It’s true that U2 They haven’t made a great record in twenty-five years? With Carnaval De Luz coming November 13th, the question comes back on time. It has become a refrain, almost an obligatory part of the announcement of each of their new releases. And in repeating itself it underwent a decisive transformation: from the idea that the group has no longer created a masterpiece we have moved on to the belief that it has stopped making good music.
The whole issue revolves around the word, “great”. If it means a record capable of changing the language of a band and marking an era like The Joshua Tree or Achtung Babythe discussion has merit. If instead it means a work with strong writing, a recognizable identity that resists the years, All That You Can’t Leave Behind has excellent arguments for falling into the category. And also How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb he has several.
Naturally, U2 (expected live in Italy in July 2027) have contributed to building the distrust that surrounds them. Some exits were unavoidable; others, frankly disappointing. To evaluate them, however, we need a more precise measure than a perpetual comparison with 1987 or 1991.
It is therefore convenient to go back to 2000 and immediately clarify one point: All That You Can’t Leave Behind And How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb they were not ignored records. The first had a largely favorable reception; the second even won the Grammy for album of the year in 2006. Their underestimation concerns the narrative that reduces them to products of a band now retreating into its own brand.
All That You Can’t Leave Behind he chooses clarity after the experiments of the nineties. The production by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois brings the melodies into focus without completely erasing the shadows. This choice can be read as a retreat from Pop; but a record must also be judged by the quality with which it achieves what it intends to do. Here U2 find a form of immediacy which, in the best passages, retains considerable depth.
Beautiful Day it is the most exposed example, and perhaps for this reason the most difficult to listen to without automatisms. Its effectiveness arises from the relationship between a held verse, the pulsation that prepares the opening and the entrance of the guitar, which suddenly expands the space. Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of instead he works on soulful softness, on vocal connections and on a melody that can do without rock aggression. Walk On recaptures the momentum of U2’s anthems.
The crucial part, however, lies just beyond the singles. Kite has a tension between the desire to protect and the need to let go that Bono’s voice makes physical. In a Little While it shows how expressive this group can be when accepting a smaller size. It’s a great album of maturity, with recognizable limitations and writing too inspired to be archived as a simple restoration.
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bombin 2004, is more physical and more erratic. Vertigo it established its public image: the riff, the snap of the drums, the immediately recognizable attack. It’s rock built to strike in seconds, and it does so with pinpoint accuracy. The album, however, gains depth when it eases that pressure and lets its strongest theme emerge, the fragility of family bonds.
Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Ownlinked to Bono’s relationship with his father, is one of the most important songs of their second season. Miracle Drug interweaves melodic delicacy and confidence, preventing intensity from depending solely on volume. City of Blinding Lightsfinally, proves that U2 can still use their most recognizable vocabulary with excellent results.
The most interesting case comes in 2009 with No Line on the Horizon. Here the contradiction is felt within the sequence of songs. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois also participate in the writing, and some of the work seeks more relaxed structures, less immediate atmospheres, a different relationship between rhythm and voice. In between, however, come songs that seem to claim the single at all costs. Get on Your Boots accumulates riffs, phrases and accent changes without finding a strong enough center; Stand Up Comedy he stiffens the rhythm just when he would like to make it irresistible. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight is more successful, but in turn pushes the album towards a conventionality that interrupts the journey.
Judge No Line on the Horizon from that central block alone, however, it would be a serious mistake. The title track has a restless sonic texture, with the singing forcing the profile of the melody. Magnificent it’s a gem, and above all it’s there Moment of Surrender: over seven minutes in which the group agrees to remain within a slow tempo, letting bass, keyboards and vocals gradually produce involvement. It is one of U2’s greatest ever recordings.
Also Unknown Callerwith its solemn proceeding and voices that take on a collective character, seeks a less obvious form of communication. White as Snow takes the record towards a restless nakedness; Cedars of Lebanon he closes it with a low, almost narrated song. These songs do No Line on the Horizon a good unfinished album, at times magnificentheld back by choices that weaken their identity. Regret arises from the quality of what is there.
Songs of Innocencein 2014, was covered by a noise of a completely different nature. Automatic distribution in iTunes libraries transformed a record release into a discussion about the intrusiveness of Apple and the band. The criticism of that operation was legitimate: receiving something without having asked for it can be irritating even when it is free.
Yet the album has one of the most recognizable narrative centers of recent U2. The memory of adolescence gives the songs places, people, wounds. Iris (Hold Me Close)dedicated to Bono’s mother, brings together the movement of music with an absence that singing continues to question, Raised by Wolves it makes the past a threatening place, crossed by violence.
Every Breaking Wave it’s a pleasant ballad, Sleep Like a Baby Tonighton the contrary, introduces a clear restlessness: the dark electronics and the falsetto make an only apparently quiet surface unstable.
And then there is The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)a. good single dedicated to the leader of a legendary band who inspired the band: the Ramones.
With Songs of Experiencein 2017, the balance becomes more difficult. American Soul it forces the tone of the public appeal and relies on a heaviness that leaves little room for surprise. You’re the Best Thing About Me it is pleasant, but the ease with which it flows ends up limiting its weight. Get Out of Your Own Way returns to a grammar that U2 knows all too well. They are real limitations, and make this a less resolved album than the previous ones.
Then it arrives The Little Things That Give You Away. The song takes the time to reveal a fracture: it begins with measure, lets the voice breathe and grows until a final part in which repetition seems to consume all certainty. It is adult writing, capable of brilliantly giving shape to confusion. In Songs of Experience the oscillations are too evident to speak of a great record; it remains an unequal work with a core of excellent music.
In 2024 How to Re-Assemble an Atomic Bomb brought to light material from the sessions of the early 2000s: Country Milein particular, confirms how fertile that period was. It is an archival recovery, and must be judged as such, without mistaking it for evidence of a contemporary rebirth. But it invites us to reconsider the richness of the work from which it comes.
The balance sheet of is different, and much less defensible Songs of Surrender. The 2023 project features forty songs in predominantly acoustic and reduced versions, edited by The Edge. The idea might have made sense: returning to a repertoire with a changed voice, letting age modify the meaning of the words. In the overall result, however, that intention does not find a sufficiently convincing form. The rewriting too often does not offer a strong reason to prefer, or even just place the new recording alongside the original.
2026 has already added EPs to the catalogue Days of Ash and Easter Lily; November 13th will arrive Carnaval De Luz. The new album will have to earn its own judgment, song by song. In the meantime, we can stop asking him to redeem a twenty-five year-long void: that void does not correspond to the records. There were a loss of centrality, glaring errors and missed opportunities, but also solid albums and songs capable of holding their own against a cumbersome story. Before repeating once again that U2 have stopped making good music, we should at least go back and listen to what happens in the second half of Kitein the seven minutes of Moment of Surrender or at the end of The Little Things That Give You Away…
