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New Album Info: Reviews General / Articles / Reviews / Singles / Videos / Booklet (Page 1)(Page 2)(Page 3)(Page 4)(Page 5)(Page 6)(Page 7)(Page 8) SonicNet - 11/1/00 By Tony Fletcher To understand why U2's tenth studio album, All That You Can't Leave Behind, is such a triumph, it's important to understand when they've failed. Twice in its twenty-year career, the Irish quartet has ventured into a creative cul-de-sac of its own devise: first in 1988, with the excessive self-glorification of Rattle and Hum, and, just about a decade later, with 1997's so-ironic-they-forgot-to-put-good-songs-on-it disaster, Pop. But then U2 has never done things quietly, and their admirable willingness to make mistakes in public is matched only by the group's desire to learn from the experience. After Rattle and Hum, U2 reinvented (and learned to laugh at) itself with the industrial-electronic chic of Achtung Baby. And now, after the misfired mischief of Pop, the group has honed back in on the heart of all great music: the song. There's a temptation to think that U2 has come full circle — that Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen have boxed up the sequencers and the samplers, burned the neon and the satin, and returned to being the four piece rock band that formed in 1978. But All That You Can't Leave Behind has its share of electronic textures, drum loops and distinctly "now" sounds, too. Play it next to 1987's The Joshua Tree and it's obvious which album is from the 21st century. But the one surviving irony of Pop is that the title could have been saved for now, as All That You Can't Leave Behind is the one full of likely hits. "Beautiful Day"'s introductory piano chords, synthesized strings and drum loops offer immediate confirmation that Bono and co. haven't abandoned their electronic experiments, yet the vocal harmonies and the Edge's chiming guitars take us all the way back to their first such cry of optimism, 1980's "I Will Follow." That a quartet of 40-year-old men can sound so boyish is testimony to their almost unfathomable drive; that they can also sound so convincing suggests that their intent this time to streamline the recording process proved successful. Nothing else on the album is quite so infectious, but almost every song reveals its charms quickly. "Elevation" marries Achtung Baby's driving textures with the vocal passion of 1984's "Pride (In The Name of Love)." "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" and "In A Little While" successfully mine vintage American R&B, while the inspirational "Walk On," dedicated to suppressed Burmese political leader Aung San Suu Kyi, closes with lyrics similar to Pink Floyd's famous "Eclipse" — "All that you make/ All that you build/ all that you break...All that you steal" — but then references and contradicts the album title by concluding "All this you can leave behind." While drummer Larry Mullen and bassist Adam Clayton are, as always, solid and dependable, and The Edge contributes ringing guitar and even some beautiful slide work ("Kite"), this really is Bono's album. His voice is back up in the mix, but the forthright wail of old has been replaced by a soul-stirring depth that can only come with age. Lyrically, he's not quite as successful. His faith comes to the forefront of such heavy-handed tracks as "Peace On Earth," (which veers perilously close to "We Are The World" territory) and the album's closer, "Grace," whose adolescent poetry ("Grace, it's the name for a girl/ It's also a thought that changed the world") is, thankfully, saved by the group's soft, seductive accompaniment. U2 albums are generally slow growers, so it's much too early to label All That You Can't Leave Behind a classic. One can say with reasonable certainty that it's their most vibrant offering since Achtung Baby, their hardest-rocking one since The Joshua Tree, and their first true soul recording. Based on current form, the next twenty years should be a blast. Philadelphia Inquirer - 11/3/00 By Tom Moon The U2 discography is filled with impulsive flings followed by acts of contrition. After the thundering "The Joshua Tree brought its "righteous" rock into the global spotlight in 1987, U2 worked to modulate the fury and bring its songs back down to earth. That led to more compact, traditional compositions, such as "Angel of Harlem," written for the partly live "Rattle and Hum," released the following year. Now, after the zany, zoned-out electronic explorations of 1993's "Zooropa" and 1997's "Pop," considered by many loyalists to be a particularly bad creative patch, the Irish