Songs of Experience – U2 ★★

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2017	Songs of Experience	U2	★★	48	Rock	Pop Rock

As a diehard U2 fan, I am always going to listen to any album the band releases, and I’m always going to be able to find a handful of songs that I really like and appreciate on each of their records, and ultimately I’m probably going to overrate them a little bit, no matter how old the band is or how washed they may sound. Songs of Experience is no exception. 

It’s easy to point out the weaker songs on the record, and most are on the first half of the album. “You’re the Best Thing About Me” and “Get Out of Your Own Way” are pretty lazy singles that use the anthemic sound effects that post 2000s U2 tracks like “Beautiful Day” have often utilized, but feel like cheap, adult-contemporary knockoffs that have been made just for the hope of radio play. “American Soul,” which is a reprise of U2’s feature on Kendrick Lamar’s “XXX,” is one of the band’s least effective “hard rock” tracks, and is the band’s fourth attempt to use this lame, heavy handed, repetitive riff they used on “Stingray Guitar,” as well as “Volcano” and “Lucifer’s Hand” on the record prior (Why you would recycle material from the worst song on the band’s worst record, I’m not sure). “The Showman” and “Landlady” are both pretty cringy lyrically, although the latter does have an alright feel to it and some more captivating pop rock sound effects. 

“Summer of Love” and “Red Flag Day” are both fine rock tracks, although The Edge throughout this record (and the prior) isn’t really doing anything we haven’t heard him do 100 times before. At some point over the past decade, he seems to have lost the ability to come up with a guitar solo that wasn’t the exact same, short phrase repeated four times in a row, which limits a lot of the potential of some of the songs’ builds.  

I do really appreciate the softer moments on this album though, which oftentimes offer a modern take on the classic U2 formula of atmospheric, spacy keyboards and intimate vocals, like they would have done on “For The First Time” or “Running To Stand Still.” The opening and closing tracks on the record do this well and give you these more emotional performances to bookend the record. “The Little Things That Give You Away” starts in a similar fashion, but as the song grows and you add in the bass and guitar and drums it ends up exploding into a “City of Blinding Lights” style anthem (in a good way), with Bono and The Edge having their more showy moments like the big songs of the old days.  

My favorite track on the record is actually “Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way.” I know, it’s got some corny, basic lyrics and Bono uses some auto tuned vocals that feel like the band is trying too hard to sound hip and young, but I can’t help singing the verses. I think there’s a lot of warmth and joy in the song that I appreciate. Even with the production of the track lining up pretty well with the rest of the record, the pacing of the song with these slow, pulsing piano notes and vibrant synths feel different, closer to an “Origin of the Species” or “Yahweh” kind of song from How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. 

I also like some of the connective elements and themes on this record that go back to their previous record Songs of Innocence — the wave and tidal themes on “Every Breaking Wave” and “Red Flag Day,” the reprise of the “Free yourself to be yourself” lyrics from “Iris” on “Lights of Home,” and the conclusion of “Song for Someone” on “13.” With both records’ titles playing off each other, it’s no surprise that they’re meant to be paired with one another and would look at similar themes from different points of view. But it is odd that it took over three years for part two to be released, and the differences in production are pretty dramatic, even if thematically the lyrics and some of the melodies return. It makes me wonder if combining the two projects formally in one session to create one 13-15 song record with the best parts of each would have actually produced something that was actually meaningful and enjoyable from start to finish.

Reading this review though, it’s probably pretty easy to see the record’s main problem — there isn’t much here that sounds new or groundbreaking. A lot of the songs feel more like they’re trying to recreate some of the bigger moments of their past, instead of paving a new way forward. After the band flopped trying something new on Songs of Innocence — bringing in Danger Mouse to produce an album that felt flat and sometimes more synthetic than live — I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that they’d move back towards the safety of the familiar. But for a band that was so innovative and willing to try new things for the first 30 years of their run, it’s disappointing to listen to retreads, even if they do hit you with a sense of nostalgia when done right. 

I actually think the two main bonus tracks on the record show a little bit of what the band could have accomplished here. “Lights of Home” (St. Peter’s String Version)” — an alternative mix of the album’s second track — is far superior than the album cut, which sounds like Beck’s “Loser” riff slowed down over lazy drums. The artful, frantic strings and well placed piano chords give the song so much more life, and blend well with the backing vocals and guitar parts that are left out to dry on the original version. “Book of Your Heart” has a dark, repeated keyboard loop and some more intense drumming that stands out on the album creatively and emotionally. It shows that the band might still have something left in the tank that could have elevated them above your average, end of the road novelty act.