lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
Being new to the forum, I'm a little surprised at how many comments I come across where the person is wishing this or that were done differently in a song. It is the vision of the artist, not the audience.
The thing is, you don't hear a lot of people doing this with songs on The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, or Zooropa.
But with U2000, we have documented proof via interviews and articles that the band has second-guessed their ideas on numerous occasions, and in the last 10-15 years Bono has gone on and on about trying to write hit songs, appealing to the masses, reapplying for The Best Band In The World, etc.
I think it's completely legitimate that many of us wish the band would operate on defiant instinct and stick to what they merely think is good, and not cross-checking it with what they think other people might think is good. That's what you have a producer for; a set of objective ears. And on the last two albums they didn't trust what Eno and Danger Mouse had achieved with them, and compromised the material with late-hour additions and mixes via new producers. That isn't to say that Tedder, Epworth, and Lillywhite turned everything to shit, but we do know this is how their process worked.