foursome returns with an odd assortment of mealy-mouthed equivocations and dim homilies it calls "All That You Can't Leave Behind." Advance word from U2 is that it has rediscovered its core rock values. The band is all but apologizing for its recent missteps, and vows it will surprise people when it hits the road for a world tour in March. But be warned: This is rock from a group that lusts for a hit, and will go through any contortion to get it. This is music of the market-research focus-group variety _ not too harsh, not too outlandish, lots of melody, lots of empathy. Songs such as "Walk On" and the deliriously sunny first single "Beautiful Day" aren't driven by the fire of true believers; they are the result of bald calculation, a move to solidify a base that may already have slipped away. If the band was going to pronounce this its return to some perceived golden age, U2 might at least have turned up the guitars. Gone are the majestic instrumental passages that defined earlier projects, those breathless gallops that gave the music epic sweep and a sense of tension. In their place are tepid little two-chord vamps and nondescript shoe-gazing from the Muzak arranger's manual. The band's early snarling dissonance has been replaced by an eerie, contemplative serenity. The burrowing, harpooning guitars of "Boy" (1980) and "War" (1983) creep in now and then, but more often, the Edge is reduced to workaday strumming. If old U2 was the soundtrack to bustling city streets, this is music of, and for, idle moments. Apart from the hurtling "Elevation," the rhythms lean on soul and pop as much as rock. Where the album's obligatory, mid-tempo marching-to-enlightenment anthems plod along, the more unusual beats -- such as the slinky Marvin Gaye-ish soul of "In a Little While" -- find the guys groping toward new expressions, or at least novel ways to frame familiar existential dilemmas. In search of a twist on the typical soul confession, Bono, now 40, guitarist Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen cast themselves as a Detroit lounge band, digging into the spongy beat as though happy to escape the tyranny of rock's rigid crunch. These R&B moments, which also include the gospelized "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of," are the highlights of the set: Bono's voice cracks in the most telling places, and the band, disciplined but loose, sounds as if it's enjoying the ride. But there are problems elsewhere in Bonoland. The singer's attempts to express his high-minded ideals fall woefully flat: The rote "Peace on Earth" and its companion, "When I Look at the World," are State of the Planet addresses. Delivered from on high, they're loaded with sanctimonious indignation and lack the "we're-in-it-together" sentiment that distinguished past appeals. He's even more cloying when he strives for intimacy: The couplets of "Walk On" ("I know it aches, and your heart, it breaks") try to offer encouragement, but end up striking a talk-show host's tone of glib compassion mixed with indifference. The most distressing thing about "All That" is the band's eagerness to regress: U2 spent several years looking forward, grappling with technology and its impact, trying to capture the dizzying contradictions of this on-demand moment. It got close to doing just that. But now, as it crawls back to comfortable, non-threatening mass-appeal rock, it appears wounded in retreat, tethered to what we thought it had outgrown, imprisoned by what it evidently cannot leave behind. Belfast News Letter - 11/3/00 By James Elliot WELL, I've listened to it over and over again, in the hope that, like with Radiohead's Kid A, initial bafflement would give way to the realisation that I'm listening to something pretty damn special. But no such luck. I can now, fairly certainly, conclude that All That You Can't Leave Behind is the worst album U2 have ever made. A major disappointment in almost every way. To get this in perspective, I'm talking as someone who loves even the albums the band themselves pretty much disown (the sprawling, static-strewn Passengers & Pop records) - so we're talking pretty poor. All That You Can't Leave Behind has been trumpeted as a return to U2's roots, an exorcising of all the grand irony and experimentalism of the nineties, but it sounds as if they've managed to bleach out all the passion and grace they once possessed too. The overall sound of it is the main problem - ATYCLB is the blandest album that's ever had Brian Eno at the helm - at times (like on When I Look At The World) you could be listening to a Spice Girls backing track. Kite is but a poor facsimile of Pop's