Which part?

I’ll try My band needs a drummer and a bassist and we’re 13

myklrl bollocks, their still huge , still the biggest band ever

Wrong: it was until 97

myklrl and Omar are both wrong. Pop is hugely underrated, shame you don’t get it 22 years later.... try again

***** how pathetically shallow and a complete waste for certain bands even to perform when most of the crowd is dumb as shovels and there 'just to party' - zero band appreciation and understanding at all - it might as well be howdy doody up there - all these turds called people care about is 'partying' etc - the shit they call music today and for decades is pathetic

Wonder Man I couldn't agree more.

No mystery about Steely Dan. Just THE BEST musicianship,Production and songwriting.

I have not met anyone who dislikes ATYCLB

Exactly

And was calling u2 a folk band with electric guitars.

Fair enough, and Nirvana was sublime, but few things were more colorful and exciting than Zoo TV in the nineties. Judging from more recent offerings, it seems U2 blew all their creativity on it.

@@trr9230 yeah, sure. They got their $300 million deal in '98 when Polygram took over Island...but no more fkn' around , the big labels want HITS, not artsy bullsh%$

You conveyed both your insecurity and envy in just 3 words. That’s quite impressive

@@BudFuddlacker It was a joke made 3 years ago. Chill. B looks great then and now.

+voutespancar I agree that it generally got a lot safer, though it depends on how deep you go with the music. what matters more than how safe the music is how good it is. mind you, I think a lot of credit should be given for a very interesting failed attempt at a song or a sound, Perhaps more than I might want to give credit for a very well done safe song. Some of them are deceptively safe. Song For Someone is a sweet little ballad that actually happens to deal with a first sexual encounter in honest and vulnerable terms. A Man And A Woman isn't sonically as interesting as their peak (1991-1993, in my opinion) though it is a fine piece of songwriting. Beautiful Day is deceptively easy songwriting. U2 were challenging themselves to write in class song construction terms. The Zoo era was epic though, no doubt about it. I adored a lot of the Passengers material as well. Miss Sarajevo, I believe, showed the way forward in terms of Bono's songwriting. One, Stay, Miss Sarajevo are his trifecta for the nineties. In a way, Zoo TV was so monumental that I felt a few years away from the road might have been more interesting. By that, I mean skip the Pop/Popmart period (not the songs, just skip the whole booking the tour before the album is finished and staggeringly costly and often incoherent tour theme) and focus on writing, writing, writing. A tour is hard work for these guys but in a way it's the easiest thing in that it isn't the hard work of songwriting. I always wanted them to have their Abbey Road/studio years period. In an alternate universe somewhere, that is exactly what U2 did. Then they capped off the decade with a massive world/record smashing tour to save the universe with several albums of new material to play...

+voutespancar oh, and I think laying low concerts-wise could have been a way to have a rest, write, record, release material, and take on a bit of mystery and excitement by going into guerrilla rock band mode. Just show up in places with only a few day's notice. Perhaps just show up in other places. No promoter. Just drop in places randomly when it feels good.

No way, safer was All that You Can't leave behind. Miami is the most radical song that they've ever made.

CEIVE4EVER It was safer, no doubt. This doesn't detract from its quality though. As for Miami, it's very, very different for them. What a crazy period of the band. I sometimes wonder what Pop would've been like had it been blended the vibes of Passengers. If the whole vibe had been focused on the feeling U2 got from being in Tokyo and Shinjuku, as featured in this clip. Noisy, claustrophobic, atmospheric, blissful, dirty, funny, heavy...I think a double album would've been a beautiful idea, actually.

Jason Lefler It wasn't safer no doubt. They were working with dance music and with machines in Zooropa they were working with atmospheres (Eno's world i.e. synthesisers) and with Pop they were trying to do new things. The Achtung Baby-Zooropa era was finished with The Passengers. I prefer Zooropa (in fact is my second favourite album) but Pop was the most different thing that they have made in their whole career