U2 has always had a knack for hiding some fine jewels on the flipsides of their singles. For the most part, the mood and tempo is melancholic and gray. The second disc of the set offers up leftover studio tracks: three outtakes and six b-sides. And if that’s the only quibble, then that’s a pretty good thing, no? Thankfully, the album cuts stand up on their own quite nicely. Yet all four songs are sequenced at the beginning of the album, making the album feel quite top-heavy. U2 released four very fine singles from it. Then there’s “Kite,” a song ostensibly about the end of a relationship, but if you listen closer, one might walk away thinking Bono is singing about the Pop misstep, and his moving words an apology to his fans.Īll That You Can’t Leave Behind stands as a solid, consistent album the only real flaw comes from its sequencing. “Elevation” proves that Pop wasn’t a totally bad idea the dance groove is restrained and works well when the excesses are paired down. It is a melancholy gospel number that documents an argument Bono wishes he had with his friend, INXS’s Michael Hutchence. “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” is perhaps the best song on the album. It’s nice to hear them return to the roots-rock/gospel hybrid of Rattle & Hum again on “Grace” and “Peace On Earth,” but it’s to their credit that these numbers don’t sound like a band imitating itself. Yet they didn’t fully abandon the tools they picked up over the decade. (The American version of the album had 11 tracks, while the other major markets added an additional song, the Salman Rushdie composition “The Ground Beneath Her Feet,” which had already been released Stateside on The Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack.) Furthermore, it’s a very fast-paced record the first listen felt positively Ramones-like compared to their previous albums. With restrained production, the songs are shorter and succinct All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the band’s shortest album since The Unforgettable Fire. Lanois and Eno helped the band channel their mid-80s selves once again, in more ways than one.
“Beautiful Day” sounds like the U2 of yore, and it set the tone for the rest of the album. With a stripped-down production and catchy electric piano melody, frontman Bono sounds like his younger self, confident, proud, and energetic. While Pop sounded bloated and not very U2-like from the opening “Discotheque,” All That You Can’t Leave Behind opened up with “Beautiful Day,” one of the band’s finest numbers. For their next album, they brought back the duo of Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, the two men who helped turn U2 into rock royalty with the one-two punch of 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire and 1987’s masterpiece The Joshua Tree. Overproduced, overwrought, and largely forgettable, Pop felt like the end of an era, a band that had traded its passion for production, an expensive-sounding record that ultimately felt hollow-and, for the first time in their career-utterly superficial. Considering the harder-edged Achtung Baby’s world-conquering success, and the surprise success of the edgier, experimental companion Zooropa, the band fell down the trap of self-indulgence. Pop had been the cumulation of a decade’s ascent to the top of the rock star throne. Thus was borne 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the band’s tenth album, and the subject of a fine deluxe edition. Of course, going Platinum might not seem like poor sales, but compared to sales over the past decade, this development couldn’t be ignored. For Irish rockers U2, that moment came in 1997 their album Pop found the group receiving some of their worst reviews and album sales to date. Why this happens depends on the circumstances, of course how the artist reacts determines what happens next. At some point, a band or an artist will inevitably falter. Search U2: All That You Can’t Leave Behind: 20th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition (Island) By Joseph Kyle Īrtistic longevity has its perks, but it also has its drawbacks.
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