mighty Playboy Mansions; Elevation takes on the Pixies' Levitate Me at it's own game and comes off significantly the worse, whilst New York is just plain dull, dull, dull - a song initially about Bono's new house (woohoo!) in the Big Apple that goes nowhere much else at all. In fact, Bono's lyrics are among the most insipid of his career - standard rock cliches strewn through them like peanuts in, um, a packet of peanuts. It's not all bad, though. The single Beautiful Day has an expansive urgency and glee about it, while the gospel pop of Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of is a reminder that, when they get it right, U2 have few equals in the heart stirring stakes. Aside from that (and the previously available, and still gorgeous, Ground Beneath Her Feet) it's all so much ado about nothing. Never thought I'd say that about U2. People - 11/13/00 By Steve Dougherty When not trying to persuade dictators to free political prisoners or the world's leading industrial powers to forgive Third World debt, Bono and the lads like to pick up their guitars and play. And this album is enough to make fans wish U2 would hurry up and save the world already. Music this unique and passionately felt is something to be treasured. As usual, this is big-statement, anthemic gospel rock. But despite a clumsy title (wouldn't the opening track "Beautiful Day" have rolled more easily off the tongue?), liner-note pleas to do good ("Remember Aung San Suu Kyi, under virtual house arrest in Burma since 1989") and some lyrics that might have been lifted from Kahlil Gibran ("And if your way should falter/Along the stone pass/It's just a moment/This time will pass"), "All That" never sounds strident or self-righteous. Bono's voice is as emotion-packed as ever; guitarist the Edge avoids falling into his habitual, Bo Diddley-on-Prozac riffs, and a nice balance is struck between coproducer Daniel Lanois's dark stirrings and counterpart Brian Eno's spacey tweedling. Every track is a tour de force, but "Elevation," "Wild Honey," "Peace on Earth" and "Grace" are especially gorgeous. Bottom Line: Bono sings; you, too, will follow UK Newsquest Regional Press - 11/7/00 By Amanda Killelea The number one single Beautiful Day starts their ninth studio album and sets the standard for their new work. But from that point Bono and The Edge swap big, bold pop tunes for more mature heartfelt hyper ballads in the mould of their earlier work on Achtung Baby. Elevation and Kite are reminiscent of that album's One and So Cruel, both moody and dark as Bono paints new characters on the canvas of Edges guitar work. All That You Can't Leave Behind doesn't have instant appeal nor is it ground-breaking. Just another very solid U2 offering that won't disappoint. Dallas
Observer - 11/9/00 By Robert Wilonsky Both of these acts belong in a rock-and-roll museum--Bono's fly specs and Liam's eyebrow, preserved in amber behind Plexiglas (most of Oasis' riffs are already sealed and on display, under the Beatles' exhibit). They belong to another era, a time when it was possible to be a superstar for more than a second or five; there's no room for them on Puffy and Jennifer's guest list these days (besides, Bono's too busy plugging his band's latest, under the guise of debt-relief, on Capitol Hill to make the scene). U2's been around forever: Twenty years after birthing Boy, on which Bono Vox and the boys sounded like Zep-obsessed Jesus freaks playing new-wave dress-up, the band has dipped its electrofried, synthified arena rock in so much irony and pretension, you half expect them to carry it at the Dairy Queen, next to the Dilly Bars; long ago they became rock and roll's empty calories. And it only seems as though Oasis has been around longer than God's favorite Irish rockers, since its music has. Once, a long time ago, their fusion of sitar and sneer, of platitude and attitude seemed novel, refreshing, exciting; now it's its paint-by-numbers, with gray being the only color on the palette. Imagine a band with two George Harrisons. And if you think the two bands have little in common, listen only to U2's Pop; "Staring at the Sun," among a handful of other tracks on that bar code, it's a blinding appropriation of Oasis' appropriations. For a moment, they were the exact same bland...pardon, band. But at this moment, they're superstar acts heading in different directions: All That You Can't Leave Behind is U2's best since, well, ever (less Pop, more pop), while Oasis' live two-fer is the worst best-of offered up by a major act since the Rolling Stones' Still Life emerged stillborn in 1982. Nine months after releasing the most turgid