I've never understood the animosity towards All That You Can't Leave Behind. It's not as heavy on the subject matters as previous albums, but it's enduring sense of optimism reigns supreme and I feel it's a very worthy album in the U2 canon. In fact, if they called it a day after that one, it would mark as a fitting end in my opinion. There's an overall feeling of peace and serenity (barring Elevation...) I get from it more than any other U2 without anything getting melodramatic of gimmicky ala the desperate attempts to appeal to younger listeners on the recent albums.
I do wonder if the emergence of message boards around the end of the century sort of gave those impressions a little more "umph", so to speak. Naturally, an album that came out around that time would get criticized for somehow not living up to the halcyon days of the 90s/80s or whenever a band started up. All of a sudden, U2 fans were paying attention to the interviews and "relevancy" remarks and thought that perhaps compromised the music, even though we never really dealt with those questions before.
I wasn't a "real" fan until 2001 or so, but All That You Can't Leave Behind also happened to be a big part of that for me. So I never went into it thinking it had to sound this way or had preferences as to this and that. And I never really judged it by those qualities or thought about it until I discovered places like these. But I still try to just judge on the music alone and whatever's put out there.
If places like these had taken off ten years beforehand, I wouldn't doubt that Achtung would have had similar criticisms. The same extent? Who knows... but there's always people that like or dislike whatever comes out now or later from a band. And some happen to be vocal in these parts.
But even then, I've noticed that a lot of other bands have discussions where there was some inevitable drop-off in quality since the year 2000. I've been looking over at the Smashing Pumpkins message board a little lately since they had a new album coming out with original members, and there's also discussion about how they don't make albums like they used to. Or how the new stuff is horrible, guitar parts are too "dad rock" or "safe", and songs are somehow compromised for popularity. Sound familiar??
Here's one post regarding their album that came out yesterday (unedited, so the spelling and grammar mistakes are the OP's)
No matter who plays what it's really realy sad that billy hasnt written one good album in the last 18 years.
It is no wonder that they arent relevant in todays musimusiA shame what they have become
Bubblegum lyrics noone can understand.metallic cheap guitar noodling. Cheap synths.etc etc.
As we can see with silvery they still can write catchy tunes but there a are always such sh*tty songs on the last albums that they destroy my album listening experience.
Guess bolly just chooses the wrong songs.
Replace references for Billy Corgan with "Bono" or "Edge", along with the album titles and such, and that's easily a comment you could read on here!
That said, not liking ATYCLB or recent stuff isn't a bad thing. Nor is the criticism, as long as it's not really a point where people get too riled up over something as simple as songs being released. Paraphrasing something Liz Phair once said, but music is just music... it's not a cure for cancer or anything like that. If you like it, there's inevitably people that like it too. If you don't, then set it aside and move on to something you do like better.