heavily dependent on tourism, Italy welcomes its visitors (well, usually), but tends to have a different view towards those who choose to stay more permanently.

So, who are these invaders?  The rallying point is the "clandestine" immigrants, who come here without legal right to stay or work.  In recent months, the volume of these people has increased dramatically, as the sea route from Libya to Italy offered a way into Europe for Africans, and especially recently, Syrians and other Arabs escaping the bloodbath there. There are other routes, such as the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, or the southeastern routes through Bulgaria, Greece, or Cyprus, but this one has had appeal for large numbers.  They pay Southern Mediterranean version of the Mexico/US border "coyotes" exorbitant fees for sea passage, then they are crowded into unsafe boats and, with luck, dumped out on Italian shores.  Those who still have some means head for the Northern European countries with more job prospects or paid unemployment benefits, especially for those granted political asylum, which leaves the ones in Italy who generally don't have contacts, prospects, but have strong economic needs and usually a willingness to work in any capacity.

Most Italians, including the center-left government, would agree that something needs to be done to stem this disruptive flow--in particular, Italy seeks support from the EU for providing this Halfway House service, and particularly for the naval rescue missions which have been occurring frequently. The LN takes it a step further, though:  their leader, Matteo Salvini, called for a suspension of the Schwengen treaty, which allows for the free flow of people within the EU.  With Italy still experiencing high unemployment, the fact that people from lower-wage countries like Bulgaria and Romania can come here and work would bother some working-class people.  First, though, this is not going to be changed; second, why would they come to Italy, where there are few jobs?  It's just something to get people riled up, as is the LN's praise of President Putin,  which I really don't get.

Anyway, people in the march looked well stimulated but were not violently so.  The main part of the piazza was full as I returned to my home, but I was able to maneuver around them to the back of the Duomo and head toward home--when I ran into the real reason the helicopters were overhead:  a counter-demonstration from a smaller leftist group protesting the Lega Nord.  They were insulated by a wall of police with shields and the main road in my area, the Via Larga, was blocked off, I would guess to allow them to march through on it.  Still, I was able to thread my way through the cordon and all was well.

With the Expo coming next spring--after a rough start, it seems to be on track for the May opening--and a fall lineup of arts to draw attention to it, Milano has chosen to put itself in the spotlight.  I'm hoping the helicopter scene will not get out of control.

Final Midterm Election Preview

I promise this will be the last pre-election post; and I aim to keep it short. For more commentary I refer you to the ones I did last month, my extended one in March (on the three-ring circus), in July (on the deluge of campaign emails asking for money), and a brief one in May.

Of the many, many predictions I have seen so far, the best I have seen so far is from Taegan Goddard, that the battle for control of the Senate may not be determined Election Night (he used "may", not "will", but I will give him credit for making the call, as he supported it with a short, accurate list of arguments).  There are too many close races, plus a strong possibility of subsequent run-off elections in Louisiana, and now in Georgia, the uncertainty about which party Independent Greg Orman in Kansas may choose (if he wins, which is quite likely), and the possibility of indeterminate outcomes (requiring re-counts, or at least days of counting before final results are determined) in several more races.  So, even if you are keen on knowing the outcome, don't resolve to stay up until the question is determined

I have received numerous emails that present the prospect of "victory" in various forms.  As for me, I will consider the election outcome a modest victory for our democracy if the most hated targets go down, something which will help achieve the greater result of devaluing the idea that infinite amounts of big money contributions will buy our elections. To put a score on it, I will be happy if I get a result score of 100 or more points, with the following scoring:
 1) Republicans don't end up with clear control of the Senate, 51 committed seats in their caucus (40 points);
 2) Rick Scott loses--Gov. FL ( 30);
 3) Scott Walker loses--Gov. WI (30);
 4) Mitch McConnell loses--Sen. KY (40);
 5) Greg Abbott loses--Gov. TX (50);
 6) Rep. Steve King loses--IA (20);
 7) Thom Tillis loses - Sen. NC (20);
 8) Cory Gardner loses - Sen. CO (20);
 9) David Perdue loses - Sen. GA (20); and
10) Joni Ernst loses - Sen. IA (20).

