U2

All That You Can't Leave Behind

Crowdpleaser

Review Score:

(6/10)
U2 was one of the few bands to not only successfully transition from the 80's to the 90's, but do it in style. Following their untoppable masterpiece "The Joshua Tree" with their futuristic rock extravaganza "Achtung Baby", U2 was on top of the world. Several mis-steps and a decade later, U2 come back to us with a real crowd-pleaser "All That You Can't Leave Behind" - combining elements of past 80's glory with elements of 90's electronica.

I'll be honest to say that the idea of this both excited me and worried me. When bands retreat back to early sounds to try and please their audience, bad things can happen. Fortunately, this album has become a huge commercial hit and regained their big following with most listeners.

However, I am not impressed. I would have rather had them continue to explore new sounds (even though Pop was rather disappointing). Though a good song, "Beautiful Day" is nothing new and really not great. "Stuck In a Moment" is really quite annoying and sounds like it could be a theme song for a kids show like Barney or something. "Elevation" is not even close to U2's better rock songs like Bullet the Blue Sky or Even Better Than The Real Thing.

See, if U2 had gone back to their classic sound and produced songs as good as their classics (One, With or Without You, etc) then it would be different. But none of these songs can compete with those (not even Walk On).

Sorry, but this album is not their third masterpiece. U2 is no longer a ground-breaking rock band. They are now falling into Aerosmith/Rolling Stones zone.

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