Originally posted by: Furyline
U2 is great. Their new stuff isn't as good as their old stuff, but it's still better than most of the music out there today.
I did vote for the older music, simply because it had a raw power that postprocessing can't adjust for. Like many other middle aged singers, Bono now relies on backup girls to fill in the high notes he can't hit live ... In no way to I intend that to be a slam - even considering he doesn't have the vocal range of his peak, he still kicks ass.
ATYCLB was excellent. Some of the lyrics were a little abstruse, and it lacked the youthful energy of the early work, but *all* the songs on the album are highly listenable and headily emotional.
One of the things about ATYCLB that I noticed, but have not seen anyone else mention, is that rather than just being a collection of good songs, it functions amazingly as a narrative whole. Furthermore, rather than addressing specific geopolitical issues, as U2 had earlier, it seeks to narrate archetypal stages in life. This becomes somewhat reflexive, as the shifting of awareness from the particular to the whole is one of these stages.
I haven't listened to it in quite some time, as it depressed me the last time. Far more than any of their earlier work did. In my estimation, that makes it quite successful.