U2 / How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

What are the other songs like?

ermmmmmmmm, sorrrrrrrrt of. i can hear what you're saying.

wonder if we'll see a reissue of the Compulsion back catalogue then .. or even a reunion ?

their last lp Medium is the Future was indeed a fucking excellent album .. all the freaky synth noises etc set to fantastic songs ..

Vertigo, for some reason reminds me of Dirty Boots.

Having finished Bono's memoir I go back to this CD. I'm a bit disappointed. It feels thinner than I hoped. Like ... "2000s rock-pop that might appeal to Steve Jobs", rather than the magical band I first loved.

"All Because of You", "Crumbs From Your Table", "Original Species" are all relatively low points.

I do have some affection for "Miracle Drug", tucked quietly between two 45s - and I was always quite impressed by "City of Blinding Lights". But I think the great underrated track here remains "A Man & A Woman". Melody, structure, voice, delivery, guitar, texture, words, it's all here - for once, in this era.

I was very underwhelmed with this album when it came out, but "City of Blinding Lights" is a keeper.

There's a lot of keepers on this, but despite everything it isn't that different from ATYCLB. They went on the attack, matching their New Rock-adjacent sound with the red/white/black album art and atomic bomb/target roundel icons, but they still gave it an unwieldy title rather than a quick snappy one - 'Vertigo' would have worked.

When this was first released I wasn't really enthusiastic about it, I mean their sound has always appealed and therefore I liked it but it felt flat. However I kinda found the vinyl reissue from several years back to be a bit revelatory, I don't know what they did but it sounds punchier and the songs sound more confident. If you happen to own a record player, I recommend picking it up. After hearing it anew i feel it's an album that hangs together much better than anything since, though it doesn't have the highs of NLOTH and does unfortunately have Yahweh, which is probably the least of Bono's religion songs.

Good, well-informed posts - thanks.

I agree w/your take on 'a man and a woman', kind of an unwieldy title but a really strong cut.

I was very underwhelmed with this album when it came out, but "City of Blinding Lights" is a keeper.

Same here. Still don't like the album, but when I saw them for the only time on the No Line on the Horizon tour, that track was a highlight, partly because "the spaceship" (or what was more commonly referred to as "the claw") opened up into a mothership out of a Spielberg movie and started spinning around, shining its lights across the stadium the entire time. A great spectacle even if the rest of the show was pretty uneven.

Just played 'Yahweh' again and I like a) the first few seconds before the verse starts and it feels like it will be more musically exciting than it is, b) when Bono dramatically sings, twice, 'this love is like a drop in the ocean' at the end of the bridge - the drama I think being in how he's belittling his own love (which with the minor chord music at that moment sounds ominous) rather than aggrandising it.

xp (I double checked and actually the structure itself didn't spin. Rather they created an illusion of spinning via the honeycomb of screens that covered the surface of the structure.)

"City of Blinding Lights," like "Happy" and "Can't Stop the Feeling!," became a staple of administrative gatherings + corporate nonsense that I couldn't hear it for the decent anthem it was for years. I prefer this album to ATYCLB: it's the Emotional Rescue without the title track, depending on what you think of "Vertigo."

Egregiously clunky album title