Editor’s note: Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about items in the Parsons Music Library‘s collection. All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.
Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by Music Library student worker, Cole (class of 2021) and features U2’s album All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Thanks, Cole!
All That You Can’t Leave Behind
U2’s 10th studio album All That You Can’t Leave Behind was released on October 30th, 2000. It is their fourth-highest selling album, with over 12 million copies sold.
“Let’s be frank.” I feel like any discussion regarding U2 in 2018 has to, for whatever reason, be prefaced by those three words. The fabled Irish rock band present a somewhat curious case in the canon of The Great Rock And Roll acts; few bands achieved such a breadth of critical and commercial success without famously disbanding (see: The Beatles, The Smiths, and, to a lesser extent, Pink Floyd.) or cycling through members to the point of near-unrecognition (The Rolling Stones). No, U2 are still here, still plucking away through a slew of pedal effects. From Boy (1980) to Songs of Experience (2017), co-founders Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. have experienced everything that a modern musical career could promise. Eight number one albums in the United States. 22 Grammy awards (more than any other group). A PR misstep that has forever associated their name with “how do I get this off of my iPhone?” Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Multiple collaborations with Kendrick Lamar that can at best be described as “uncomfortable.” The Dublin boys have done it all.
So, let’s be frank: the U2 of today is not the U2 of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, just as that U2 isn’t the U2 of Achtung Baby, just as that U2… etc., etc., ad nauseam. Nor should they be. A discography spanning such a great length ought to be varied, especially if the band in question is as experimental and flippant with their sound as U2. For this reason, I chose to write about their tenth studio album.
All That You Can’t Leave Behind constitutes the best of U2’s ever-changing sound. After a mixed reception to their industrial and electronic dance-inspired efforts of the ‘90s (Zooropa and Pop), the group set out to record a ‘return to form.’ Melding the electronic drums of the group’s Pop-era sound with the Edge’s signature effect-driven guitar playing, more reminiscent of The Joshua Tree than ever, the lead single “Beautiful Day” proved an instant success, charting at #1 in the U.K, the Netherlands, and Australia, and #21 in the U.S. In keeping with their tradition of social conscience, the fourth and final single, “Walk On” was inspired by and dedicated to Burmese democratic activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who was at the time placed under house arrest. “Walk On” is widely regarded as U2’s greatest ode to hope, due to both the instrumentation, centered on one of the Edge’s most gratifying riffs, and the heartening lyrics:
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on…
Stay safe tonight
“Walk On” was attributed even greater significance after the September 11th attacks, as it was performed on the September 21st television benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. Subsequently, the single was interpreted as a message of hope to a nation grappling with the world changing before them. The song won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2002, contributing to the total seven Grammys awarded to the album. Interestingly, “Beautiful Day” had previously won Record of the Year in 2001, making All That You Can’t Leave Behind the only album to receive two Record of the Year awards consecutively.
All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the album that forced U2 into the very core of my musical tastes. I fully accept that The Joshua Tree is the band’s best output (and indeed, one of the greatest rock records ever), but there’s an elusive quality to this one that demands it be at the forefront in my mind. Maybe it’s just because it happened to be one of the three U2 albums forever interred in the CD player of my dad’s Oldsmobile. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the 50 minute nostalgia injection it provides. Or maybe it’s because not a great many albums are so blatantly and unabashedly a product of the moment they were created in. From the millennium-era instrumentation and lyrical inspiration, to the life the songs took post-release, All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the musical embodiment of how Bono & co. saw the world in 2000. Even for the majority of people who didn’t grow up hearing snippets of this album every time that got in their family’s car, I think we can all appreciate the power of an album that can transport us, if only for a short while, to its moment.
