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"I always thought passion was like a clenched fist. But when I relaxed, it flowed in a fuller way." -- Bono |
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"I always thought passion was like a clenched fist. But when I relaxed, it flowed in a fuller way." -- Bono |
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How The West Was Won (Part 3)
Uncut Magazine,
September 08, 2003
The afterlife of The Joshua Tree has been instructive. U2 spent most of the '90s trying to ditch their stone-faced pilgrim image. The skin-shedding began with the scrambled, ironic, twisted grooves of Achtung Baby, an album Bono described as "the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree." "Even I would have probably hated us then," Bono admitted to Rolling Stone in 1992. "What was scary to me was that people who were criticising us weren't really listening to the records. The records were not propagating any kind of 'men of stone' thing. The Joshua Tree is a very uncertain record. 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' is an anthem of doubt more than faith." Where late-'80s U2 immersed themselves in a mythic American past, early-'90s U2 hurtled towards a day-glo European future. Another audacious act of reinvention, but this time the naked artifice was celebrated, not disguised as "authenticity." "You could say they were the first postmodern rock band," says John Waters. "They knew all the moves. They created a past, then they created a future. But were they ever a real rock band? Or were they simply a kind of Monkees with integrity?" Either way, The Joshua Tree remains a high watermark for U2 disciples and dissenters alike, and still tops "greatest album ever" polls in the 21st century. And it can't be overlooked that, after their journey into techno-irony unravelled messily with 1997's Pop, U2 embraced the new millennium with a return to Biblical allegory and monochrome monumentalism on All That You Can't Leave Behind. Some critics called it a failure of nerve, a cynical bid to regain their virginity. But it became U2's biggest success yet. The prodigal sons return. "In the '90s people started getting scared about wearing their hearts on their sleeves," says Daniel Lanois. "But with All That You Can't Leave Behind I just think everybody finally matured enough to realise the main commodity of U2 is heart and soul." U2 took a huge bite out of rock history with The Joshua Tree. But, in the end, they got greedy. "Why can't we have it all?" Bono protested to Rolling Stone in 1989. "Why can't rock 'n' roll dance like Elvis Presley, sing like Van Morrison, walk like the Supremes, talk like John Lennon, roar like the Clash, drum like Keith Moon and play guitar like Jimi Hendrix? Why?" It was a fantastically ambitious dream. It made them superstars in America. But it couldn't and shouldn't have lasted. Disgusted once more by their own reflection, U2 set off in search of new dreams. They still hadn't found what they were looking for. © Uncut Magazine, 2003.
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