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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2000)
Les Ballets Jazz I de Montreal % 1 WHERE: Lied Center for I Performing Arts, 12th and I R streets WHEN: Tonight at 8 p.m. COST: $36, $32 and $28, ■ half price for students THE SKINNY: Classical and modern dance meets mmm modern music. New U2 cuts best part of‘Million’ album By Cliff Hicks Staff writer When you’re as big as U2 is, you really can take on any side project you want to and get away with it. This time around, U2 front man Bono actually wrote the story for Wim Wenders’ latest picture, “The Million Dollar Hotel,” so he took a big hand in scoring it, asking friend and collaborator Daniel Lanois to help him, and the results make for pleasant listening. The band also has contributed tracks to three of director Wenders’ other films - “Until the End of the World,” “Faraway So Close” and “The End of Violence.” In between albums “Zooropa” and “Pop,” U2 also got together with pro ducer Brian Eno and made “Passengers: Original Soundtracks Vol. 1,” a collection of soundtrack pieces for (mostly) fictional films. The soundtrack kicks off with one of the two new U2 songs on the album, “The Ground Beneath Her “The Million Dollar 5*Hotel” Soundtrack ARTISTS: Various artists LABEL: Interscope Records GRADE: B+ FIVE WORDS: New U2 fa worth the million. Feet,” although observant U2 fans will note the lyrics are not Bono’s, but instead written by noted author Salman Rushdie. Still, it’s a building and soaring song in the style of “Stay (Faraway, So Close!)” that proves what U2 fans have suspected for a while - if U2 has Brian Eno on one hand, it needs Daniel Lanois on the other. U2’s last album, “Pop,” was a good album, but not a great one. It seemed like the songs never really stuck, and something was missing. Most likely, it was Lanois. Both “Achtung Baby” and “The Joshua Tree” were co-produced by Lanois and Eno, and the two need each other to strike a balance of sorts between Eno’s space-pop and Lanois’ field guitar. The only completely new, com pletely U2 song on the album is “Stateless,” a quiet, brooding song that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on “Zooropa.” It gives one a great deal of hope for the next U2 album that’s tentatively scheduled for release before the end of the year. Speaking of “Zooropa,” a song from that album, “The First Time,” makes an appearance here. Twice in fact, the first time being the band’s original and the second time covered by Lanois and the revolving collec tion of musicians referred to as “The Million Dollar Hotel Band.” This brings us to the major prob lem with the soundtrack - even though it’s nearly an hour long, there are two different versions of “The First Time” and three different ver sions of Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love,” two of which star Milla Jovovich (who’s in the movie) doing her best Nico impression. Sure, each of these songs is great in its own right, but it can get a bit repetitive. Also on the album are a few fan tastic collaborations between Bono and Lanois, including the sound track’s centerpiece and most lovely song, “Falling At Your Feet.” Lanois’ fingerprints are much more obvious on the soundtrack than Eno’s, and the results mean the sound track is generally more of the atmos pheric emptiness of “The Joshua Tree” than the bubbly techno-mur murs of “Zooropa,” but the two U2 tracks stay dead smack in the middle. All of this means that the sound track was really more of Lanois’ pro ject than Eno’s, but they’re both putting equal time in on the new album, which is always a good thing. The soundtrack closes with nearly all of U2 (Bono playing guitar, Larry Mullen playing drums and Adam Clayton playing bass - only guitarist Edge is nowhere to be heard) with Tito Larriva and the MDH Band per forming a Spanish cover of the Sex Pistols “Anarchy In the USA.” I kid you not. It’s an upbeat way to end a mostly blue soundtrack. Don’t expect to see “The Million Dollar Hotel” coming to theaters near you any time soon, as the film does not yet have a U.S. distributor, despite sporting big-name stars such as Jovovich and Mel Gibson, but oh well, you can’t win ’em all. Now if U2 would just get its ass in gear and finish its new album, as the soundtrack offers nothing but opti mistic promises, leaving U2 fans wanting more.