(Credits: Far Out / Phillip Lebowitz)
Mon 11 August 2025 6:00, UK
Few bands can talk about themselves the way that U2 can, which kind of makes sense.
When you’ve got an ego like Bono up front, then if he’s going to do anything, it’s know exactly what to say to make their next album sound like a world beater. It’s one of the more underrated aspects of being a great frontman, not only do you have to be a great songwriter and a captivating performer, you also have to… y’know, front. Talk a load of bollocks about how fantastic you are and make it sound legit.
Which has always been Bono’s secret weapon. If you don’t just dismiss his talk out of hand as the ramblings of an egomaniac who still swears blind that his wrap-around shades are there for medical reasons (seriously), then there are few people with a more effective gift of the gab. I mean, with one errant aside to the audience of Dublin’s Point Depot he made a quote like “go away and dream it all up again” one of the most iconic quotes among the U2 fandom.
The man’s talent for quotes added a whole new concept to the upper echelon of rock stardom. Few people talked about being the best or biggest band in the world for decades. That is, until the centrepiece for the promotion of 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind became Bono saying that with the album, U2 were “reapplying for the job of best band in the world”.
Is it snake oil salesmanship? Sure, to an extent. I mean, it’s pop music. There’s no real use to it, so any way you sell it is inherently lying if you want to be cynical about it.
U2, however, have been the enemy of cynicism for their entire career. Their whole thing is pushing sincerity as far as it will go, then pushing it a little bit further for good measure. Whether it’s presented with furrowed brows and white flags or whether Bono’s dressed as a yassified Lucifer or the band are stepping out from a giant mechanical lemon, there is still something the band means from the bottom of their heart buried close to the surface.
If you allow yourself to get swept up in it, it’s some compelling stuff. Even when what you’re getting swept up in is patently false.
What U2 album did Bono compare to their greatest moment?
The good news for the band was that all their patter about “reapplying for the job of best band in the world” with All That You Can’t Leave Behind was successful. The world took a look at their CV, compared it to other candidates, found that those other candidates were Nickelback, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park and thought, sure, job’s yours. Bono and the band were back on top after 1997’s dance-inflected misfire. Pop seriously shook their confidence. The problem, as U2 have consistently shown, though, isn’t getting to the top of Mount Rock; it’s staying there.
…Leave Behind was a huge success, which just put even more pressure on them to actually follow it up. In the press notes for the band’s follow-up album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, Bono talked up the record by comparing it to the record that is undoubtedly their biggest and most beloved. “I don’t remember the band being in such good form since perhaps The Joshua Tree,” he said. Powerful words to be sure, but words that, in true Bono fashion, he doubled down on.
Adding, “I remember when we finished The Joshua Tree, we thought it wasn’t great, but we knew it was special, we just weren’t sure if it was great. But we were in this mood we’re in now… we still know we’ve made a great record and we’re feeling very good about each other.” He directly compares …Atomic Bomb to The Joshua Tree, saying that they didn’t know they’d made a great record back then, but they do now.
Ironically enough, for all the band’s success, …Leave Behind into …Atomic Bomb might just be the only time in their career that they’ve followed up a world-beater of a record with a record that matched its success. Neither of them is as special as their biggest moments, but in terms of keeping U2 as “the best band in the world”, there may not be a run of two records in their career that did just that. Perhaps you can count on Bono for more than just front and ridiculous sunglasses after all!
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