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New Album Info: Reviews General / Articles / Reviews / Singles / Videos / Booklet (Page 1)(Page 2)(Page 3)(Page4)(Page 5)(Page 6) (Page 7)(Page 8) The Guardian
(London) - 10/27/00 By Adam Sweeting Prising themselves free from their mid-90s fixations with irony and Las Vegas glitz, U2 have circled back to what they've always done best. That means big tunes, thumping beats and soaring guitars, while Bono pins his heart on his sleeve and sings as if he fears it might be for the last time. This is U2's most accessible and emotional recording since 1991's Achtung Baby. Not that there are many similarities between the two. Where Achtung reeked of trauma and decay, All That You Can't Leave Behind reaches out to a wider world and a brighter future. Where the Achtun songs loomed out of a poisonous industrial murk, the new ones keep the instrumentation simple and the colours refreshingly bright. Tucked among the production credits, behind hoary old regulars Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, is a startling name: Richard Stannard, erstwhile sonic navigator for East 17 and the Spice Girls. It seems that U2 wanted their message to come over loud and clear, and they're inviting you to join in. From the opening strains of Beautiful Day, this is a disc crammed with songs you can sing in the bath, in a car or, of course, in a football stadium, their ultimate and ill-deserved fate. It's amusing to recall a remark Bono made during the band's earliest days, when he explained that U2 played exclusively their own compositions because they were too incompetent to play cover versions. Over the years, despite their sometimes oppressive big-rock reputation, they've developed into a bona fide hit factory, and there's an abundance of potential 45s here. Beautiful Day, the first to be released and last week's chart-topper, strikes an appropriate note of putting the past behind you and getting on with the rest of your life ("What you don't have you don't need it now"); it's abetted by a bustling beat, a contagious chorus and vintage guitar chimes from Edge. Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of is a vast, soulful ballad with all the trimmings (gospel choir, piano, horns, imaginary lighters waving aloft), sung in Bono's finest pulpit-bashing vein. In Walk On, the band lock into a punchy medium tempo while the extrovert vocalist exhorts persons unknown to straighten up and fly right: "Walk on, walk on, What you've got they can't deny it". Behind him, an industrial-sized head of steam stokes up and Edge's guitars howl like the backdraft from a low-flying 747. To demonstrate that the mature rock'n'roller can still shake a leg and blow out a few speakers, they've spliced together an irresistible mix of crude techno and raw guitar-swagger in Elevation, the closest to leathers-and-grunge that U2 have come in many a year. Indeed, after their period of epic bombast, U2 have grasped the value of simplicity. It's easy to imagine the overblown mess they might once have made of Peace on Earth, but here they use its acid lyric about death and suffering (could be Ireland, could be Gaza, could be anywhere) in scathing counterpoint to the tune's Christmas-jingle feel. The truth about less being more is also illustrated with exemplary finesse on In a Little While. Over a simple guitar figure shoved forward in the mix, Bono rasps a confessional lyric about love - battered and broken but, he hopes, about to be mended if he can make himself grovel sufficiently. With a couple of smart twists, they convert this into a classic pop moment, while Bono's hoarse and desperate vocal carries the song's meaning more vividly than his words. He brings to the repeating refrain, "slow down my beating heart", a luminous inner glow. As the disc winds to a conclusion, it becomes more minimal and less overt. New York is an intriguingly bleak little tale about displacement both geographical and emotional, which wouldn't have sounded out of place on The Unforgettable Fire back in 1984. Grace is a weightless meditation with vaguely Buddhist overtones ("Grace makes beauty out of ugly things") and would have made a far more satisfying conclusion than The Ground Beneath Her Feet (lyric: Salman Rushdie), which has been tacked on exclusively for the album's UK release. More, remember, can be less. The Mirror (London) - 10/27/00 By Gavin Martin Out to reclaim commercial ground lost by the experimental Pop, the ageing Irish institution mull over old glories to variable effect. Elevation is pure Spinal Tap and Stuck In A Moment is Bono by numbers. But The Edge's renewed hunger for piercing guitar lines can only be a good thing. Wild Honey, Peace On Earth and In A Little While stand with their best work. The Times (London) - 10/27/00 By Barbara Ellen It is odd that U2 have garnished their comeback by announcing their manifesto to “save rock”, for they have never been your quintessential