Well, if not now, when? If a collaboration with a hip and creative producer isn't going to be the impetus for this change, where do you see it coming from? You say that the album being developed quickly while on tour isn't a good atmosphere for radical change, but that's exactly the climate that gave us Cockropa, which is still their most adventurous work to date (outside of Cockengers). Now that album was a progression of the exploration begun on Achtung Birdie more than a left turn, but it still took them into uncharted waters.
The other possibility, a long drawn-out production with the proven team of Beano/Patois, is something we just witnessed, and the band still caved in to their worst tendencies after leaving Morocco. Why is there any reason to think that formula's going to yield better results next time?
Zooropa was borne out of the direction they were already headed in with Achtung Baby, and the theme/sound overload developed with the theme of ZooTV. 360, cool as it is to watch, is not likely to inspire a concept album. I do think they need to be in a different place for an extended period of time (not
too extended, this is 2000's U2 after all), not at all concerned with what the market wants to come up with a radical change, that's what they did from 89-91 and we know what the result was. They need to find another atmosphere, take the pulse of it for inspiration and mine it, which they started to do with NLOTH but the pressure of having been so long since their last release/last hit likely caused them to buckle and mute that inspiration down. I hope that the DM album does provide them that single they desperately crave, and 146 Grammys to boot, so that next time they can hopefully just say, let's make what we're inspired to and give it to our
fans and not worry about the masses.
I agree that they are likely too late in their career (as well as in the history of rock music and its impact) to 'fuck up the mainstream', but that doesn't mean they're too late to alter their own sound. I also think it's quite the exaggeration to say they've utilized every genre of music. Even if that were true, innovate, they pioneered alternative rock, do it again, or don't, just do what comes naturally, not what comes in a 3:30 radio-friendly package.
I'm not saying I need them to innovate again to keep me as a fan, simply that I believe they can if that's what's inspiring them. A recorded-outside, hand-playing ensemble doing a lot of improvisation on an album of latter-day hymns would have been pretty-darn left field for one of the biggest groups of all time, even if it doesn't out "WTF" Achtung Baby. But really, I just want the world to hear the uncensored creativity of modern era U2, the outtakes and beach clips diehard internet U2 nerds show that they haven't lost their touch creatively, but the rest of the world hears Elevation, followed by Vertigo, followed by Boots. It frustrates me, and it should frustrate them that the pandering is completely misrepresenting their sound.
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