LemonMelon
More 5G Than Man
Just wrote this for epinions. I think it sums up many of my criticisms and positive feelings for the album quite well. Please read it and tell me what you think.
Growing old. It's not a subject I'm terribly familiar with on a personal level, but it's something I've given much thought to and have observed first-hand. People do funny things when they get older. Some are able to adjust, and some are frightened horribly by it. It's a common issue in music as well...What can the old horses do to preserve some semblance of their youth and appear relevant in a culture that continues to speed up with each passing year? (Is using horses as an analogy for youth and vitality relevant anymore?) Some artists really don't care about remaining relevant. They figure they are who they are and there's no reason to change because of the opinion of iPod-wielding members of generation Y. Some, of course, attempt to fit in with the kids...occasionally embarrassing themselves in the process.
U2 haven't always been used as an example of an aged artist. They were once a scrappy, up-and-coming band from Ireland with huge ideas and a ton of good-old-fashioned spirit. They then became big stars on college radio, performed during Live Aid, and then released The Joshua Tree in 1987, which pretty much placed the whole world in their hands. They soon got sick of their sound and went European, mixing industrial and dance into their repertoire with 1991's Achtung Baby, and then they just went further with that until their American fanbase began to turn on them in the late 90's. In fall 2000, they released All That You Can't Leave Behind, which spawned the ridiculously massive hit "Beautiful Day", and the rest, as they say, is history.
Don't let their popularity fool you; U2 is certainly an anomaly within popular music. People have tried to cop their sound (Coldplay, I'm looking in your direction), but U2 is still U2. As for its individual members, Bono has always been the center of attention, but The Edge's guitar is the band's sound...atmospheric, uplifting, and occasionally a bit frightening. That's U2 in a nutshell, really. But let's not forget U2's heartbeat Larry Mullen Jr. and the melodic bass stylings of Adam Clayton. Of any band I can think of that started up in the last 20 years, very, very few are as tightly-knit and dependent on one another as U2. There's something really charming about that, and All That You Can't Leave Behind shows U2 in "band" mode more than the bizarre Euro dance pop of 1993's Zooropa or 1997's mix-dance-and-rock-and-hope-for-the-best Pop, for better or worse.
It sounds really bad when the phrase "growing old" is used at the beginning of a review about a relatively new album by an artist as well-worn as U2, but it really does fit with the theme and sound of ATYCLB. After a record as messy, polarizing, and perhaps a tad undercooked as Pop, I suppose the idea of U2 going back to basics must have sounded logical. This record was released over 7 years ago but, in retrospect, I think it was a good idea. You can only push your fanbase so far, really, and though I adored U2's experimental 90's work, the metamorphosis into *shudder* adult contemporary U2 actually makes sense (though I would never refer it as such in anything other than jest). If Pop was the night of clubbing and eventual drinking yourself into a sobbing mess, ATYCLB is the morning after. Life sucks and is full of tragedy, but you'll make it (with that in mind, it's quite logical that the album's popularity grew after 9/11).
If ATYCLB is a lyrical pat on the back, it matches sonically. Many of the album's tunes are filled with sugary electronic undercurrents to match their good-natured melodies, and this occasionally works against the album, to be honest. Several of the album's songs are sapped of their emotion due to the overzealous production of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and this is one of the most frustrating things about the record; Bono's voice is dry, rough, and full of emotion, but the music rarely matches. We'll get into that as we go.
One of the most obvious changes U2 put into practice after Pop was a newfound approach to making albums. More specifically, "Pack as many singles onto the album as you can, regardless of the havoc it will wreak on the album's flow." If it weren't for some recurring lyrical themes, this album would be a complete mess. And, really, the sequencing is awful. Rule #1: DON'T PUT ALL OF THE SINGLES IN THE FRONT UNLESS YOU'RE RELEASING A BEST OF. Why the band decided to take this new direction is obvious enough: they didn't believe Pop had enough strong tunes to carry the album, so they decided to react to that by releasing an album packed with potential hits. This occasionally works very well, but often just makes me miss the days when U2 wasn't so concerned with the thoughts and opinions of their listeners. Of course, I wasn't into them back in those days, (and those days may never have even existed), so I wouldn't really know what they were like, so I'll just have to imagine. It's really not that hard if I try.
"Beautiful Day" opens the album with a bubbling electronic intro and Bono's withdrawn vocals. The title is a bit misleading, methinks...this isn't exactly the most upbeat tune from a lyrical standpoint, but it's about how you can make the best out of things, even when life sucks. Its soaring chorus still sends chills down my spine, and I consider this to be one of the most important songs of this decade in terms of setting a tone for popular music.