rock outfit. Even in the beginning, with their debut, Boy, you never quite knew where to put them. It might seem funny now, but, at the time, it was a real head-scratcher for music-loving fifth- formers everywhere — where, oh where to put U2? Over there with the stadium-rock guys? Over here with the pop people? In the post-punk corner with the “alternative” mob? No, none of those, not really, not exactly — so where then? For even then, when the U2 “sound” was embryonic and crude, at its most innocent and raw, there was something very complicated and sophisticated going on in the mix. With the following albums, October and War, their uniqueness continued, though not always in an accomplished or lovely way. And so it remained for the longest time. However loved, however “huge” U2 were on a cult level, there was always too much foot-on-monitor hollering and messianic fannying about going on for the general public to feel totally simpatico. Interested, yes (especially where songs like I Will Follow and Shadows and Tall Trees were concerned) but still bemused. The U2 thing, the thing they had, gelled with The Joshua Tree. Finally, their restless melting of influences, their borderline-hammy imploring and keening, even the defiantly appalling frock coats and poncing about in deserts for photo shoots, made perfect sense. With songs such as With or Without You and Where the Streets Have No Name, U2 had done what many a band had done before them. They had blown the dust off the terrace anthem and given it back to the people. What made it all so special, so exciting and unique, was that, this time, it seemed like the right people. Bounce forward a fair few years, and we see the release of All That You Can Leave Behind — the latest U2 waxing, their tenth studio album, and with longtime studio mucker Brian Eno producing, along with Daniel Lanois. It is a heartfelt, emotional, almost quaintly simple affair, which may come as a surprise to those who last saw Bono running amok around the world’s stadiums, bellowing fantastical notions about global consumerism and the culture of the logo, all the time slinking about in plastic grope-suits, with a chat show host’s grin plastered all over his face. The world called for a doctor: quick, Bono has caught irony. Bono responded by gleefully lying on his back and pretending to be a fly. Oh dear. While Achtung Baby and Zooropa sowed the seeds of U2’s well-intentioned electro-experimental self-destruction, the grandiosity of Pop Mart finished them off good and proper. I caught the Pop Mart show in America. Well, I caught half of it anyway. I chose to leave early, not because I seriously hated the sounds they were making (even at their pretentious worst, U2 have never turned their back on The Tune), but more because I took umbrage at the fact that I couldn’t see the band for the stage set. Which is another way of saying U2 were at a point where they couldn’t see the wood for the trees, or indeed their fellow band members for the stage decorations. Whatever was happening, it made me turn away, as did a lot of people. Whatever it was the world wanted or needed from U2, it definitely wasn’t rehashed Pink Floyd. Fortunately, getting your bottom kicked with widescale public derision and sliding sales never did a decent band any real harm, as is now evidenced with All That You Can Leave Behind. A long time coming, it is the sound of a band not so much going backwards or forwards, but more completing a 360-degree circle of the key stages of their career, as well as the flashpoints of their influences. The opener, Beautiful Day, is all uplifting urban spirituality — a rock-pop soundscape with a point. It is swiftly followed by the Bob Dylan-melt of Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out, and the buzzing electro-Iggy Elevation. So far so good, and then it gets better, nicer, warmer, but it’s hard to put your finger on why. It sounds good of course — U2 back to being stylishly precise, and song-based, instead of grimly self-indulgent, and theme-based. And Bono is in fine voice, either when teetering on the edge of a sob with Walk On (dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader), contemplating the shifting sands of fashion in Kite, growling about his “midlife crisis” in New York, or wading manfully through Salman Rushdie’s mawkish lyrics on The Ground Beneath her Feet (don’t give up the day job, Salman). U2 as a unit are still concerned with the “outside world”, sometimes to their own creative detriment — they are indeed guilty of sacrificing melody to oratory in the Troubles-inspired Peace On Earth, and the rather dull When I Look at the World. All is redeemed with In a Little While and Grace, which manage to lick soul alive again. However, what really stands out about All That You Can’t Leave Behind is how resolutely it does not “save rock”. How could it when U2 seem so intent on singing and playing their age? Throughout the album, there are recurring