As you can see, for me it's more about the bad guys losing the elections than the "good ones" winning them.  I don't have much hope that the Republicans' margin in the House will decrease.  There is also a correlation effect, in that numbers 4, and 7-10 all contribute to 1), so that it would be hard, though not impossible, for the Democrats to hold onto a majority unless a couple of those happen.  5) and 6) are considered long-shots by most of the pundits (but not, to read their emails, by those candidates' opponents, who are Wendy Davis and Jim Mowrer, respectively).   My over-under (median) prediction is 110 points, and a slightly more specific prediction is that the night will finish (when Alaska is called for the Republican candidate) with a 49-49 result, with two races (or party alignments) yet to be determined.

Moving On
As soon as the news value of the 2014 elections is played out (it may happen sooner than Election Day: One last prediction is that 2014 will set an all-time low for voter turnout, which is a victory of sorts for the Republicans, I suppose), attention will turn to 2016. I think the most likely outcome of 2016 will be a significant wave in the Democrats' favor, due partly to the weakness of the Republican candidates likely to run, and partly to Hillary Clinton's candidacy and probable election landslide.   Especially if she takes my advice and announces herself early on for "The Polk Option", promising she will serve only a single term.

The nature of the Clinton landslide, however, is far from clear.  The Republican primary should boil down to a three-man contest:  an Establishment candidate (I'm thinking Jeb Bush, probably not Mitt Romney or Chris Christie), the Tea Party loyalists' candidate (someone from the South, maybe Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, if he "rehabilitates" himself by sufficiently condemning "amnesty"), and Rand Paul.  Rand is by far the most interesting potential major candidate the Republicans can field, because he dares to challenge orthodox Republican beliefs, both Tea Party and Establishment, so I think he can carve out a large enough voting bloc within his party to last through the first rounds of primaries.  As for Hillary, unless something happens to her health or she commits a fatal error of some kind, she will have an easy time winning the nomination; I don't think either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren will run against her.

I do think there is the danger of party splits--for both parties--if it ends up being Clinton vs. Bush again.  (I say "again", though the only Clinton-Bush race so far was '92, Bill vs. George Herbert Walker Bush. The Bush family is aching still for revenge for that one, which is one reason I think Jeb will decide to run.)  That potential for splitting could manifest itself in a true 4-way race (the only real precedents are, 1948, to some extent, and 1860), or more likely, a major third candidate, someone who can place himself/herself in a position to attract the disaffected of both parties and Independents.  That's a tricky objective--both Clinton and Bush would have to be defined as middle-of-the-road, on the phony Liberal-Conservative spectrum, and that would tend to marginalize a rebel from the extremes of both parties--so it would probably be a hugely rich populist of some kind, someone who doesn't get along with either party but can be credibly portrayed as a friend of the downcast middle class, something like a native-born Arnold Schwarzenegger or a sane Ross Perot.   That person would be identified (or self-identified) in the spring of 2016 if it appears inevitable to be Hillary vs. Jeb.

Finally, I've got a couple more small donations to give--my last one was an impulse contribution for Michelle Nunn in Georgia, as David Perdue's incredible "I'm proud of my career in outsourcing" statement looks like it could be a self-inflicted mortal wound--and then I'm done.  The DCCC is getting my House money now--it's too hard to decide among the many money claimants--and I will probably finally give something to Wendy Davis in her quixotic struggle to redeem Texas' soul, as a reward for fighting this long and still having a puncher's chance at a knockout victory.

Songs of Innocence - U2

Like about 500 million others with the unfortunate distinction of possessing an iPhone with iTunes app, this showed up on my device a couple weeks ago and started downloading itself (as far as I could tell).  I am not a fan of iAnything; I object to their claim to the pronoun or initial, and I don't like their products much, their business practices even less. I do have two devices that have been given me by my employer, and, while my iTunes app was previously devoid of downloaded music, the downloads to iTunes did at least work properly (and the music sounds great with earphones, I will admit).

I don't recommend this mode of distribution, in general; there will be few words of praise for something that is free (as it is generally expected, when it comes to Internet), while the intense wails of invasion of privacy, unwanted use of a lot of megabytes (for those who have to pay by the gig), and pushback against this push marketing approach would proliferate if coming from your ordinary popster, rapster, etc.  This, though, is U2, whose motives are beyond reproach, and as far as I am concerned, they can send me free music anytime they want.

