revolver
The Fly
It goes back to Eno's comments, not just in relation to having 'Moment of Surrender' as the lead single simply because they could get away with it (and he has a point given the devaluation of singles), but also his comments about Passengers in his 1995 diary, A Year With Swollen Appendices. Then Eno railed at the decision to put out Original Soundtracks 1 under the Passengers moniker rather than under the name of U2 as had been intended right until the end of those sessions, saying that U2 had earned the right to have that artistic freedom and criticising them for not having the conviction to use that freedom fully. It seems to me that they need to worry less about outward perceptions of their music and to concentrate on shaping the music they want to. I think that we see that in all but the middle section of this album and in the at times over-reliance on that chiming Edge guitar sound to somehow sanitise the sound a little; I would just push for the kind of spontaneity and adverturousness that is clearly visible on 'Moment of Surrender', parts of 'Unknown Caller', 'Fez-Being Born' and the vocal delivery on 'Cedars of Lebanon' (though the latter still reminds me of 'Walk to the Water' each time I hear it). Finally, I tend to agree with the below; the perceived 'failure' of Pop and the manner in which its perception has changed in twelve years has altered the nature and direction of U2's own approach.
Wow! I had always thought of Passengers as a complete side project, but it seems that this is really the moment that changed U2's career forever! If Passengers was released under the U2 name it would be considered the next logical step from Zooropa...it would have sold a helluva lot more copies, too. I don't want to bash Pop - I like it - but Pop is the sound of twelve mainstream songs from a mainstream band. If they'd have had the courage to release Passengers as U2 then who knows how crazy - how much further out on the fringes - the next recording could have been! Meaning that if they didn't have that crisis during the recording of Original Soundtracks, then maybe they never would have had it!