All That You Can't Leave Behind (CD - 2000)

ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "Walk On" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Record Of The Year. "Elevation" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal. "Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

Lyricist: Bono .

Personnel: The Edge (vocals, guitar, strings, piano, synthesizer, background vocals); Bono (vocals, guitar, synthesizer); Daniel Lanois (guitar, background vocals); Paul Barrett (brass); Brian Eno (synthesizer, programming, background vocals); Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums, percussion).

Audio Mixers: Jay Goin; Daniel Lanois; Julian Gallagher; Mike Hedges; Richard Rainey; Richard Stannard; Steve Fitzmaurice; Steve Lillywhite; Tim Palmer; Alvin Sweeney; Brian Eno.

Recording information: HQ; South Of France; Totally Wired, Dublin, Ireland; Westland Studios, Dublin, Ireland; Windmil Lane Recording Studios; Windmill Lane Recording Studios.

Photographer: Anton Corbijn.

Seldom has an album title been as appropriate as ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND. Here, U2 returns to its pre-irony '80s glory days with a straightforward rock approach, leaving behind the electronics and intentional mock-decadence of POP and ZOOROPA. It quickly becomes clear however, that the band had to make those albums in order to get to the ego-free state from which this one emerges. While Larry Mullen's driving beat, Adam Clayton's insistently throbbing bass, the Edge's chiming guitar, and Bono's soulful vocals mesh as in the days of yore, there's a less messianic feel to the proceedings that must have resulted from the group's ego-deflating '90s endeavors.

While POP and ZOOROPA were the sound of four guys having fun, on this album U2 manages to combine unpretentious joy with the open-hearted rock power of its early recordings. From the spiritual warmth of "Grace" to the soul leanings of "In a Little While," the band regains the organic quality that had been missing from its music of the previous decade. What sounds like an unusually hands-off approach on the part of producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois can only mean that they were smart enough not to fix what was clearly not broken. minimize