U2

All That You Can't Leave Behind

Pedestrian rock

Review Score:

(6/10)
Had I written this review immediately after getting the album, I might be suckered into writing a five-star review, proclaiming this album as U2's third masterpiece (as Rolling Stone erroneously claimed).

Hindsight, however, has revealed this album to be less than a masterpiece: four or five good songs hidden amongst equal amounts of less than stellar tracks. "Achtung Baby" this ain't. ATYCLB contains some good songs in the classic U2 vein: "Beautiful Day" is maybe a little too cheery, but it is a huge anthem, the ones U2 excelled at. "Walk On" is a blue-blooded U2 classic, definitely one of their best songs. "Stuck in a Moment" is also a good song, but the fake horns at the end are just plain wrong: when you're of U2's stature, you either get real horns or you don't use them at all. A lethal mistake in an otherwise fine song. The final song worth mentioning is "Kite", a mournful tune with a huge chorus (trust me, it's actually pretty hard to sing without a falsetto) that gained extra depth when Bono started dedicating it to his deceased father. "Elevation" might be on this list if the album version so bloodless: they really did justice to it live and it will be far revered than the album version.

It's a little strange that all the good songs I mentioned are the songs from the first side, but to me the album runs out of gas into the second. Most of the songs are not worth remembering outside of "Wild Honey", a light innocent ode to the Beatles. "When I Look at the World", "Peace on Earth", "New York", "Grace" - to me personally, that is U2's weakest final run-down of an album. Nothing memorable, it all blends together like watered-down vanilla, nothing to write home about.

To discuss the merits of most of these songs, I will need to bring their tour into the discussion: the Elevation tour. If ATYCLB was good for anything, it was good for bringing U2 back into the ring with their live performances. I was fortunate enough to attend one of the shows and they really killed it: no overblown gadgets like PopMart, just the songs. The Boston performance on DVD is also a good example: they did justice to the songs from the album. "Elevation" was the opener (and namesake of the tour) and it was given a turbo injection, the definitive version of the song. I really don't care for the album version of "In a Little While", Bono's voice is obviously unable to handle it (it was about a hangover, but it seems like Bono was actually hung over when he sang it in the studio), but live it was a new song, more bearable. Same with "New York": without the veils and the forty-foot shadows and strobe lights, it's just a rambling "skip" song on the album; but live it's more dynamic and listenable. Of course the good songs from the album sounded equally good live.

U2's third masterpiece? No, it isn't. A solid album from a superstar rock group? Relatively speaking. I think U2's next album, projected to be released in 2004, will be the one that determines whether the band still has their songwriting chops. I'm just afraid of this admirable and sturdy band falling into a Rolling Stones-like caricature of their former self: releasing albums of declining quality while milking their fame for all its worth on tours. Come on guys, I believe in you!!

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