The Joshua-er Tree

Let’s face it:  There are plenty of reasons to hate U2.  I mean, sure, there was a time when they were so cool that only cool people liked them.  Then, there was the time when they were so HUGELY popular that EVERYBODY liked them.  That was a LONG time ago, though.  Since then, they’ve given us the HUGELY pretentious “Rattle & Hum” album, the HUGELY weird “Zooropa” album & tour, the even weirder “Pop” album & tour and then the HUGELY experimental “No Line on the Horizon” album after we had just gotten used to them being good again on “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” and “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”.  That’s not even to mention (even though I am) Bono’s pompous attitude and in-your-face holier-than-thou politics.  I think the best reason to hate them, though, is that they gave everybody in the world a copy of their latest album.  No, wait…that doesn’t make sense.  What the hell am I talking about anyway?  Oh yeah…last year, U2 released their best album ever & gave it away for free and millions of people got totally pissed off at them for it.  Wow.  I just read that back and it still doesn’t make sense.  I’ll bet you’re thinking the same thing.  I’ll bet it’s for a different reason, though.  I’ll bet you’re sitting there wondering how I could say that “Songs of Innocence” is U2’s best album.  It is, though.  Seriously.

First of all, let me just say that I know that it’s a widely-accepted fact that “The Joshua Tree” is U2’s best album.  I don’t think I’ve ever even heard an argument to the contrary.  I mean, to date, it’s sold in excess of 25,000,000 copies worldwide and was single-handedly responsible for catapulting the band from “critical darling” to “biggest band in the world” status.  Along the way, it undoubtedly became the soundtrack to millions of lives, earning a place in the hearts of those same millions FOREVER.  I get it. 

Here’s the thing, though:  I wasn’t a U2 fan in 1987.  In fact, I never even bought a U2 album until 2000 when “ATYCLB” came out.  Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t like U2.  I liked a lot of their songs.  I liked “New Years Day” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “Angel of Harlem”.  I just didn’t like them enough to buy the albums…because I wasn’t a U2 fan.  I was just a guy who liked some U2 songs.  It wasn’t until I heard “Beautiful Day” post-Y2K that I was actually moved to buy a U2 album.  I was hooked after that, though.  By the time “HTDAAB” was released, I had gone back and purchased their entire catalog…and I’ve bought everything they’ve recorded since then.

My point is:  I have absolutely no sentimental attachment to “The Joshua Tree”.  It’s a great album.  For years, I considered it their 2^nd best after “War”.  But I didn’t own it in the eighties.  It’ll never mean as much to me as “Rio” or “Thriller” or “Born in the U.S.A.” because it wasn’t there for me when I was growing up.  It’s just a really good album that I bought as an adult and appreciate for the really good album that it is.  That means I can be completely objective when I say that their latest album, “Songs of Innocence”, is better.

Again, I know that statement is going to sound blasphemous to some.  Hear me out, though.

There are, basically, three kinds of U2 albums:  post-punk, soul and experimental.  While everything the band records has a degree of raw energy, soul and experimentation, each of their albums leans primarily in one direction more than the others.  For example, the band’s first three albums, “Boy”, “October” & “War” would fall into the first category.  There was an angry, youthful energy that drove even the slower songs on those records.  It was undeniable and exciting.  It’s what drew millions to them in the first place.

However, with “The Unforgettable Fire”, the band would reach a new plateau.  That’s when they found their “soul”.  No more were they angry, young men.  They had matured, and with that maturity came a new wisdom.  They weren’t fighting the world anymore – they were coming to terms with it…and embracing it, even as they tried to make it a better place.  That soul would carry them through their next two albums, “The Joshua Tree” & “Rattle & Hum”, as well.

As the nineties dawned, the band wisely lightened up a bit.  That’s when their experimental phase began.  “Achtung Baby”, “Zooropa” & “Pop” were clearly not “your father’s U2”.  The quirkiness of those songs was accompanied by a circus of a live show, during which they pretty much poked fun at themselves.  Commercially, there were as many valleys as peaks, but they did succeed at getting the pretentiousness monkey off their backs…and AB is regarded by many as one of their absolute best albums.

