1. ATYCLB was good to get their feet back on the ground after the "madness" in the '90,and create music as 4 man band, guitars and drums. I still rate ATYCLB in my top 5.
  2. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeh
  3. "Madness in the 90's"

    It was the best
  4. waiting for the previously unreleased content to think "why this song didn't enter on original tracklist"
  5. Zooropa is great. Not sure how ATYCLB gets anywhere near it.
  6. Zooropa is a great experimental album. ATYCLB is a great commercial sounding album. I’m glad the band have given us a wide variety. A lot of people wanted the band to keep being experimental but you could argue that’s boring too. Pop for me is a very good album but the weakest of there 90’s work so it was probably a good time to move away from the path they were going down.
  7. They would have been silly to keep going down the dedicated experimental route beyond Pop. They already alienated a huge number of fans by this point and the US audience was dwindling, who were already becoming disillusioned after ZooTV. ATYCLB was a great way of getting back into the American market and with Elevation Tour attached onto that, moving back into arenas, they succeeded. Experimentation is never boring, but it puts an artist down a deadend to irrelevance - and they loathe that noun. They were becoming that cliche after Pop.

    But just because it's a commercial sounding album, doesn't mean the production is good. There's not a fine balance in ATYCLB and it's made even more disappointing by the fact that Eno and Lanois were at the helm of production duties.
  8. I personally love the album, I think it’s melodical ideas are absolutely fresh and new, at no point in their career did you to ever have songs that sounded like stuck in the moment, or wild honey, and to an extent in a little while. I found a venture into more soulful music to be an interesting one, and to see them embracing the guitar as a rock instrument again was a nice change of pace from the previous few records. Is it a safe record? Probably, but it’s only safe because they’re doing something that they are exceptional at, and no one should be slighted for being exceptional at something. Being angry at U2 for making a rock record, is like being mad at Michael Jordan for returning to basketball.
  9. Originally posted by KieranU2:They would have been silly to keep going down the dedicated experimental route beyond Pop. They already alienated a huge number of fans by this point and the US audience was dwindling, who were already becoming disillusioned after ZooTV. ATYCLB was a great way of getting back into the American market and with Elevation Tour attached onto that, moving back into arenas, they succeeded. Experimentation is never boring, but it puts an artist down a deadend to irrelevance - and they loathe that noun. They were becoming that cliche after Pop.

    But just because it's a commercial sounding album, doesn't mean the production is good. There's not a fine balance in ATYCLB and it's made even more disappointing by the fact that Eno and Lanois were at the helm of production duties.
    I don’t think the production has anything to do with the complaints the fans that don’t like the album have. Or at least it’s not the big complaint. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the production, most songs are better live just like most of U2’s work but there isn’t many songs on the album that I think sound poor compared to live or poor in general.
  10. Originally posted by deanallison:[..]
    I don’t think the production has anything to do with the complaints the fans that don’t like the album have. Or at least it’s not the big complaint. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the production, most songs are better live just like most of U2’s work but there isn’t many songs on the album that I think sound poor compared to live or poor in general.
    A lot of people complain about the production, especially on here. All I'd advise is, sit down and carefully listen to the album with headphones. The "most songs are better live" is irrelevant in this context.

    I've never heard ATYCLB get so much praise. It's a good album, but come on.