U2 – Songs of Experience Review

Bono and friends dropped the ball as they made their first step into the twenty-first century. It was bad enough that they essentially Trojan-horsed their way onto every Apple device in the world, but that album is, in comparison to Songs of Experience, a heavenly experience. At least Songs of Innocence had the wow factor of being bundled in with new tech. U2 has tried and failed to build a sub-brand through this “Songs of…” trilogy, but it was dead on arrival. Trying to coax a corpse into running a triathlon is hardly a suitable course of action, and yet Bono and the band persist with Songs of Experience, an awkward middle-child for the iPod problem and a covers of the self album that was presumably as painful to make as it is to listen to. U2 has had teething issues this century, no doubt about it, but they’re salvaging what they can. Hardly any of Songs of Experience is worth listening to, but it’s there. 

An hour of hand-wringing nonsense from U2 is better than the two-and-a-half hours of hand-wringing that featured on the follow-up album. Grains of salt and all. The trouble for Songs of Experience is there are moments of real joy to be had, fundamentals that the band had already started to lose sight of, yet are guided somewhat by muscle memory here. Love is All We Have Left starts strong with some charmed, slower tempo stylings. It all falls apart when Bono gets his hands on a loud mouth voice changer and sounds as though he’s been trapped in a microwave big enough for him and his do-gooding. Consider the political intensity of their earliest records, the pop power of the 1990s, and then think of what followed. Bono, for all the flak he gets for seeing himself as this figure of change without reacting or enacting on anything, is at his best when writing such a screed. A song like Lights of Home is a waste of his abilities. He has maintained a strong voice all these years, though has never used it in that righteous manner he wants to find.  

Songs of Experience is a paint-by-numbers rock album. The Edge is on autopilot here, clanging away on songs like You’re the Best Thing About Me. It means a draft of guest artists, namely Kendrick Lamar of all people, is drafted into place to give the band a contemporary boost. It works, but the result is a confused experience with Get Out of Your Own Way before U2 head down The Rolling Stones’ cosplaying as Americans route with American Soul and Summer of Love. Superfluous experiences with a band whose best asset used to be their writing. Part of the problem for Songs of Experience is that, yes, they are from the archive of Bono and friends’ experiences, but they’re just so dull. Red Flag Day is stock rock, trivialities of intimacy, bodies on bodies, and a hook to get people moving to this notion of truth. The Showman (Little More Better) and The Little Things That Give You Away feel like caricatures of the old U2.  

Reductive, interchangeable experiences. At least that much is consistent. Songs of Experience banks on being a traipse through what the band has experienced together, separately, or otherwise. But it never feels all that convincing, all that moving. A real dull occasion, though occasionally there’s an instrumental switch-up that’s worth hearing. The Blackout is as interesting as Songs of Experience gets and it still relies on the pop fundamentals which Bono and the band are, still, yet to break from. They’re sounding as though they’re burnt out here, pedalling problems and solutions which are hardly their greatest pieces of material. What the problem here is that Bono expects himself to be at hand, readily available to those who need a lifeline or sure-fire advice. He cannot offer that here, and it sinks Songs of Experience completely.