About ATYCLB: Having been a U2 fan for over a decade, I was skeptical if they could still cut it on record as they hit their 40s -- the Pop project had been not so much disappointing as overlooked by people my age (21 when Pop came out). We were into newer, younger, guitar bands at that time and U2 suddenly seemed really old and unhip (and dressed like the Village People) in 1997. It's since become fashionable to argue that they were "ahead of their time" with Pop, but I really thought they were behind the times. The whole, let's be ironic and look self-consciously silly while evoking the 70s thing had come and gone through the early 90s, and U2 showed their age in the late 90s.
When I first heard ATYCLB, in Taiwan, in late 2000, I dismissed it -- not because they were getting on a bit, but because of the weird production and mixing which sounded like a Boy Band with guitars. After a couple of months of the album sitting unplayed somewhere, I dug it out and got into it. Finally, I could appreciate it. It does hang together well as an album, and it's very easy on the ears, not alway a bad thing.
Just for the record, I love "Wild Honey." The part that gets me is the "Did I know you... before the clocks kept time / before the world was made?" line. It's very touching.
