You can go too far down a musical path, even one that’s been effective for you in the past. It’s a lesson that U2 learned a few times in their career. When they applied that lesson again on their 2000 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind, U2 ended up with one of the biggest successes of their career.
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They triumphed with the album, reaching another peak nearly a dozen LPs into their career. The course correction led to yet another era where the Irish quartet could once again claim the title of World’s Greatest Band.
U2’s Career Path
By the time they began the process of recording All That You Can’t Leave Behind, U2 had already experienced at least three distinct eras in their career. They began as the super-earnest, socially conscious bashers making brittle rock anthems pitched to the rafters.
Then came their foray into a more earthy, roots-based sound, heralded by the smash 1987 album The Joshua Tree. When that approach started to produce diminishing returns, they returned with their biggest pivot yet on Achtung Baby, full of glammy pyrotechnics and biting irony.
Again, that sustained them for a while. But even U2’s most diehard fans started to miss their more earnest side. On top of that, their albums were starting to suffer on the charts, bottoming out with Pop in 1997. The band knew that they had to stop reconstructing rock music and instead start finding refuge in it again.
Having It ‘All’
All That You Can’t Leave Behind didn’t go all that smoothly in terms of the recording process. The various schedules of the individual members caused them to stretch out the recording over a period of nearly two years. But they wisely took their time, knowing that the album was a crucial one for their career trajectory.
U2 also made sure to introduce the album with a crackerjack lead single. “Beautiful Day” managed to attach some of the band’s trademark uplift to a smattering of techno frills. The blending of the old and the new sent the band rocketing up the charts with their biggest worldwide hit in about a decade.
Revisiting the Music of ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’
“Beautiful Day” might have used a modern touch to clear the way for audiences to reengage with U2. But All That You Can’t Leave Behind rides high on a bevy of old-fashioned qualities. It might be the most melodic album of the band’s career. Multiple songs put Bono’s vocals into their most anguished, soulful territory. And the four men sound as if they’re looking across a studio, reacting to each other instead of twiddling knobs and punching data into computers.
The sarcasm and irony are absent from the lyrics, as Bono once again directly engages his listeners. Songs like “Walk On”, “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of”, and “When I Look At The World” are open-hearted pleas that don’t worry about any coolness factor. They’re here to soothe and heal.
U2 also finds room for a thunderous pump-up song in “Elevation”. “Wild Honey” almost sounds like the work of a different band, so easy-going and unassuming is its groove. Only “New York” seems a bit cold and clinical, the one sore thumb on a record full of helping hands.
Four years later, U2 returned with the album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which rehashed much of the approach of All That You Can’t Leave Behind. The band hasn’t quite risen again to those artistic pinnacles since. But you wouldn’t put it past these guys to muscle their way to another winning path, just as they did with this wondrous album.
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