album of its fast-vanishing career, Oasis dishes out two more discs--the live album (recorded July 21 at Wembley Stadium, the world's worst recording studio) that's like that annoying twit who recounts last night's party by explaining, "Guess ya had to be there." It's cheap filler, rock as Product: The first three songs ("Fuckin' in the Bushes," "Go Let it Out," and "Who Feels Love") showed up in the same order on Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (released in February), only without the deafening shouts of acolytes who feel the need to sing along with guitar solos. (And without Liam's constant demands for the lighting tech to "turn down tha fookin' lights," or something.) The rest of
the disc offers familiar hits ("Wonderwall,"
"Champagne Supernova," "Don't Look Back in
Anger," "Supersonic," ad infinitum)
performed proverbially; the only difference is that you
can barely hear half of the songs, as the crowd seems
intent on drowning out the music (depending on your
generosity, it reminds one of either The Beatles' Live at
the Hollywood Bowl or KISS Alive, or just split the
difference). Fact is, an album like this sort of breaks
your heart, if only because it serves as a reminder of a
time when Oasis seemed viable, even a little bit
necessary. "Wonderwall" was, easily, among the
handful of great rock singles of the 1990s; turning on
the car radio and stumbling across it (every five
minutes, but who cared?) was to get swept up in its
singalong chorus, to find yourself immersed ass-deep in
its melancholy groove until you'd all but convinced
yourself FM was once again safe for melodies that lived
beyond the next commercial break. It broke your heart and
healed all wounds at the same time, but it promised more
than it could ever U2's has its own brilliant single on theradio and MTV right now (no, seriously--right now), and "Beautiful Day" will no more shape the landscape than "Wonderwall" did five years ago (or, for that matter, U2's own dazzling "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," released on the Batman Forever soundtrack in 1995). Funny how critics have latched onto "Beautiful Day" because it allegedly sounds so much like old U2; references abound to The Joshua Tree or The Unforgettable Fire, as though the new record is some lazy step backward--a sort of homecoming, henh henh...ungh. Fact is, the new record all but dwarfs its predecessors, simply because it doesn't pretend to stand for anything or say much of anything; it's nothing more or less than an album "trying to find a decent melody, a song that I can sing in my own company" as Bono utters in the gorgeous, insistent "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of," but one of a handful of would-be singles on the disc ("Elevation," "In a Little While," and "Wild Honey" will soon enough make their way to the airwaves). Having boiled down its discography to a single, unrelenting whole, the band should have titled the new disc The Best of 2000, as it's far more listenable (and playful) than 1998's double-disc best-of-and-rest-of. All That You Can't Leave Behind is U2's finest moment for the same reason Music is Madonna's brightest ray of light: because, for the first time, both of them sound as though they don't give a shit--they're liberated by lack of expectation, theirs and ours. They've checked the bloat at the studio door and decided, finally, to surrender to the groove; forget Achtung, Baby and Zooropa, because All That You Can't Leave Behind is the first U2 album you can dance to (slow dance, even, without looking grab-ass silly). U2 and Madonna sound as though they recorded their respective discs in about a week; there's nothing fussy about the production or, for that matter, the lyrics, which are about as simple-minded as middle-aged superstars get ("And love is not an easy thing/The only baggage you can bring/Is all that you can't leave behind"--yup, and what I am is what I am you what you are or what). "Beautiful Day"--produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, with whom they made such albums as The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, with additional touches added by the band's first producer, Steve Lillywhite--is anthemic without being preachy, celebratory without waving its fist in the air (OK, it's a better version of Boy's "Seconds"). It's a song for and about driving with nowhere to go; you never want it or the road to end. "Touch me," Bono sings (yeah, dude, as if), "take me to that other place," and the song does that: It transports you to that place where music makes you feel luminescent, graceful, and indestructible. |
