DevilsShoes
War Child
I think a lot of it is in the songwriting itself.
Anyone who has written a lot of music (not just lyrics) knows that you sometimes are much more brilliant when you don't know what you're doing but far, far less often.
Whereas, once you get your skills honed and can throw some chord progressions together and write songs at a whim, then you are certainly 'technically' better but probably a lot less interesting (more often).
I'm talking about rock and roll here, folks or even some pop music.
The Beatles didn't have time to dwell over each and every catchy tune they pounded out, they recorded 2 and 3 albums in the time it takes U2 to record 1 (and maybe even more). Probably not fair to compare anyone to the Beatles in terms of songwriting prowess but the point still stands, some of that shit is magical because it was left alone at the right time.
And that is the trick, knowing when to leave it alone. It's just as subjective to the songwriter as it is to the listener. Just look at the debates over Xanax and Fast Cars or Native Son and Vertigo. etc.
U2 used to be entirely organic in the studio, the songs would arrive out of jams and they would just craft them from those skeletons. Then, they started figuring out what they were doing, and became better musicians, while being decidedly more contrived and in many cases, (because I believe it is inevitable) sucking the excitement out of what first sparked their interest in that piece of music.
it's a hard thing to quantify or maybe even qualify.
But if you could imagine in your head the evolution of a song like Bad contrasted with the evolution of a song like BD or Vertigo (which we know for certain were in several, labored states at different points) then you can imagine what I am talking about.
U2 were fine with the rough edges at one time and these days, absolutely not.
The subjectivity is that some folks like the more well crafted stuff and some like the more spontaneous sounding stuff. So to each their own, but more and more, beyond all of the nuance of talking about U2's "ambition" for songs, one thing is absolutely certain:
They do not go about their ambitions for the music in the same way.
The Joshua Tree was recorded in 6 months. Did they want it to be as huge as currently U2 wanted NLOTH to be? Sure, probably did. Were they as calculated and insecure in 1987 as they are now? I'd have to say, with confidence, 'no'.
I have to agree with all of this.
As Bono has said several times, in the early days their greatest strength was their naivety. When I think back to the 80's, I think of a band who were mainly operating on instinct and I love the rough around the edges quality of so much of the music. It was all so gloriously uncomplicated back then and so incredibly primal.
They couldn't stay like that forever of course but I do think that something was lost when they started to become better musicians.
I have no problem with the band having big hit singles and the idea of trying to craft a single is fine in theory. It's just that in U2's case it often ends up sounding far too calculated and, dare I say it, a little clinical.
There's something genuinely organic about the likes of Pride, WOWY or Streets, they feel earnest and visceral and the very opposite of manufactured. The bands technique is sharper than ever but I feel that some of the magic has gone missing along the way.
I don't think having (seemingly) limitless time in the studio is a good idea, it allows the band to overthink things too much. For me, their willingness to play around with deadlines since Pop has, more often than not, been a disservice to the albums which have followed. Perhaps they should have just bitten the bullet and released NLOTH in late 2008, we may have ended up with something altogether more natural and ultimately more successful.