Ahh, U2 before they forced their music onto every iPhone in the world (as far as I know) and made themselves a little bit of a joke in the eyes of my generation. I’m also receiving reports that this album was produced by friend of the newsletter Brian Eno. Come on, Brian, make me love you like everyone else does!

“One” is U2’s ultimate distillation to me. It’s an attempt to be universal and huge in scope yet introspective, with a rattly over-processed Edge guitar part and epic strings. It’s like they were trying not to write a stadium rock song, trying to show their depth (as always), toning down the guitars and even adding some acoustic strumming, with the string section and the Edge’s ultra-delay-reverb guitar kind of ruining the “downsizing” effect. It’s a great song, but it feels so self-important that it’s a bit tainted. That’s U2’s legacy in my mind.

This album is quite different from the pretentious undertones of Joshua Tree, which felt like an exercise in musical colonization more than anything else, but the same “I’m important” attitude seems to pervade every song. I struggle to call U2 rock at all, to be honest, although rock and pop are often a distinction without a difference. The main reason for that is that U2, although they might be underdogs, don’t act like they see themselves that way. They’re the ultimate corporate rock band, the “I know better than you and I’m doing this for your own good” activists. True, I’m sure they put their money where their mouth is when it comes to real-world activism, but speaking purely about the music, there’s an element of condescension that makes some of the songs hard to relate to as much as I should.

Now all that being said, I believe most of the above criticism is me projecting the band’s image onto the music of this album. That’s hard to avoid, and it’s a bit unfair, as many of the songs are superbly written and are well-worn classics for a reason.

Jams

“One”
“Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”
“Mysterious Ways”

From the roundup Jamwise #37 - Best Albums of 1991.