The nineties, says Edge, was about taking 'the idea of a rock 'n' roll band,abstracting it as far as you possibly could - and then reconstructing itagain.'
'U2 was as big as any other rock band in the world as the '80s turned intothe '90s, writes Gary Graff of United Press International. 'Rolling Stonemagazine had even dubbed it "The Band of the Decade."
"U2: The Best of 1990-2000," which hits stores Nov. 5, chronicles whathappened during the next 10 years - much of which came as a surprise to theIrish band's fans.
"It's really the story of us taking the idea of a rock 'n' roll band andabstracting it as far as you possibly could - and then reconstructing itagain," explains U2 guitarist The Edge by telephone from Dublin.
"I think that's really, in a nutshell, what we did during that period. Atevery turn, it was an attempt to find inspiring places to go as songwritersand artists."
That was no modest endeavor. Founded during the late '70s in Dublin by TheEdge and his band mates - front man Bono, bassist Adam Clayton and drummerLarry Mullen, Jr. - U2 took inspiration from punk rock and channeled it intoan anthemic, inventive and direct approach that drove lyrics of conscienceborne from the band's strong Christian devotion.
The group dubbed its sound "three chords and the truth," and it clicked. By1987's "The Joshua Tree" U2 was on the cover of Time magazine and on top ofthe charts both with albums and hits such as "Pride (In the Name of Love),""With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."
"I think we all had a strong sense that we wanted to communicate, that wewanted to connect with our audience," The Edge says.
But by the time U2 rolled out "Rattle and Hum," its 1988 documentary filmedduring the tour to support "The Joshua Tree" album, the group was ready toclose the door on an era and hungered for something new. And different.
"We began to loathe who we were," Bono acknowledges. "We had a lot of kindof moral baggage that we were carrying and that people handed to us; Icertainly felt like I couldn't live up to the songs, and that I didn't haveto.
"Somebody described 'Achtung Baby' as the sound of four men chopping down'The Joshua Tree.' I thought that was true."
Over its three '90s albums - "Achtung Baby," "Zooropa" and "Pop" - and acollaboration with Brian Eno called "Original Soundtrack I," U2 pursued amore avant-garde rock path, experimenting with industrial and electronicapproaches and lacing humor and irony into its earnest lyricism. The oncebare-bone stage shows became prop-laden spectacles, and Bono began to adopta series of characters.
There were still strong record sales and hit singles. But there was alsosome confusion about what U2 was up to.
"We turned on ourself, in a way," Bono explains, "having fun with some ofthe ideas of ego that we were playing with. And we managed to give ourselvesa bit of freedom, a bit of room to breath."
That process ultimately yielded 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind," amulti-platinum, multi-Grammy winning triumph that was hailed as a return toform even though U2 continued to incorporate some of what it had embracedduring the '90s and found some new sonic terrain of its own to explore.
"It was very inspiring to kind of strip it back," The Edge says, "and gointo the rehearsal room and discover it was still inspiring to work togetherin a very simple way, where the chemistry of the musicians playing togetherwas really the glue, and the idea behind the sessions and the songs came outof simply playing together."
The 16-track "The Best of U2 1990-2000" chronicles the entire period, whilea DVD of videos from that time is due out on Dec. 3. CBS, meanwhile, isplanning a late-November broadcast of a U2 concert held during the summer of2001 at Ireland's Slane Castle.
The project also hearkens to the future with two new tracks - "ElectricalStorm," a lushly impressionistic piece co-produced by British electronicpioneer William Orbit, and "The Hands That Built America," which wascommissioned by film director Martin Scorsese for his forthcoming epic "TheGangs of New York."
With those tracks in hand, meanwhile, U2 is eyeballing its next studioalbum. Bono continues to travel the globe as part of his continuing campaignfor Third World debt relief, but he and the rest of the group are working onideas - individually for the time being, though The Edge guesses it won't belong before work on it begins in earnest.
"We'll regroup probably at the end of the year and start trying some thingsout," he says. "Right now my instinct is to make a very raw kind ofguitar-bass-drums, an album with a lot of attitude and a lot of that kind oflife force, the vitality I association with guitar bands in full flight.
"That's the way I'm approaching the music initially. But as often happenswith U2 albums, you start out with one intention and at a certain point youstart to get carried by the music itself, and it can take you somewherecompletely different."
