When Punk exploded in 1977, the dam burst so hard it left a crater. It didn’t take very long for the maelstrom of no-frills sonic intensity to suck up other elements. Post-punk emerged almost immediately, deconstructing punk into unrecognizable shapes. Post-punk in turn splintered into its own series of subgenres—most notably, new wave and gothic rock.
Genre taxonomy is an inexact science, and no one is totally sure who laid goth rock’s first brick. But Bauhaus is a darn good guess.
If it accomplished nothing else, God, Get Me the F*** Out of Here proved that shoegaze and hip hop aren’t entirely without overlap. Cold Gawd plugged their reverb pedals into their fuzz boxes and played with the spirit of hip hop. Only two years later, the SoCal outfit is back with a record that turns that concept up to eleven.
But I’ll Drown on This Earth borrows more than just aesthetic and mood. The vocals are often run through the same sort of autotune as Rihanna or T-Pain. Grooves are beefier and boomier. The skits are even more pronounced. And all this while also becoming more experimental and ambient.
As long as I’ve been a fan, Victorialand has been my favorite Cocteau Twins record. It’s an odd moment in their discography to be sure: it was the only record created solely by founders Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie, and it is devoid of any sort of percussion. Instead of their ubiquitous drum machines, they lean more fully into atmospheric washes and endless stretches of echo. My only complaint with it is that it’s only thirty-three minutes long, and that I need more of that version of the band.
There’s some good news there. Because even though Victorialand is the only outright ambient entry in their main catalogue, it does have a fine companion. Later that year, the members of Cocteau Twins—credited by name on the jacket—joined with minimalist composer Harold Budd to create The Moon & The Melodies. And while the name “Cocteau Twins” never actually appears anywhere on the packaging, it’s still very much in the Twins’ wheelhouse.
Alright, let’s get the hot take out of the way right out of the gate. This is my favorite U2 record of the ’00s.
It certainly came as a surprise to me. As I was shotgunning their discography in order, the transcendent bliss of their ’90s work came crashing down when I got to All That You Can’t Leave Behind. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb didn’t do much to change my mind (note: I’ve largely come around on both now). I put on No Line on the Horizon, gritting my teeth to see why the reviews I had read were so unkind.
So imagine my surprise when I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
After the success of 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, something funny happened. Namely, the Rock Revival, led by bands like The Strokes, Interpol, The Killers, and other students of the early 80s post-punk scene.
U2, themselves members of that original class, looked at the rise of these acts, then back at themselves, and sorta said, “didn’t we used to do that?” They then called up Steve Lillywhite, who produced their first three records, and set off to work on what Bono called “our first rock record,” a statement that’s probably rooted more in self-deprecation than accuracy.
In either case, it worked. It was an immediate commercial success, beloved by critics, and netted the group eight Grammys, as well as a few indelible hits. That said, it’s bogged down by some of the same self-consciousness of its predecessor, even if it is a bit more consistent.
“We are re-applying for the job of the best band in the world.”
Thus spake Bono at numerous occasions on the press tour that accompanied All That You Can’t Leave Behind. And I’m not sure it’s possible to find a more succinct description on this record.
Despite whatever artistic merit Pop had (read: heaps), it didn’t translate to commercial success. Dissatisfied with their slow fade from the pop charts, they set aside the fascination with electronica and dance music that carried them through the ’90s and returned to what brought them the most success.
But while their job application might display some compelling aptitude for the position, it falls short of living up to their monolithic legacy.
After Achtung Baby and Zooropa demolished my prejudices against them, I cast a suspicious glance further down the catalog and said, “I better flippin’ hate Pop.”
Where I had only heard Zooropa used as a punchline, Pop had an even less flattering reputation. Over the years, it has often come up as an example of respected band dropping a real stinker. The band’s own opinions on the record haven’t helped rebut that reputation, and being the last record before All That You Can’t Leave Behind’s alleged return to form, Pop became the scapegoat for U2’s ill-advised detour into dance music. Outside of its accompanying tour, the group has rarely played any of these songs live.
But somehow, despite its reputation among both fans and the band themselves, this is the last great record they made.
After having my perception of U2’s career shattered by the absolute bombshell that is Achtung Baby, I cast a suspicious glance at Zooropa. The only person I had ever heard speak positively about it said it was the only U2 album they liked, because it sounded nothing like U2. Other than that, it was used as a shorthand for how far the Irish post-punkers-turned-arena-heroes had gone off the rails. And coming online to U2’s existence around the time of All That You Can’t Leave Behind, even the band seemed to treat this record (and their 90s period in general) as an embarrassing and misguided detour.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found out it actually rules pretty hard.
I have always freely admitted that I have some glaring blind spots in my musical knowledge. And some of them are embarrassing. It’s not unusual for me to miss important artists in scenes that I follow closely—sometimes that have even toured with my favorite bands (see: Manchester Orchestra, Touché Amoré).
But what is unusual is ignoring what many regard as the best album from one of my favorite bands.
I had somehow gotten the impression that Achtung Baby was where U2 had jumped the shark. Per the joke I would repeat loudly and often, U2 fell off halfway through The Joshua Tree and never recovered. Somehow, it took until last month for someone to challenge that assertion.
And while Achtung Baby was indeed a massive shift for the band, it wasn’t downward. The group ripped up most of their playbook and radically reinvented themselves, kicking off perhaps their most forward-thinking decade of work.
There are fixed points in music history. Records that are so singular that they transcend reality and become the thing of myth. For U2, that mythology is The Joshua Tree. While people can debate what their best record is all day, The Joshua Tree is certainly the U2-iest.
All of their tendencies are indulged to satiety. All of their sonic experimentation, spirituality, sociopolitical consciousness, rock and roll historicity, American fetishism, and grand ambitions are at play, without much restraint. It’s not a perfect record—a couple moments just don’t land just right.
But my word, when they do land…