I know I am gushing, but honestly can't help it. Even though I have gushed and exclaimed over the last two days, I think I have successfully avoided making sweeping statements about this album's place in the stellar U2 catalogue. I can't give a song by song review because I am still coming to terms with them on an intellectual level. But emotionally, man, I'm there.
To come back on point, I can only compare my listening experience to previous post-2000 albums. I am differentiating between pre and post 2000 because although I just caught the Pop release as a newly sentient U2 fan, I truly became a superfan with the All That You Can't Leave Behind (Suitcase, you are truly a Headache) release in terms of looking forward to an album and the expectations that entails. That album did not disappoint, but after that I fell into the superfan trap.
Although you wouldn't know it if you checked my post history, I was underwhelmed by dismantle. I remember that, after the leak, I was secretly wishing there was some gamechanger in the official release (hence my inordinate love for Fast Cars, which wasn't part of the leak). But I tried... the superfan trap.
By the time No Line rolled around I was desperate to like the songs. But by then I also wondered that you shouldn't have to expend so much effort to like songs by your favourite band, there was a disconnect there. I know we all like to say that U2 songs are growers, but there has to be something to grab you on the first couple of listens for the seed to be planted. Something that makes you want to come back because you want to, not because you feel like it is your duty.
Of course, there were some songs that I didn't have to do that for in No Line.... Breathe, the title track, Fez and perhaps Cedars (Moment of Surrender, unlike many here, struck me much much later). On Innocence it was much the same, Every Breaking Wave being the big exception along with troubles and sleep. But the rest I had to 'like' after an abnormal amount of listening on repeat, on most occasions because I felt I had to. The superfan question of would I be listening if this wasn't U2 kept bugging me. It bugged me because I strongly, if secretly, suspected that the answer was no.
This is the happy part. I have not listened to Songs of Experience all that much. But I want to. Like I said in an earlier post, I am busy now, but not so busy that I cannot put on a pair of headphones while working. But there are songs on here, around three-fourths of the album, that I want to listen to actively. And I swear it's not because it's U2. This band I am listening to as I write this could be called Taylor Swift and I would come back to it. In that way I feel like I am a new fan today. And that is the greatest gift I could have asked from a band that has been very, very giving.
Sorry for the ramble, once again.