It was those three experimental albums that allowed the band to finally regain their soul, so to speak, on 2000’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind”.  The overall sound was again more organic with simpler arrangements on gospel-tinged songs about love and loss.  It was a welcome return to glory and fans showed their delight by snatching up almost as many copies of it as their previous two albums combined.  They would continue along that same path on the follow-up, 2004’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”, although they would let their post-punk roots show, at least to a degree.  Unfortunately, they would be back in mad scientist mode again five years later with the disappointing “No Line on the Horizon”.

That brings us to last year’s “Songs of Innocence”.  One part post-punk, one part soul and one part experimentation, the record that Rolling Stone called U2’s most complete album is the first on which the band displays all three parts of their musical psyche equally…and the results are fantastic.  Nowhere is this more evident than on the opening track “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).  The song kicks off the record with a grungy guitar riff reminiscent of HTDAAB’s “Vertigo”.  But, whereas the band holds the pedal to the metal throughout the latter, they wisely stop on a dime on the former for a heartfelt chorus as powerful as that of their very first U.S. Top 40 hit thirty years earlier.

“Every Breaking Wave” follows suit with a soulful verse that builds to a powerful chorus.  Bono’s ragged delivery is perfectly juxtaposed against the slick keyboard riff that drives that section of the song.  It’s edgy, passionate and, at the same time, innovative…plus, it’s damn catchy.

And it doesn’t end there – the band fires on ALL cylinders on EVERY SINGLE SONG.  There is NO filler here.  Somehow, this band that has been around for almost 40 years manages to play ear candy like a punk band while weaving in enough unexpected musical flourishes to sound as cutting edge as anything on Top 40 radio…and all while Bono passionately wails lyrics that only a starving 20-year-old living in his van should be able to write.  It’s astonishing, really…but that wasn’t even the true litmus test.

After listening to this album non-stop for 2 weeks, I was ready to rank it comfortably behind “War” and “The Joshua Tree” as the band’s third best…but then I did something that changed that.  I went back and listened to their older stuff.  That’s when I realized that my mind had been playing tricks on me.  Every time I listened to SOI, I was reminded of U2’s earlier albums.  Several songs on the album were very reminiscent of TJT.  However, when I went back and listened to that album, I realized that the new songs are better.  Take away the nostalgia of that classic album and there’s really no comparison.  “California”, “Cedarwood Road”, “Raised by Wolves” and “Iris” (which Bono wrote about his mother who died when he was 14) are actually better songs than pretty much everything on TJT.

The same was true when I listened to “War”.  Ever the contrarian, I had always insisted that it, not TJT, was U2’s best album.  I stuck it in the CD player and listened from start to finish.  It’s a great album.  It’s one of their best…but it’s simply not their best.  “Volcano” and “This is Where You Can Reach Me Now” do what it does better.  Once again, I was astonished – just as astonished as you probably are right now.

Now, let me qualify what I’m saying before you call me an idiot.  I’m not saying that the 11 songs on “Songs of Innocence” are U2’s best eleven songs and that every other U2 song ranks somewhere behind them.  What I’m saying is that, as a whole, this album has everything that every other U2 album has all packed into one album.  If you like young, wild, pissed-off U2, this is the album for you.  If you like older, preachy, pretentious U2, this is the album for you.  If you like old, crazy, weird U2, this is the album for you.  It’s the all-purpose U2 album…if you’re a U2 fan.  If you disagree, then there’s a chance that you’re not really a U2 fan at all – you’re just a guy (or girl) who likes some U2 songs.  Some really OLD U2 songs.

So, let go of the past and give this “new” album a fair shake.  Don’t tell me you don’t have it.  I know you do.  Every damn body in the world has it.  U2 made sure of that.

By the way, I hope you enjoyed the videos I included in this week’s blog.  I felt that I needed to feature every song on the album in order to state my case, so I literally searched for hours to find a good visual representation of each song.  Three of them were official videos produced by the band and one was a live performance.  The other seven were fan-made.  Thanks to all of these filmmakers for demonstrating their passion for this music by creating some amazing art.