I've always had a pet theory running around my head regarding the secret to U2's long-term success. Then the band released "The Best of 1990-2000," and I knew I was right. I've nailed it. The secret of U2's success is are you ready? The trick is, the band has convinced fans and critics alike that it has changed far more than it has.
When U2 released "All That You Can't Leave Behind" in 2000, it was embraced as a return to form after the band spent a decade dismantling the myth proper of U2 as manifested in the 1980s. With the release of "Achtung Baby" in 1991, U2 became a different animal. Gone were the mullets and homespun, achingly sincere songwriting.
Bono invested in a few dozen pairs of fly shades, plugged Edge's guitar into a distorter, and the rest was history.
Three songs into "The Best of 1990-2000," I knew the "return to form" claim about "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was all a big misunderstanding.
Bono himself had tried to clear it up when promoting the Grammy-winning album, telling anyone who would hear that there were "no reverse gears on this tank." "All That You Can't Leave Behind" was no "Joshua Tree" rehash, not by a long shot.
"The Best of 1990-2000" begins with two "Achtung Baby" tracks, "Even Better Than The Real Thing" and "Mysterious Ways." Then, with the opening string synths of "Beautiful Day," I was struck by how appropriate it sounded there, right after the last chiming chorus of "It's all right, it's all right, all right" has faded away. It fits like the next puzzle piece.
The beautiful synchrony continues at least until "Discotheque," four-fifths of the way through the album. It's nothing short of astonishing. The compilation is composed of songs culled from five musically disparate albums that spawned three meticulously theorized world tours.
"Achtung Baby's" Zoo TV tour featured Bono as an identikit rock star suspended between dozens of television stations. "Pop's" PopMart flung Warholian Pop art into an unholy union with techno and trip-hop-influenced rock music. And "All That You Can't Leave Behind's" Elevation tour scaled back the spectacle and trotted out the heart-shaped catwalk.
A critic reviewing the soundtrack to Bono's film "The Million Dollar Hotel" said U2 had been recording soundtracks in the guise of albums for years. It's a dead-on appraisal. So it makes no sense that 16 songs from five different albums -- like scenes from different movies -- should follow one another with such ease.
Back to my theory.
Like Bono changing the way he walked across the stage for each tour, U2 dressed up the songs in different ways over the past 10 years. Slap on a little grime and call it "Until The End of the World." Make it sparkle like a cool rain on a bright day and call it "Electrical Storm." Yeah, the clothes have changed -- but the themes haven't.
Bono is still struggling with The Big Questions. He might whisper on "The First Time" (a lovely nugget of a song that merits its place on the compilation, despite its non-single status), but he may as well howl as he does on (U2's best car song) "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me." Bono wants to know how to have faith while living in a commercial world. He always has. That's all.
"The Best of 1990-2000" confirms, to my glee, that my suspicions about U2's consistency were right. The album also presents another discovery: that the members of U2 are their own harshest critics.
I'll say it. The band's great techno/rock experiment "Pop" gets no respect. For "The Best of 1990-2000," U2 remixed three of "Pop's" tracks in an interestingly physical exhibition of revisionist history. The best result is the new "Gone," replete with new vocals, where Bono repudiates the indie rock shoe-gazing mentality. "What you thought was freedom was just greed," he sings, with the clarity of certainty, before calling, "I'll be up with the sun / I'm not coming down."
"Discotheque" and "Staring At The Sun" are not so lucky. I never thought I'd say it, because I never liked the song anyway, but for "Discotheque," I'm missing the climactic boom-chas. And "Staring At The Sun" doesn't sound strikingly different from the original.
"The Best of 1990-2000" goes beyond your typical greatest hits package because it doesn't come from your typical band.
It's not exactly a must-have item, despite the new mixes and two new songs (one of which is the muddled "The Hands That Built America" written for "Gangs of New York." Note to Bono: Leave the character pieces to Springsteen).
For a band like U2, there's no replacement for hearing a whole album that's as complete an idea as "Achtung Baby" or "Zooropa."
Still, the idea of "The Best of 1990-2000" makes me eager for the next decade's worth of soul-searching U2 songs, in whatever cloaks they may appear.
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