I am agreeing with what you posted – 100% - but I suspect we’d be using it on different sides of the argument, i.e. you’d use it to defend SUC/Crazy Tonight, and I’d very much use it against those songs. But that would potentially be opening up a wider U2 pre/post 2000 debate, and I *think* we've seen that one a couple of times before in this forum?
I will say this though, if it takes you
16 months of hard work to hammer together something like Stand Up Comedy, but Moment of Surrender comes to you in one afternoon, perhaps the music gods are sending you a message?
I wasn't saying all that to defend SUC/Crazy Tonight...you and I are generally on the same page concerning them. We agree that Crazy Tonight is a great pop song that might fit at certain places in the tracklist soundwise but that doesn't fit as well spiritwise with the rest of the record -
except, I would argue that the backing track, which conjures memories of "Bad", imo, is keeping in the spirit of once again embracing atmospherics.
We agree that Boots is a good rock song that stands out on the album because it's louder and more upbeat - however, even though it isn't a great fit soundwise(it does stick out), I think shares the spirit of adventure of other songs on this record for two reasons: I think the Alice-In-Chains style chorus is brilliant and frankly,
interesting beyond that of any rock song on Bomb, and I think the let me in the sound stuff is one of the coolest things U2 has done in a rock song in a decade, and is far removed from being just a replacement for Vertigo's "yeah yeah yeah yeah"s. I can understand why you or anyone else would think this song sounds a smidgen to much like Bomb for your comfort, but to me, it could have just as easily come from the Pop sessions. I can put it right next to Discotheque and not notice a huge drop in quality(I still think Discotheque is better, but still).
The one song we clearly differ on is Stand Up Comedy. You have it called it "terrible" and an "embarrassment". I don't think it's the greatest thing they've ever done, but I don't see how one can like "The Fly" and "Holy Joe" and not like the riff and the solo in this song, respectively. I think the last minute and a half is one U2's best moments, sonically speaking, in a rock song this decade, despite the lyrics that, while not terribly offensive to me, I can certainly understand why they would make others cringe. I honestly think there's "The Fly" and "Holy Joe" influences all over this song, and that can only be a good thing imo. We do agree that this song, more than any other on the record, doesn't fit well, and we do agree that it is the most Bomb-sounding song on the record, by a good distance. No argument there(although the Bomb song it sounds most like is Love And Peace, which is one of the few Bomb songs I've never had much of a problem with).
Back to the point - because I've started rambling - I wasn't really trying to defend any of these songs with that post, I was just addressing the silly notion that U2 was setting out to make anything but a mainstream record when they made Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, or Pop - and you will find few bigger fanatics of those records than me.
I guess, when it comes down to it, although I fully understand your base problem with those middle 3 songs, I'm choosing not to let it bother me, because I honestly didn't think U2 would ever would put a song like Fez-Being Born, or Moment Of Surrender, or White As Snow, or Cedars Of Lebanon on a record under their own moniker again, ever. I always fully believed they were capable of writing and recording such songs, but I didn't think they'd release them. To have a bunch of songs like that on a record, and to have news that sounds real about another full of record of stuff like that late this year or early next, is more than I ever could have hoped for at this point, and I guess I'm just too grateful for that to let myself be annoyed by the way those three songs might interrupt the flow, especially since I like all of them.