The other three hits from the album follow, and the results are mixed. "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" is sort of a beauty...a track about not beating yourself up when things go bad. It's a bit gospel-influenced, filled with horns and a saccharine melody but, while the song is supposed to sound personal, it ends up sounding over-the-top and thoroughly impersonal due to its busy production. There are acoustic versions of this tune that are far superior, and actually quite touching, but this one most certainly is not. To me, anyway. "Elevation" suffers from similar production issues; it wants to be a chugging, straight-ahead rocker, but gets stuck in a bubbly electronic rut and just comes off as castrated. Britney Spears attempting to rock out, really. Its simplistic lyrical content doesn't do it any favors. The most frustrating thing is that I love this song in a raw live setting, but it's just a shell of itself here. "Walk On" fares better. While still a bit too sweet, its filled with classic Edge guitar, gorgeous piano, and some very strong vocals from Bono. It, too, is a song about either escaping from life and going to someplace better, leaving the old behind, or just making the best out of things, but it mixes well with the musical content to make for a very anthemic, moving ballad.
The second half of the album contains some peaks and valleys, but it flows better, and features a few knockout gems. One of those is "Kite" a song that Bono says could be about "a father, child, or friend". It's about letting go, and it's absolutely heartbreaking. The gorgeous slide guitar and impassioned vocal performance certainly push the sadness further, but it never comes off as cloying; this country-ish (with a U2 flair, of course) ballad is arguably the class of the album, right alongside Beautiful Day. The following two tracks are more stripped-down; "In A Little While" is a very basic, relaxed, folksy love song, but contains some gorgeous lyrics that make it work:
When the night takes a deep breath
And the daylight has no end
If I crawl, if I come crawling home
Will you be there?
In a little while
I will blow by every breeze
Friday night running
To Sunday on my knees
Bono sounds like he has a hangover on this one, which is probably because he did have a hangover when he recorded his vocals, but don't feel shortchanged; I feel it adds to the song's melancholy vibe. "Wild Honey" is a great stab at Beatlesque/Byrdseque pop, featuring harmony vocals, twangy guitar, and goofy, lovesick lyrics. It's quite slight, but I love it just the same.
The album grows darker from here. "Peace On Earth" is crushingly sad; a song about suffering and death, and they set it against a cold musical backdrop, possibly to simulate a Christmasy feel. It's good stuff, but it's a bit plodding, and never really takes off as it should. Edge's guitar noodling in the later verses helps keep it interesting, but this one clearly isn't an immediate knockout. "When I Look At The World" is much more poppy, but feels forlorn, almost crushed. There's optimism in there though...you can tell from the lyrics. Edge's well-worn guitar style gives the song a very U2-ish anthemic vibe, and it has some toughness (mostly due to the lyrical content) in spite of some cutesy electronics.
"New York" is anything but cutesy. A wobbly, dark (but not sinister) musical piece that skimps on melody but is high on atmospherics. Larry's drums keep a solid beat, but the song floats along in the verses, pushed along by some lovely, almost jazzy guitar noodling from Edge and a very rhythmic vocal performance from Bono. He describes New York; its culture, its people, its weather, everything. He then tacks on a verse that clearly describes midlife crises...perhaps that's why he has "an unquenchable thirst for New York". It sounds a bit goofy, but I really love the song...its chorus packs a wallop, and its ending is very surreal and gorgeous.
The lullaby-ish "Grace" closes out the album. Frankly, after a beast like New York, there are only two ways I can picture someone reacting to Grace: 1. "How boring!" or 2. "That's a relief." I fit the former, unfortunately. Grace is essentially a (somewhat free-verse) poem set to music, and it just doesn't work. The melody is dull, Bono's vocal performance is weak, and the song just goes on way too long. The lyrical content is...strange. Bono sings about the spiritual concept of grace, which I think is a great topic, but there are just too many clunky rhymes and it has such a messy structure...Anyway, I don't care much for it. Maybe it will hit me someday, but it hasn't yet.
So, as you can tell, I believe that All That You Can't Leave Behind is a flawed but worthwhile record, one that is clean of meandering musical experiments, but lacks an edge (no pun intended). There are some amazing tunes here, and some weak ones. That tends to happen often enough in music, but it's magnified when the artist making the album seems to be oblivious to their album's own lack of coherence, or simply doesn't care. I know it sounds like I'm being overly harsh on an album I clearly like, but, rest assured, I really do love this band, and I hope they continue making brilliant records for years to come (for the record, I thoroughly enjoyed ATYCLB's follow-up How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, even though it wasn't much of an artistic progression). Anyway, I recommend this album to fans and non-fans alike, as there really aren't too many pop records that are this strong these days. Plus, Beautiful Day is on it.
Peace out.
All That You Can't Leave Behind (49:23) 7.8/10
To me they're much weaker songs.
