U2's first two greatest-hits albums neatly divided themselves by decade, with the first covering the '80s and the second summing up the '90s. Their third hits comp, 2006's
U218 Singles, is at once more ambitious and more concise, offering an overview of their first 26 years on a single disc comprised of 18 tracks -- and since two of those are new songs, that leaves just 16 songs to tell their whole story. That's not much space for a band with a career as lengthy and ambitious as
U2, so it's inevitable that some painful cuts have been made. Nothing from
October,
Zooropa or
Pop is here, and unless you're buying various import editions that have "I Will Follow" as a bonus track, there's nothing from
Boy, either. There's only one cut each from
The Unforgettable Fire and
Rattle and Hum -- and bucking conventional wisdom, none of their three widely accepted masterpieces --
War,
The Joshua Tree, or
Achtung Baby -- provide the most songs here. No, out of all their albums the one that dominates
U218 Singles is
All That You Can't Leave Behind, their 2000 comeback from the depths of the misguided
Pop, and one of two records that they've released since their last hits compilation,
The Best of 1990-2000.
The other record they've released since then is
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which provides two songs here -- or, as many as there are from
War and
Achtung Baby. What this means is that this compilation skews very heavily toward latter-day
U2 -- eight out of 18 tracks, a full 44 percent of the collection, are from 2000 on, which means that
U218 Singles presents the classicist version of the band, featuring the anthems from
U2 at their peak, plus the highlights from when
U2 were trying their best to sound like
U2 at their peak. They did it quite well, of course, from both a commercial and artistic standpoint, sometimes writing songs that stood proudly alongside "Pride (In the Name of Love)" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (as in "Beautiful Day") and sometimes not ("Elevation"). When it's all mixed together, it paints a portrait of a band that's a little slicker and streamlined than it often was, and it's hard not to miss the big-hearted yet moody band that made "Bad," "Gloria," and "A Sort of Homecoming," not to mention the middle-aged Euro experimentalists responsible for "Numb" and "Stay! (Faraway, So Close)," two essential components of the band that has been forced aside by the arena rock pros on display here.
Then again,
U2 always were the best arena rockers of their generation, and for those who love the spectacle and sound of the band in full flight,
U218 Singles serves up that side of the band quite well, along with two new entries that find the band continuing the assured, even-handed sound of
Atomic Bomb: a cover of
the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming," recorded with
Green Day and rewritten to vaguely address the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and "Window in the Skies," an anthemic pop number that relies too heavily on synth strings yet is saved by the band's sturdy songwriting and reliable performance. As such, it might not cover all the bases, but it covers enough of the major ones to be a good summary for fellow travelers who just know
U2 from the radio, and it's also a good one-stop introduction to the basics for neophytes. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine