All That You Can Leave Behind

``````````````The way we were -- The Joshua Tree (1987)

Something about the winter time reminds me of U2. I am not saying that we have winters in the south anything like they do in Ireland, but I am usually kind of blue in January and February and U2 songs seem to tap into that mood. That is, when U2 was making interesting music.

I have never been a big fan of greatest hits albums, but in the case of U2 this especially holds true as I listened to the Greatest Hits 1990-2000 this past week for the first time. My relationship with U2 started to wane with the release of "Pop" in 1997 and has gone south ever since. There seems to be so much that sounds the same with their albums since then. They returned to their "signature" sound with 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and the title was there to tell us that they hadn't lost their minds with experimentation, but that doesn't equal evolution. It seems instead that they were just trying to reinvent their own wheel with limited success. "Vertigo", off their latest album, is a perfect example. Here is a song that means nothing lyrically or musically and songs like this seem to be leftovers for the people that missed U2 the first time.

I am glad I was around to witness what the band was like when they were up-and-coming instead of overinflated and self-important. I was playing Internet pool with a twenty-year-old from Texas recently who said she loved U2, but wasn't familiar with any of their early work and that boggled my mind. The band she loves and the band I used to love (and still love for their early work) are two separate creatures. When I first heard Coldplay, Radiohead and The Walkmen, I was reminded of how exciting it was to hear U2 for the first time in 1985. That dark mysterious guitar landscape created by The Edge with Bono's multi-range vocals and the powerful rhythm foundation created by Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. have such a signature sound, but in the past two albums I hear no new territory being explored and in the place of original interesting music is the sound of some middle-aged guys who are shooting fish in a barrel -- not really challenging themselves and expecting a fan base to come along.

The attitude seems to be that if the new material is hyped enough with cool signature iPod commercials and rock God arena egos, that no one will really look or listen too deep into the actual music. It's fine to be earnest and its fine to want to make a dent in world politics with your funky ass sunglasses Bono, but it's the dent that was made in the music world back in the mid-1980's that is the only one that really matters.