Track Listing

1. Vertigo
2. Miracle Drug
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
4. Love and Peace or Else
5. City of Blinding Lights
6. All Because of You
7. Man and a Woman
8. Crumbs from Your Table
9. One Step Closer
10. Original of the Species
11. Yahweh

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #638 in Music
• Published on: 2004
• Released on: 2004-11-23
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
The album that carries U2 into its 25th year--and likely the mixed blessings of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--is one of its most frank and focused since the days of October and War. But its gestation was anything but simple, in part salvaged from '03 sessions the band deemed subpar. Enter Steve Lillywhite, the band's original producer and sometime collaborator in the decades since, who helped retool the track "Native Son" (originally an antigun screed) into the aggressive iPod anthem "Vertigo" and leaves his distinctive stamp on the muscular "All Because of You." Perhaps weary of ceaseless, fashion-driven reinvention in the wake of monumental success, U2 seem only too happy here to re-embrace their original sonic trademarks in service of more daring, pop-melodic hooks than they've collected in one place in decades. The Eno/Lanois produced "Love and Peace or Else" may shimmer with the duo's electro-production conceits, but it's Edge's lugubrious, postmodern John Lee Hooker guitar swagger that drives it. Elsewhere, Bono's trademark dramaturgy is spotlighted on "City of Blinding Lights," the unabashed romance of "A Man and a Woman," and the confessional "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own." It may come wrapped in a conundrum--is it nostalgic retrenchment or a sum of the band's endless musical catharsis?--It's also the album where, Fly and MacPhisto be damned, U2 boldly claims its arena titan mantle with apologies to no one. --Jerry McCulley

Recommended U2 Discography

War	The Joshua Tree	Achtung Baby
All That You Can't Leave Behind	The Best of 1990-2000	The Best of 1980-1990

About the Artist
U2 formed in their native Dublin in 1978 and remains intact with its four original band members: Bono, Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton and The Edge. The band has sold more than 120 million records worldwide in an extraordinary career that has firmly established them as one of the world's greatest rock `n' roll bands. Along the way, U2 has earned a phenomenal 14 Grammy Awards, seven of which were for their last studio album, 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind," including two consecutive awards for "Record of the Year." As popular for their legendary live shows as for their groundbreaking albums, U2 innovates and inspires while packing football stadiums and sweaty clubs around the world. What is next for the group that continues to reinvent themselves and push the boundaries of music?

Customer Reviews

I Don't Understand All The Poor Reviews
I am having a hard time understanding all of these one-star reviews. This is a solid album from a great band, and is by no means the kind of "muzak" that other reviewers have referred to it as. I don't understand why having a distinctive sound and choosing to write songs that show it somehow amounts to a tired rehashing of old ideas. I thought that part of being a good band was developing a distinctive sound. It's not their fault that countless other bands have borrowed chiming guitars and soaring vocals. This isn't a five star album, more like 4, but I rated it to try to offset the countless, and to my mind inexplicable, one star reviews. The most disappointing thing about this album is that so many people on this page have written it off, most often with no real reason whatsoever. Not the Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby, but definitely worth a listen and far superior to most of what is out there today.

A 'must have' album for casual to hard-core U2 fans
If you love early U2 AND later U2 you'll LOVE this album for the mix of both found in the music on this disc. I liked this album even better than ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND.

I also recommend the Collector's Edition of this album. Yes, I have both!

With a Hammer!!!
That's how Thor does it... I guess they've got another plan. Probably. Anyway, it involves Yahweh, some Jewish deity you may have heard of.. ;) Of course, the details of which bomb, where, and who precisely is mostly left off, which makes it not really live up to the hype. But still, we've got Vertigo, which except for a criminally irritating beginning is a quite good song. None of the other songs hit that mark, but they're still excellent rock songs.

I'm not one of those W fans who's gonna scream about how they sold out after the 80s... I actually hate that phase of their career. Unfortunately, the 90s are over, and now we're left with the band sort of looking around quizzically. So, nobody cares much about disco/tech anymore, let's make a rock record! It mostly succeeds in those areas, but there aren't a large number of dizzying heights, at least, not in the same way on earlier records. Of my favorite W (say it out loud) records, it goes Zooropa, Achtung, Pop and then this. But, maybe that'll change.