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Mon, 9 Nov 1998 11:09:36 EST
Read the review! Oh my god! Wait ... let me just show you all!
<<The Best Of 1980-1990
U2
Reviewed by Don Waller
This is product, so let's run the numbers. Nineteen years and nine platinum-
plus albums after U2 released their first UK single comes this, their first
greatest-hits package. And coming in the wake of that last tour, you could say
that all the profits from this 2-CD set will be going directly to the group's
new favorite charity, Lemon Aid.
Now, let's be fair. The package is Solomonically split between what the pre-CD
world used to call the A-sides of 14 singles (the first disc) and 15 tracks
that began their sonic shelf lives as B-sides (the second). "Spanish Eyes"
appears twice, owing to the original B-side version having been remixed rather
significantly into a later A-side.
Designed neither for completists nor in any chronological order, the two-hour
set nevertheless flows from one majestic soundscape into another and the hit-
oriented first disc is nothing less than 11/14ths excellent: "I Will Follow,"
"Pride (In The Name Of Love)," "Desire," "With Or Without You," and all the
rest. You know 'em, you love (or hate) 'em. What else is there to say?
The second disc is about half that consistent, but the highlights (the bluesy
"Silver And Gold," the dub-inflected "Love Comes Tumbling," and the razor-
sharp hooks of "Sweetest Thing" and the aforementioned "Spanish Eyes") are
brilliant. The three covers (Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot," soul singer
Robert Knight's "Everlasting Love," the oft-recorded "Unchained Melody") and
just about everything else on this disc stretch from wooly rockers to wiggy
signposts on the way to the techno-rock fusion that would earmark the group's
future. But that's another piece of product entirely. >>
Okay ... This dork has no clue! First off sweetie ... its Sweetest Thing ...
Not Spanish Eyes. Did you even read the track list? Oh ... I suppose that
they all sound the same to you, the unknowing!
"wooly rockers" "wiggy signposts" What the hell kind of phrases are those
to describe anything other than this "genius's" lack of job knowledge!
disgusted! thoroughly!
Shannon Carey-Thorpe
(yeah ... Sparky still rocks)
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