“It was a little self-indulgent”: The one album U2 will never make again
It’s hard to get any band like U2 to agree on what one of their albums is supposed to sound like.
Every one of them is looking to make the best of every record that they put out, but when you have to measure yourself next to masterpieces like The Joshua Tree, it’s not like anyone’s going to be looking to make some half-hearted tune whenever they get into the studio. Bono had always felt like making music that meant something more than a bunch of chords, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t room for them to stretch their musical muscles every now and again on one of their records.
Because if there’s one thing U2 loves more than anything, it’s being on the cutting edge of what music is supposed to be. Sonically, they have all of their trademarks down to a science at this point, but it’s all about how to deliver the music to their fans. They might have crossed more than a few lines when working on records like Songs of Innocence by throwing their record onto everyone’s iPhone, but you can’t say that they didn’t at least have good intentions behind some of their tunes.
In fact, most of the biggest blunders that they have ever made were based on trying to make rock and roll mean something more. Most of the time, it worked wonders like their stellar performance at Live Aid, but when you think about the fact that Rattle and Hum happened right afterwards, there were definitely holes in their method when Bono started looking more like a messiah figure in almost every other shot of the movie.
But even for all the tension within the band and with their own fanbase, Achtung Baby at least soothed things over a bit. Their need to experiment was half the reason why this post-modern version of rock and roll worked. Everyone knew that Bono was leaning into that full-of-himself rockstar persona, and since they were also working with new soundscapes across the record, it was better for them to take chances than give everyone another Joshua Tree in the age of grunge.
Zooropa did get somewhat of a pass for taking chances for the same reasons, but Pop is really where things hit a bit of a grinding halt. The experimental nature of the record and the rushed job that they made of it was already a bit flimsy, but perhaps everyone should have seen this coming when they started working with Brian Eno more closely when putting together the basis for Passengers.
Although any band can have fun by trying on a new persona, drummer Larry Mullen Jr remembered that the whole thing was getting a bit too much for him by the end of recording, saying, “It was a little self-indulgent. I thought we might be pushing our audience too far. I think there are some great songs and a couple of interesting ideas on that record but, for me, it didn’t go anywhere.”
He does have a point by wanting to do right by their audience, but Bono only saw this pushing as a good thing, saying, “The thought did strike us that it would be nice to formally write with him, the way he had with Talking Heads and David Bowie.”
If we’re judging by the actual results, though, Bono is much better when he’s preaching from a pulpit rather than trying to become the next David Byrne. It didn’t work for Robert Plant, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to work for him when he started to embrace too many dance textures at once.
It’s one thing for them to find more subtle ways of shoehorning their favourite bands into their sound, but Passengers is a good example of a band going just enough too far over the line for their fanbase. It was still the same group of musicians, and they weren’t making outright terrible music, but when you’re trying to be something you’re not, it doesn’t take the public that long to see through that.