I can think of three possible reasons for their unorthodox approach:
1)  To gain the maximum distribution to set up a massive worldwide tour.  Nowadays, the money for top rock bands is in touring, not in the record release.
2) To get back at the record company (Interscope Records) that will release the disc in a week or two, and possibly make a bunch of money on the side from Apple (which is gleaning positive publicity--and, I note, showing ads when you play the music).  Interscope will be the producer of this album; it also released their previous studio album, No Line on the Horizon, five years ago; previously they had been on Island Records.  I don't know much about record companies and could basically not care less whether they live or die, individually, but I do oppose stealing intellectual property (let me clarify:  the property is U2's, and they have the right to control it, regardless of contractual obligations to provide product), and I would like the flow of new creative product to continue somehow.  This mode may be counterproductive to the latter.
3) They are so rich they can do whatever they want and don't give a fig for the economic aspect.

I am not well-informed enough or close enough to the band to be able to guess which of the three, or which combination, applies.  I will repeat that I think this approach may be OK for those on top (Radiohead did something vaguely similar with their excellent album In Rainbows, which initially they put out there for people to buy at whatever price they wanted, including $0.01), but the big bands have to think about what impact that will have on those one step, or many steps, down the ladder.  I will say that U2 has always been good about bringing along excellent up-and-coming artists to play as openers for them on tour, something which works to the benefit of all.

Now, the music.  As I indicated, it's been five years since U2's last studio album, and I would guess it's been a bit of a struggle to get this one out (I would be little surprised to see a set of B-side releases in a few months, the ones that didn't quite make the final cut).   There is a lot of homage in the content--I would note in particular the dedication to Joe Strummer (on "This is Where You Can Reach Me Now", for my $0.02 the best song, by a good stretch), the one to Joey Ramone (more about that in a moment), and the Beach Boys (the "Ba-ba-ba-Barbara, Santa Barbara" intro to their song "California...." could hardly be mistaken as being other than an homage to the B-Boys' "Barbara Ann").  Bono has always said that his inspiration as a young musician was punk, so Strummer/Ramones are almost obligatory references.  Personally, I hardly find The Ramones to be miraculous, and I ridicule the idea that they "made some sense out of the world"--I find U2's commentary a lot more persuasive than "I Wanna Be Sedated".

Mostly, though, I would say their album is an homage to U2 itself and their extensive catalog of inventive intros, guitar riffs, chord sequences, and sonic variations.  The new element in the mix is the mix itself, with Danger Mouse leading the production, and supplying some new things like prominent keyboards and even--horrors!--female backing vocals. (I am being ironic in the last comment; I like it; though this may cause some problems on tour).

So, when I listen to this album, I am taken down Memory Lane--I hear bits of "Miss Sarajevo" (the "Iris" song), of "Unknown Caller" (the opening to "This is Where..."),the nod to Bono's boyhood home ("Cedarwood Road"), and a lot of bits which call back various songs of Achtung Baby.  This makes a lot of sense to me; that is their monumental, career-defining release, and they should re-create its conditions as much as possible.  That is where Danger Mouse comes in, taking the place of Eno, who drove their production of "Achtung!"

I think that there is plenty of arena-friendly material in the album which will fit well with their huge variety of older songs for concerts.  I can see "The Troubles" permanently taking the place of "Sunday Bloody Sunday", which I think they were tired of playing. "The Troubles", of course, was the indirect name for the war/insurgency/occupation in Northern Ireland that the British Army had with the IRA in the '70's and '80's, the subject which inspired that U2 song (U2 had a particularly emotionally-involved, though politically-detached view of it, growing up as Protestants in the Irish Republic).  This new song "The Troubles" seems to have a different subject, of a love breakup.   The Ramones/Miracle thing is certainly a good, catchy rocker to kick off the concerts (a la "Vertigo", "Elevation"), and I find "The Volcano" and "Raised by Wolves" to be intriguing songs, with interesting styling and mysterious content.  I am fine with this album's contributions to the big show, as long as they don't overdo it and they do include "This is Where You Can Reach Me Now", hopefully explaining what it's all about.  I would put this album at about #4 to #6 of their 13 studio releases, which still puts it in pretty good company.

I'm thinking the endgame scenario to be this album, the B-side release, and one more, in which they give their farewell to their fans and to the record, and a last opportunity to express themselves politically more overtly.  Maybe two more tours, altogether, before they call it a career as a band. Bono is a very intelligent, well-informed individual who has a lot to say but is reluctant to be viewed as "preaching" (The Edge, maybe, as well, but he seems extremely shy).  Well, I think we need some more of Bono's wisdom, expressed more directly in the medium that is his most important one, his songs (not just his NY Times editorials, which I find to be pretty good), and I am hoping that at the end, when all thought of commercial impact is over and it's all about their legacy, he will stop holding back.