U2

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (HTDAAB)

I'm not saying this is a bad album...

Review Score:

(4/10)
I just remember something different is all.
Like most of ya, right?
The truth is, the album sounds bland because it...sounds like...U2.
U2 isn't a band anymore, folks. They're a genre. Secular bands (and unfortunately 9,458 Christian ones) have imitated the echoed epic themes that U2 immortalized and perfected before they were of legal drinking age. They have earned their place in rock history and deservedly so. Bono is impossibly entertaining, despite his struggles againt vague terms like "terrorism". Maybe next they'll try and save us from "ennui"...
The point remains the same as it was since rock music began. You can't have a Nirvana without a Nickelback, and you can't have a U2 without a million other imitators and 5th generation ripoffs...
So U2 is an expiring sound. Yes'm it's true. U2 has become Aerosmith. Iggy Pop. Paul McCartney. It's just not exciting anymore.

It just hurts all the more growing up with a band that meant so bloody much to me. A band that played at Mangia's pizza parlour in Austin, TX in 1980 to a crowd of 20-something people who had no earthly idea what would spring from these 4 kids...TEENAGERS...that revolutionized alternative rock and post punk.

I will not bash this album. The album is better than 80% of what gets released these days.

But to fans that knew them THEN...it's not enough! If anyone watched them on TV in 1980 playing "11 O' Clock Tick Tock" on the show, The Old Grey Whistle Test, then you know how phenomenal U2 was...as Bono nervously sang the words "Seen it all...seen it all before" The song was a testament expressing his hatred of genres that lose their fire and meaning...

How ironic.

As forgetable as U2 has been since the mid 90s, there is no way in hell anyone can forget just how amazing this band was when it really mattered.

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