themes of mortality and faith, sex and love, mistakes and recriminations, courage and disgrace, questions asked but never answered. It is an album which eschews pop-rock’s macho bravado and sentimental certainty for pop-soul’s blurred edges and bleeding loose ends, stirring in the odd rock-electro aside to keep things buzzing. So it is that U2, the band who once memorably announced that they still hadn’t found what they were looking for, still can’t be categorised exactly. Even it would seem by themselves. Kansas City Star - 10/27/00 By Timothy Finn Finn Ever a humanist who loves the view from atop a big soapbox, Bono is reportedly making great strides on the international scene these days trying to convince Western governments to forgive big chunks of Third World debt. But instead of just raging against the machinery, Bono is actually politicking, plying people in high places, including archconservatives like Sen. Jesse Helms, with his endearing rock-star charm. Keep that in mind as you listen to "All That You Can't Leave Behind," the new U2 record, which sounds an awful lot like the band is making an installment on a debt of its own: another album, its 13th overall, to Island Records. "You've got to get yourself together/You're stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it," Bono sings lukewarmly in one of the many keep-your-chin-up rock ballads on this record, which breaks out of the doldrums only twice: during "Elevation," a groovy rocker with a techno accent, and "Wild Honey," a bouncy chunk of built-for-radio alternative pop. Otherwise, the record surfs rather easily over melodies and beats that never peak too high nor turn too abruptly. And then there are the lyrics. Famous for asking heavy questions about God, especially the struggle between faith and the flesh, Bono these days sounds like he's tired of wrestling with heavyweights. Or maybe he's just too busy frying bigger fish -- writing movie scripts and doing official Vatican business for the pope -- to care. On "All That," instead of appraising the half-fullness or -emptiness of the spiritual glass, Bono embraces the glass itself: "It's a beautiful day/Don't let it get away," and "Walk on, walk on/What you've got they can't deny it/Walk on, walk on, stay safe tonight ..." Elsewhere, he pours several cups of warm milk from his vast supply of human kindness: He prays earnestly to Jesus for some world peace, eulogizes failing romances and disperses advice for those with broken spirits. But most of his poems lack brimstone and bombast, the lyrical excesses that gave his earlier songs resonance. I suspect that if you walked away, walked away today, Bono would care, but he might not bother to follow. U2 has abandoned nearly all the studio gimmicks it applied so heavily to its previous three albums. Instead, old friends Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite strive foremost for clarity and austerity. Consequently, the Edge's role is profoundly inconspicuous, and the prevailing atmosphere feels familiar and routine, as if everyone followed the rough blueprints to a few earlier albums, especially "The Unforgettable Fire" and "The Joshua Tree." Whatever the reason, U2, now 20 years old, sounds like it's not quite sure what it's looking for or whether it's in the mood for the hunt. "I'm just trying to find a melody," Bono sings early in the record, "a song I can sing in my own company." Maybe next time. The Straits
Time (Singapore) - 10/27/00 By Yeow Kai Chai
All That You
Can't Leave Behind is a euphoric, no-gimmicks album made
by four Dublin rock stalwarts A heartfelt, relaxed, rock-out affair, it is a no-theme album which flaunts its songs of experience, scabrous wounds and hard-earned triumphs proudly. It is a grizzled Gladiator who just wants to unwind and offer some good ol' stories after years in the battlefield. Instantly U2-sounding, All That... is rock 'n' roll made new. Meaning it would be embraced wholeheartedly by their throngs of disciples who loved and followed them from their early 1980s days, until they got frightened by their gender- and genre-bending ventures of the 1990s. Even the expensive digital touches by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois are subtle, low-key and stay wisely in the background. U2 is back, at ease with their age, and, as a result, sounding younger in their realisation. When they rock, they kick ass without the funky, tiresome knowingness, but with unadorned ardour. And when they play it soft they are killers. Check out, for instance, the flagship single Beautiful Day: It's a laid-back, uplifting rocker which sets the mood nicely for the album's breezy, jaunty set. "See the bird with the leaf in her mouth/After the flood all the colours come out,'' coos Bono in a splendidly earnest croon. Which is why lovely songs such as the flirtatious Wild Honey and the bluesy, Van Morrison-esque In A Little While are more affecting than an epic protest song like Peace On Earth, a song inspired by the Omagh bombing incident, beautiful though it is. This is a U2 not afraid to sound light (but not lightweight), or even simply sentimental. Bless them. Chicago Sun-Times
