U2 “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” (2000)
It’d be easy enough to write this one up as “Famous rock band finally
stop faffing about with pop/dance music and gets back to rocking” but
that would sell short the band's growth.
As outlined in my write-up for “Achtung Baby” (day 702) the band had
moved away from their more ‘meat n potatoes’ melodic-rock sound and
experimented with dance, funk, and alt-rock, culminating in their album
“Pop” where they fully embraced the dance and pop scene. That album was
not a favourite among fans and the band felt that it was rushed and not
their best work. I personally think it’s one of their better ones,
but there we go. One person’s trash…. and all that.
So the band decided to get back to their roots of “band playing together
in a room”. They reunited with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois who had
helmed their biggest 1980s albums.
The sound is fairly straightforward, with guitarist the Edge mostly
sticking to clean tones with less sonic experimentation than he’d
previously indulged in. That’s not to say the album is a straight
reversion to their “Joshua Tree” sound though. They seem to have
retained some of their more European melodic ideas. Single “Elevation”
sounds like it could be the younger cousin of “Mysterious Ways” from the
Achtung Baby album with its effect-laden guitar, dance elements and
slightly sexual lyrics. There are still some dance beats to be had
elsewhere too.
I was interested to see what the album as a whole would be like as the
first 3-4 songs are its singles (Beautiful Day, Stuck in a Moment You
Can’t Get Out of, Elevation and Walk On), so I wondered if they’d
front-loaded the album in the hopes that side A would sell side B. That kind of is the case too.
There are some other good songs besides the
singles, “In a little while” is a nice simple pop song, and “Grace”
lives up to its name. But, much of the second half of the album is a bit
forgettable, or self-important (“Peace on Earth”).
