Disregard All That I Say (All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2)

Member Name: markhobbs

Product:	All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2
Date:	04/09/01 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some of the best U2 'tunes'

Disadvantages: Some of the songs don't really have that spark

It’s a testament to the band that twenty years after their first album, Boy, they’re still as important and fresh as they used to be. All That You Can’t Leave Behind was universally acclaimed on its release last November, and in turn became a huge seller. It is, in fact, set to outsell the previous favourite The Joshua Tree during the year.

ATYCLB is a very important album for U2, after the relatively poorly received Pop there was a chance they would fizzle out like many before them. But not so, songs like Stuck in A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of and Walk On are as brilliant and exciting as anything they’ve done before. So what if it’s nothing experimental or world changing, sometimes you just need some songs to sing along to.

Gone is the irony and sheer size of the Zoo TV and Popmart tours, apart from a concert in Italy and Slane in Ireland, the Elevation Tour is an indoor and intimate one. It’s just four guys pouring their hearts out, the giant lemons have been left at home. And just a little word on the Slane gigs, every year in Ireland there’s a gig in a small town in Meath called Slane. U2 were chosen to headline this years gig, the eighty thousand tickets available sold out in about forty five minutes. I was lucky enough to get one of them. Slane is, by law, only allowed to host one of these gigs a year, but demand for tickets was so great that the promoters applied to get this bill changed. It was, and another eighty thousand tickets sold out in forty five minutes. That’s how big they are.

To be honest, after hearing Beautiful Day my hopes weren’t too high for the album. But, although I do like it now, it proves to be the weakest track. It’s tracks like Stuck In A Moment… that make this album what it is. The song, written for Michael Hutchence, is about how the bad times will pass, to carry and it’ll have to get better at some stage. It’s imp
ossible not to sing along to, and might I add, amazing live. Oh, Edge shouldn’t be able to reach notes that high, scary.

Elevation is pure fun, a great set opener on their tour. It’s one of those songs where everything stops for a second or two, then kicks in again, getting everybody jumping around and generally making arses of themselves. Walk On is could very well be U2’s best song since One, it’s certainly another classic anthem. As with One, it’s a simple enough song, but Bono’s vocals just make it special.

Kit and In A Little While both have taken on new meaning since they were first penned. Kite, written by Bono for his kids, is now dedicated to his dad, who passed away recently. In A Little While was written about a bad hang over, but since Joey Ramone died while listening to it it’s become even more special.

Other key tracks on the album are Peace On Earth, a gentle song written about the lack of it, and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, with lyrics by Salman Rushdie. Again, as with pretty much all U2 albums of the last fourteen years, there’s no bad tracks. Not all of them are awe inspiring but they’re all good in they’re own right.

As long as they don’t end up like the Rolling Stones, here’s to another twenty years.

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