*Raises hand*. I agree with everything you say later on as well. While a lot of ATYCLB is not my bag, it's not something I dislike at all either. It sounds natural, you can hear that clearly. Just compare Beautiful Day to Vertigo, Walk On to Original of the Species, Stuck in a Moment to Sometimes. Elevation to All Because of You. To me, even the songs out of that list that I don't particularly care for (eg Walk On) I still have a lot of respect for, and I think it's great that they are there in that catalogue of thiers. Meanwhile, I honestly don't believe in a single note or word on Atomic Bomb. There is no spirit or soul on that album. I don't mind U2 doing more accessible, popular music at all. They can do it brilliantly - Beautiful Day being, to me, one of their singular greatest songs - but for it work coming from U2, you have to believe in it. I'm all for tunes, I'm all for songs. If it sounds as natural, inspired and fresh as many of the songs on ATYCLB, I'm all for it. If it sounds as stale, contrived, dull, overworked, manufactured, devoid of all soul and spirit, as completely lacking in any feeling so as to be the musical equivalent of the lighting in a 7-11, then just give it the fuck up.
For all you who bitch and moan whenever a bad word is said of the Bomb, and then squeal about those people and how they just want more Achtung/Pop, you generally are just showing yourselves up as idiots. If you ever read anything by anyone who dislikes the Bomb, you will find this as one of if not the single main reason, and that plenty of us quite like ATYCLB. If you paid any attention whatsoever to anything we ever write, raving on about 90s vs 00s bullshit wouldn't exist. It doesn't come from those who dislike the Bomb, it comes from those who can't handle that people actually dislike it. I don't care for another Pop, I don't care for experimentation. If its songs, tunes, music with pop sensibilities, that's fine and great. Just give me the underlying spirit of all the music that they created pre-Bomb and I'm happy with whatever it produces over the top. There was no explosion of hate when ATYCLB was released, so you can't try and blame it on the style of music. Stop trying. The reason is that even those who weren't particularly tickled by ATYCLB could still hear the spirit of U2 naturally at work. It's not there on the Bomb, so the knives are out.