Wow! How different different people hear things!
Cheese? How about the utterly impotent "New York?" How about the failure of "Grace?" How about the joke of "Walk On?" How about the crap version of "Elevation" on the album? (Although the song DID get a lot better live.) How about "Peace on Earth," which just might have upgraded itself to mediocre status if Bono had actually used some emotion when he sang it..... Or the boring "When I look at the world"....
How about the worst vocals in his career throughout???
I love some cheese, but they really pushed it on All That! LOL!
Impotent? New York? Surely not their best song by any stretch of the imagination...but has a little something going for it that nothing off Bomb does. And that is a warm, inviting atmosphere that complements the lyric, and a little bit of that thing called "mystery"- it doesn't preach to you, it just simply depicts a guy having a midlife crisis in the big apple, and leaves it off at that, with no closure or happy ending, just a guy trying to find himself. You wanna talk impotent? How's ABOY or Yahweh for starters? Two songs with flawed, boring hooks and cheesy, clumsy lyrics that don't even rock, not at all. They barely exist.
When I Look At The World has a guitar solo from Edge that defecates all over every half-assed solo he phoned in off Bomb.
Grace isn't a failure, it's one of my favorite tracks. It's soothing, has terrific chord changes, the synth instrumentation is otherwordly, and it ends the album on a heavenly note, without having to condescendingly shout the Lord's name in a squeeky Michael Brady way as if to remind the listener "this is about God, therefore it is inspirational and deep."
Elevation is a funky, lighthearted space-age dance song with perfect production. Not trying to change the world in this song, it's just about having fun, and i can overlook the "mole in a hole" line because at least it is sung to a memorable melody that actually takes off, leads you somewhere, beyond the parameters of predictable chords and hooks, which was Bomb's overall technique.
Peace On Earth? Cheesy? It's an agnostic song that has real pain and anger lying under the surface, which is a surface of Christmas music, a clever choice that plays out in perfect juxtoposition to what is actually being said. A hell of a lot more ballsy than LAPOE's trite hippy slogans and generic protests of "we need some release..gimme love and peace". I don't care how many layers u add on, the song isn't even impotent, it is castrated. It's the kind of song Bono was rallying against with Peace On Earth.
Walk On, while far from being my favorite, at least competently serves it's purpose in restoring hope in humanity, and does so in a sincere fashion, while off Bomb i find nothing sincere in any song, just a washed up band going thru the motions, and ruining any potential good songs they had (Native Son) by shying away from true artistry, and in the end simplifying everything until it becomes the Grammy-pandering album it truly ended up becoming, all while omitting the best, most thought-provoking songs (Fast Cars, Mercy-which, while i don't love, i atleast admire it for it's atmospheric beauty)
There, i think i've said it all now.