All That You Can't Leave Behind

About

The members of U2 headed into the 2000s in the midst of an existential crisis—not to mention a musical one. The band had both overwhelmed <i>and</i> underwhelmed fans with 1997’s would-be future-disco record <i>Pop</i>. Around the same time, the group’s PopMart tour was earning millions of dollar, but few accolade. Suddenly, the group’s cool cred was in doubt. Perhaps this was inevitable: After all, lead singer Bono had spent the decade simultaneously playing up and poking fun at rock ’n’ roll ludicrousness—only for him and his bandmates to share the stage with a giant, sporadically malfunctioning lemon. Bono had started the decade as a jokester, and ended it as a punchline. <i>All That You Can’t Leave Behind</i> was a self-conscious corrective—the sound of a band turning down the noise, throwing out the glittery prop, and refashioning the old-school U2 sound into something more stripped-away and direct. To some, <i>All That You Can’t Leave Behind</i> was a bold return; to other, a bit of a retreat. Either way, it sold a gazillion copie, and erased any doubt of U2’s raw abilities (while also seemingly wiping clean any collective cultural memory of PopMart). U2 makes its intentions for <i>All That You Can’t Leave Behind</i> clear from the get-go with the opening track: “Beautiful Day,” a monstrou, undeniable bit of uplift, featuring an atomic guitar riff the Edge apparently recorded while strapped to a jumbo jet, and a gorgeous mid-song harmonic breakdown. “Beautiful Day” is so on-the-nose, so perfectly <i>U2</i>, that everyone forgave its sheer U2-ne. And the song demonstrated what 21st-century commercial rock could (and would) sound like in the years ahead: loud, proud, and only <i>slightly</i> ridiculou. That was certainly the mantra behind the album’s <i>other</i> smash-hit anthem, “Elevation,” a trampolining assortment of swan-diving guitars and sky-high vocals that manages to answer the age-old question: “Can a rock song rhyme the words ‘mole,’ ‘hole,’ and ‘soul,’ and still retain its integrity?” (The answer: Ye, but only in this instance.) But the roof-raising tracks on <i>All That You Can’t Leave Behind</i> are paired with (slightly) quieter, more carefully layered number. The reassuring ballad “Walk On” finds Bono doing what he does best as a lyricist—namely, taking off his shade, looking listeners directly in the eye, and giving them what feels like a one-on-one heart-to-heart. And the lovely “In a Little While,” a low-key bit of soul-searching, is one of the band’s most effectively pared-down numbers (it became a favorite of Joey Ramone in his final days). .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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