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Butch Vig recommended Achtung Baby by U2 in Music (curated)

 
Achtung Baby by U2
Achtung Baby by U2
1991 | Alternative

"I think that when this came out I put it in my car and didn’t take it off for six months. Honestly I think this record, at least for me, was one of the influences on us making that first Garbage record. I loved how they reinvented themselves; how they started flirting with electronics and fuzz and beeps and industrial noise yet made these amazing songs. They stirred it all up, threw it against the wall and spat it all out. They redefined themselves and it resulted in what I think is their finest work. At the time I think a lot of people couldn't quite get their head around it and then they went out and did that massive Zoo TV tour, which was quite a sensory experience. You could see that the band were almost making fun of themselves: there's almost a self-deprecation in there, telling us how they were approaching themselves. There's some gritty humour in the songs, I think. We (Garbage) were thrilled to be asked last year to a do a cover of 'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses' as all of us absolute love that record. When we tried sounding like U2 it didn't work. We needed it to sound like Garbage so, much like U2, we had to sort of reinvent ourselves and take a different slant on it to give it something that we felt comfortable with, which ended up being a whole heap of fun to do! We stripped the verses down and we're all pretty pleased as to how it turned out as we were honoured to have been asked to have been involved. Bono sent us a note and it was lovely; I can't remember exactly what he said but it was something about the way Shirley sang the verses and the bridge making him feel like a peeping Tom. He obviously listened to the track and he got where we were going with it. It was an awesome note."

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The Coffinmaker's Garden (Ash Henderson #3)
The Coffinmaker's Garden (Ash Henderson #3)
Stuart MacBride | 2021 | Crime, Thriller
8
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Coffinmakers Garden is a gritty thriller with a healthy dash of black humour. There is clearly a good reason why Ash Henderson is an ex-Detective Inspector, and it’s not just his severe arthritis. This is a man who will pretty much stop at nothing to bring the criminals to justice - unless he’s using criminals to help him get what he wants. Ash is a teeny bit corrupt, I think (for the record, I don’t think you can be a teeny bit anything: you’re either doing it, or you aren’t).

I really enjoyed the dark humour, and I’m not particularly squeamish, so the murdery bits didn’t bother me - in fact I really enjoyed the whole book. Yes, Ash’s actions were a bit OTT sometimes, but in my opinion, this is a piece of fiction, not a documentary on police procedure 🤷🏼‍♀️ It did read a bit like a cop film set in a big US city, except with a much smaller budget and Scottish accents. And let’s face it - Ash Henderson has a dog that he clearly adores, so he can’t be all bad!

I liked that there were actually two investigations running at the same time - one of which Ash is kicked off because of his poor behaviour. He still seems to manage to be involved with them both though, which must have been frankly exhausting for him!

The fact that I haven’t read the first two books in this series didn’t lessen my enjoyment, it merely made me curious as to what happened in the previous books. I wasn’t left not understanding what was going on. Short, appropriate explanations saw to that. The characters were richly described and fascinating to read about - they were all very different people.

So, another great book chosen by The Pigeonhole, and I really appreciated the short videos that Stuart McBride prepared for us to watch throughout the book.