Bomb had singles.
ATYCLB had mood.
Mood usually wins.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
I don’t really think ATYCLB has a consistent mood, but it has a consistent feeling. That might just be Eno, but regardless it’s there, and it means that once you hit ‘stop’ on the stereo or iPod, something sticks with you.
I don’t think ATYCLB is anything close to a great album, by their standards. It’s very weak. But they wanted a breezy pop album, in the tradition of great, true, pop albums, and they did okay.
They had two choices after Pop: Prove the haters wrong, or run back to their base. They chose going back to their base, Edge dusted off his 80s effects peddles, Eno fired up the Moog, they shed pretty much all of the extra weight they were carrying in the 90s in pretty much all areas – whether it’s in the music, or from the simple black and white cover, to the no-effects arena show, even the club promo gigs. The songs were simple, harking back to U2 of 84-89 without too overtly ripping it off. It’s no masterpiece, but they did okay.
Beautiful Day is as good any pop-rock single this decade, or the one before, and the reason is because all good pop singles are more than just a great melody, or catchy riff, or catchy lyric. They need to have a feeling running through them. Show me someone who doesn’t feel like running outside into the sunshine and hugging a stranger when that chorus kicks in, and I’ll show you someone who also likes to hurt puppies.
Walk On is not really to my taste, and some will call it the first of 00s-U2-Anthem-By-Numbers, and while it may be to a degree, it is unlike a Miracle Drug or a Original of the Species in that I will personally pay one of you $100 if you can find me a U2-Anthem-Ripoff by another band (there are hundreds) that is as well written and has such an effortless feel to it. Go now and find one. I can only think of one, but I’m not just going to hand over my cash. Coldplay could do Miracle Drug while actually on drugs. Original of the Species sounds like something Robbie Williams would pay one of his writers good cash for, but even he would do a less cheesy version of it. Walk On? Over the top, but only U2 could pull it off. You don’t have to like it, it can make you cringe as the very nature of these songs often does, but you can’t deny it is pure gold songwriting.
In A Little While is absolutely gorgeous. In the 00s, for me it’s there with Stateless, Ground Beneath and Beautiful Day as their absolute best. I always thought Kite was ‘nice’ but not great, but seeing that live version here in Sydney a few times changed that. F*cking stupid final few lines though. He didn’t need to spell it out. Everyone got it.
Stuck in a Moment – I’d love to hear the gospel version they were working on with Mick Jagger. It’s the only poorly produced/mixed song on the album, but again, I like it’s feel. Again, not my bag, but it’s a well written and oh-so-close to being a well executed pop-gospel song.
Elevation is a waste of time, and the absolutely atrocious Tomb Raider version is Vertigo’s father, so for that alone it should be strung from the nearest lamp-post. Sometimes I love Peace on Earth, sometimes I can’t, depends on the day, kinda weird like that. New York is an average b-side. When I Look at the World is weak, weak, weak. Grace is just really dull. Have I forgotten something?
Anyway, I didn’t mean to write a personal review of the songs, but yeah, ATYCLB has a lasting feeling, which is what all great pop needs. Perfect, memorable pop songs are as hard to write as symphonies. They hit the mark a couple of times on ATYCLB, and narrowly missed it a couple of others.
It is, to me, no surprise that ATYCLB has grown in stature and Atomic Bomb has fallen. I’ve been saying literally since a couple of months after release that Atomic Bomb would slide. Back then it was consistently in peoples top two or three, and now, it’s Interference’s collective 2nd least favourite. Why? It’s the other kind of pop. The all upfront, brash, loud kind. It relies on killer riffs, only catchy melodies and superficial tricks. It’s always f*cking awesome immediately, but washes off very, very, very quickly. Just think about the difference between Vertigo and Beautiful Day. To me, that extends throughout both albums. And it’s a hard thing to nail down. It’s not necessarily in the songwriting. I think that acoustic live Yahweh is great. But Yahweh on the Bomb, I honestly believe it’s the single worst thing they’ve ever committed to record. It is f*cking horrible. But then that’s different to other tracks. Ones like Love and Peace or Miracle Drug, which are either just lazy songwriting from U2, or naked attempts at I don’t want to say what.
Anyway, somewhere in there is my answer. One is good, the other is bad. That’s why!