That album was them forgetting what they had learned, not applying it. Namely, exploring the creation of songs in the studio, which is part of what made their recordings so unique and magical. If you’re primarily interested in succinctly-crafted pop songs, then I guess you could call it great but that’s not what made U2 great. And ultimately, the results sound anemic because the tracks don’t breathe, and most only came alive on stage (IALW being a notable exception due to Bono’s lively drunk/hungover vocal).
As for me, I got into the band somewhere after Rattle & Hum. I had listened to TUF and JT at the insistence of a friend but couldn’t get into either outside a few songs. I also remember another friend playing God Part II on vinyl and being like “how cool does this sound??” We had a cassette of War at our high school TV station where I spent a lot of time and I thought it was pretty good. So I had a little taste of multiple styles all around the same time, and then at some point I watched the Rattle & Hum film with my friend who was a fan and I really enjoyed it, mainly because of the power of the performances but also the band’s humor. I worked at a video store at the time and got free rentals so we wound up watching it a lot. I slowly got into the back catalogue in the year leading up to Achtung Baby, and I was primed to like the new sound because I wasn’t beholden to the old ones, and anyway I had listened to a lot of industrial/dance stuff like Ministry and Nine Inch Nails before so it wasn’t outside my palette. I was still shocked at the transformation when the video for The Fly premiered but in a giddy way. I latched onto the new direction immediately and really never let up in my enthusiasm for the rest of the 90s.
In all honestly I was rolling my eyes when I heard Beautiful Day and just disappointed overall that they had run out of courage and ideas. The songs weren’t bad to me, just not very interesting. And so the last 20 years has just been learning to live with knowing that I’d be settling for occasional nuggets in a sea of mostly pleasurable compromise.
