Around the time that “Vertigo” was achieving mainstream ubiquity in the mid-2000s, Bono had a profound disagreement with music journalist Greg Kot about the definition of rock’n’roll. To Kot—a professed fan of U2, particularly during their arch, visionary run in the ’90s—the group’s integrity was being compromised by their recent iPod commercials, back-to-basics songwriting, and stadium sets full of hits. Bono, on the other hand, believed their message could only achieve its highest goal when heard by as many people as possible. In Kot’s eyes, the band was stunting its artistic growth by becoming a familiar, corporate brand à la the Rolling Stones; for Bono, there were some good songs on Voodoo Lounge.
On Carnaval De Luz, U2’s first album of original material in nearly a decade, Bono considers the debate from another angle: “No such thing as rock’n’roll,” he sings. “We just needed it to be.” The 66-year-old singer makes this concession, partially, because he’s got bigger things on his mind lately. Never mind the creative rut his band has endured for the better part of this century, nor the concurrent PR debacles that have garnered more attention than the actual music. The animating incident of the band’s concise, colorful new album was a neck injury sustained by drummer Larry Mullen Jr., a late-career obstacle that put a question mark to the future of a four-person democracy that’d been operating intact since 1976. Forget all your big ideas about spreading your message—what happens when there’s no one to deliver it alongside you?
No score yet, be the first to add.
Embracing Mullen Jr.’s return to the band—and perhaps finally accepting that even spamming your record to 500 million phones at once does not guarantee a hit—U2 decamped to make new music with (relatively) lower stakes. Brian Eno stopped by to help. So did Jacknife Lee, the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb co-producer I associate with dry, tinny distortion that has never felt like the right fit for this band’s sonar depths (but hey, it could be worse). The sessions were reportedly bountiful, and early this year, they started teasing out the results with two surprise-released EPs. Despite some promising moments, February’s Days of Ash and April’s Easter Lily felt more exciting for what they represented: a band finding its groove, trading ideas, reconnecting with its core audience.
