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Dec 1, 2017If experience has taught U2 anything, it is that a great new song can still feel like the first day of the rest of your life. Songs of Experience is that innocence renewed.
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Dec 1, 2017In an age of hot takes and cold snark, the band’s grand earnestness feels like the artifact of another time, an art lost to nearly everyone save a few fellow statesmen (Mr. Springsteen comes to mind). And it’s all over the group’s 14th studio album, aptly titled Songs of Experience, a record so defiantly full of hard-earned hope and fortitude it seems to blot out the bleaker realities of 2017 through sheer Irish willpower.
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Nov 30, 2017Despite its flaws, Songs of Experience is an audibly better album than either of its predecessors. For one thing, not all its errors are overwhelming--if the Auto-Tune feels a bit jarring, the song it decorates is still pretty great. And for another, when U2 calm down and allow themselves to be themselves, the results are frequently fantastic.
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Nov 29, 2017It’s not an album that courts new fans by radically changing U2’s style; instead, it reaffirms the sound that has been filling arenas and stadiums for decades.
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Nov 27, 2017It showcases U2 at their most mature and assured, playing songs of passion and purpose, shot through and enlivened with a piercing bolt of desperation.
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MojoNov 22, 2017U2's strongest album this century. [Jan 2018, p.86]
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Q MagazineNov 22, 2017Songs Of Experience will likely go down as a late-career classic. [Jan 2018, p.104]
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Dec 12, 2017It may not even share the same ambition as ‘No Line On The Horizon’ however, it’s an undeniable improvement on their two misfiring predecessors, marking this collection as their most cohesive and heartfelt in almost 15 years.
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Dec 6, 2017They embrace what they do best: creating music that balances this personal and political darkness with joy. In their strongest outing since All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the four-piece writes both sweeping anthems as well as some of the most effortless songs of their career.
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Nov 30, 2017Singalong-ready and set to tempos determined not to leave anyone behind, the record marks an explicit return to the spirit of U2’s ultra-earnest mid-’80s work, and also to that era’s eager commercial ambition.
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Nov 29, 2017They just seems to be writing the music they enjoy, about the things they care about, and it’s done them a world of good.
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Dec 5, 2017Truth be told, underneath the gimmicks lurks an upbeat and catchy pop record. ... But on Songs of Experience U2 ignore their past and instead saunter ahead with hooking melodies and sing-along choruses.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 135 out of 191
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Mixed: 16 out of 191
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Negative: 40 out of 191
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Dec 1, 2017
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Dec 1, 2017
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Dec 1, 2017