A couple of years ago the latest update from Apple came packaged with U2’s latest album , an album that impressed me so much I’ve since forgotten the name. The outrage was amazing, how dare Apple give me a free album, how can I get this off my phone? Bono is a tosser. You know the drill, you don’t have to travel far to find people who don’t like U2 and yet until quite recently they remained one of the worlds biggest live shows. Massive tour after massive tour kept coming, album after album.
How did they do it?
My only possible explanation can be constant re invention. Yes it’s the same four blokes turning out the tunes but the sound has been through more different phases than any other band I can recall. Along the way they’ve been happy to pick up new fans as easy as alienate existing ones.
Take for example my favourite U2 album Achtung Baby and compare it to it’s predecessor the Joshua Tree(I’m going to ignore Rattle & Hum for a moment as I think that points to something else again that I’ll explain later, stay with me) , Joshua Tree is this moody piece of Americana that starts with big statements like Where the streets have no name and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for and slowly drifts into mood tunes like One Tree Hill and Exit. It made U2 the undisputed kings of the music world but the second half of the album put most punters to sleep.
Their next album Rattle & Hum is pure filler, a way to release more material without too much interruption to the massive touring schedule that the band was on by that point, it is accompanied by a movie that really amounts to a long form rock video. It’s a trick they’ll pull again with Zooropa though thankfully I don’t recall seeing the movie and as some of the tracks probably started in the Achtung Baby sessions it is a better album.
Which brings me to my favourite U2 album, Achtung Baby, by the time this album arrives in 1991 I’m fed up with U2, bored with, think they are pretentious twats. My girlfriend(now wife) bought the album almost immediately when it came out. I wondered why, she played it to me, I liked it, a lot. I made a tape with Achtung Baby on one side and Crowded House’s Woodface on the other. I listened to these albums every day on the train to work every day for more than two years. I can’t think of two albums I’ve listened to more. I still love Achtung Baby, I can tolerate parts of Woodface.
The sound could not be more different from The Joshua Tree. It punches right from the opening track: Zoo Station. Recorded initially in a recently reunited Berlin, this album is German efficiency, there is nothing in it that doesn’t need to be there, on every song Edge’s guitar sings but doesn’t over impose, Larry Mullen drums like clockwork.
The singles from this album went on to be some of the most distinct and popular U2 songs ever produced and it’s that rare thing, an album that sounds new on its millionth listen.
U2 have continued to reinvent, to change and along the way I’ve lost interest, the sound I loved has gone. And that’s what I think could be the problem with U2, they change, they aren’t the comfortable band that trots out the same old lines or sounds album after album. I’m certainly not mad at them because I don’t think I’d like to listen to Achtung Baby volume 5 but I certainly don’t love the band the way I did when this was almost the only album I listened to.
Thoughts? Your favourite U2 album? Or tell me what your problem is with U2 or my reading of them.
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fell in love with a girl 