There is a reason their best work is done in collaboration with Eno and Lanois.
You need more than 1.5 songwriters in
any rock band.
It would be nice if, for once, you held the creative deadweight in the band (the rhythm section) as accountable as you hold Edge.
It's sort of like U.S. politics. The party of bad ideas vs the party of no ideas.
It's easy for the people not putting their creative nuts on the line to gripe about what's being offered by the people actually having enough guts (or talent) to do so. That's not excusing away bad ideas, that's saying the more ideas PERIOD and the more your odds go up.
U2 are handcuffed in that respect.
Zeppelin and the Beatles had 3 songwriters in their bands.
Pink Floyd as well. All members of Pearl Jam have written...the list goes on. Edge shouldn't get a free pass! I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, if you're going to blame Edge incessantly FOR YEARS, you might examine the situation with the Larry faction.
U2 has one musician and a singer who barely knows a few chords on the guitar and as far as coming up with musical ideas, that's about it.
And ON TOP OF THIS, it is the milquetoast attraction of Larry's taste that keeps U2 from really doing more adventurous things, musically. They have to all agree on some direction. And yes, Larry has surely saved U2 from themselves a time or five.
I don't blame Edge for using his signature delay.
I'm a U2 fan and U2
IS Bono's voice and Edge's delay.
His sound on Unknown Caller IS redundant. But not purely because of the tone of that guitar...but more so, IMO, because of
what he is playing (the notes). Nobody complains when he plays something interesting with the exact same sound. People complain when you feel like you've heard it before. If the problem was the tone of that delay + reverb (etc.) then you'd be complaining about almost all of it.