- 10/31/00 By Jim DeRogatis In the now five-decade history of rock 'n' roll, rare are the artists who have been able to sustain a creative peak on their new recordings over time. Think of the bands and artists who have lasted more than 20 years: Bob Dylan. Pink Floyd. Bruce Springsteen. The Rolling Stones. And, though it's still considered a relative newcomer by many in the baby boom generation, the little band from Dublin that could--U2. Drawn by an ad posted on a bulletin board by drummer Larry Mullen, the members of U2 came together at Mount Temple High School in 1978. They released their first album "Boy" two years later. Eight more studio efforts followed, along with several dramatic reinventions--from the roots-rock of 1988's "Rattle and Hum," to the much-vaunted postmodern irony of 1991's "Achtung Baby." Through it all, the quartet of Mullen, guitarist the Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and singer Bono has remained intact. The Beatles may have invented rock's classic "all for one, one for all" myth. But U2 as a band has now outlived the Fab Four by 12 years. Not that there haven't been bumps in the road. The group's last album, 1996's "Pop," a tired, flaccid affair, found U2 flirting unsuccessfully with techno. It drained all of the fun out of the lyrical sarcasm and musical experimentation that seemed so refreshing on "Achtung Baby" and "Zooropa." And when the band held a press conference at a Kmart to announce its "Popmart" tour, it seemed to bid credibility adieu. How then to salvage the franchise? Why, go back to the basics, of course. (Re: the Beatles circa "The White Album.") "We were laying [the single `Beautiful Day'] down in the studio, and the Edge just cut loose a riff that could only be described as classic, early-days U2," Bono tells Billboard magazine. "I froze and said, `Oh, no, we can't use that. It sounds too much like a quintessential U2 riff!" Edge apparently shot Bono the dirty look to end all dirty looks. "It said, `[Buzz] off, we are U2, and this is how I play guitar,' " Bono recalls. "And I got it. I understood that it was time for us to reclaim who we are. It set the tone of the album." Indeed it did. "Beautiful Day" provides a lilting, melodic opening for "All That You Can't Leave Behind" (Interscope), which arrives in stores today. Like the 10 songs that follow, it's instantly recognizable as U2--partly retro (it could have been recorded in 1982), and partly timeless (it doesn't sound like much else on rock radio circa the new millennium). Dave Richards, program director of Q101, says the alternative-rock powerhouse is playing the single in heavy rotation because his listeners love it--even though a huge number of them weren't born when U2 started its career. In fact, the group remains the only survivor on Q101's play list from the pre-alternative '80s; the Cure and R.E.M. have fallen off the demographic cliff. "They are going back to the '80s sound, but for some reason, people really want U2 to win," Richards says. "They're the fan favorite. Whereas our audience has given up on R.E.M." How does U2 continue to sound vital where others of its era fall short? Much of the success is due to a wise choice of producers. After working with Howie B. on "Pop," the band has returned to Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, the artistic instigators behind its biggest commercial and artistic successes, "The Unforgettable Fire" and "Achtung Baby." Eno once told me that his role with U2 was to listen to its new tracks and force the band to erase anything that sounded too much like U2. In this way, he nudged the group to grow and evolve. But there was clearly a different modus operandi at work on "All That You Can't Leave Behind." Bono himself nails the reason for the album's success in "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" when he sings, "There's nothing you can throw at me that I haven't already heard/I'm just trying to find a decent melody/A song that I can sing in my own company." While U2 offers no new ideas, tunes such as "Elevation," "Walk On," "Grace" and "New York" are positively lousy with big, catchy choruses and memorable Edge guitar riffs. While the band returns to the chorus-drenched sounds of "old U2," Bono skips the earnest preaching that got to be such a drag. Instead of the anthemic "Sunday Bloody Sunday" or "Bullet the Blue Sky," the lyrics tend toward the model of "One"; in their romantic impressionism, they are both more universal and much easier to ignore. In terms of artistic ambition, this is all a bit of a cop-out, and going back to the well is a trick a band can only pull off once. But at the moment, U2 has given us a disc that is guaranteed to appeal to anyone who has ever cared about this veteran band. |
