BonoVoxSupastar said:
I'm guessing that's an attempt at humor...
Why? I'm totally open to criticism on this one...but here's what I'm thinking:
On War, every song either has Bono singing at high speed or at the top of his range. Even the ballads have him belting. On every album after that, perhaps with the exception of RAH (though questionable), you can easily find at least one song where a good portion of the verse or chorus has a slowed down, almost spoken-octave, less vocally-acrobatic Bono. As I go through every track on every album, this is what I see. I'm not saying it happens on every track, but on at least one song on every album since. It's not a bad thing at all, just an observation.
War is, perhaps, an anomaly in U2's catalog (though each, of course, is a bit different than the next). The entire album, even the slower songs, is filled with a lyrical and musical rage that just isn't entirely duplicated on their other albums. After War, Bono's voice noticably begins to change--it's no longer the higher pitch of his youth, but instead a deeper, more resonant one (though he can still hit the high notes!). He became more able to use his voice artistically and wisely and no longer needed to belt every note. Also, the band became more interested in
sound and
technique, in addition to
songs. Edge began to experiment with more ballads. And the band, while keeping their fire, matured past some of the adolescent rage that was still present in War & parts of the earlier albums.
All of these things have combined to this: If you look through the albums post-War, you will find at least one song on each that relies a good bit on straight-up speaking, speaking with a musical quality (i.e., If God Will Send His Angels), or something of the like, most often denoted by Bono's voice at or near the bottom of his range (i.e., half of ATYCLB).
This isn't a criticism of those songs--many of them are among my favorites--but just an observation that I've noted over the years.
