The hottest band in the land was set to ride the momentum of The Joshua Tree into a live album and video. Most bands can do a live album and concert video in their sleep. U2 took the project a step further, for good and bad. Rattle and Hum is an inspired effort, but it also added plenty of fuel to the flames of critics who had tired of the band.The album fares better than the movie. Critics complained the movie was too self-reverential. I would argue that there are more than a few bands who would want to record in Sun Studios. The tourist snapshots with U2 at Graceland or in Harlem are not a problem either. The problem is Bono.
The band did not want to relinquish too much of their private lives for the film, so the viewer only sees a mere snapshot of each individual. Being in a band never looked like so much hard work. Not to mention the entire film is humorless. This was U2's first taste of celebrity not just rock stardom. Hollywood calls celebrities to task much faster than a simple rock star - especially when they are boring.
The Edge and Adam Clayton offer a few comments each, and come across as decent enough fellows. Larry Mullen gets quite a bit of screen time, but it is dangerous ground when the drummer starts to steal the spotlight. To explain my Bono is the problem comment, Bono never shied away from having a message beyond just singing the songs. Rattle and Hum takes him at his most vitriolic, and in some cases embarrassing, and throws him up on the silver screen.
"This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles, we're stealing it back." What does that even mean? Five seconds into the movie and eyes are already rolling. Thankfully, the soundtrack album cut the fat. It also includes songs not featured in the film.
There is an odd disparity between the songs. Half of the songs sound like warmed over leftovers from The Joshua Tree, while others sound like covers of other artist's songs. Even though it is regarded as a U2 failure - anything would have been a failure after the success of The Joshua Tree - there are several outstanding songs. Many of the songs are still set list staples 20 years later, including "Desire" and "Angel of Harlem." Another album highlights, "When Love Comes to Town" left town with B.B. King. As it should. Who else could add that signature voice and guitar. Once King put his stamp on the song, it was his.
Edge singing "Van Diemen's Land" and the road trip in a song, "Heartland," are memorable but the one song that salvages the entire album is "All I Want is You." The song runs across the film's end credits and sits as the last track on the album. "All I Want is You" is the U2 statement to end the decade, as well as a sign of what was to come in the new decade. Maybe not sonically but definitely thematically.
You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbor in the tempest
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you
An unabashed love song, without the gooey sentimentality that often ruins unabashed love songs.
Similar to October, the story of Rattle and Hum often focuses on the behind the scenes elements of why the project failed to lift off as expected. For an emotionally powerful band, U2 is very self analytical as well.
By December 31, 1989, U2 rose to the top of the music industry through tireless touring and recording. At the dawn of the new decade, Bono stood at a New Year's show in Dublin and famously said U2 had to go and dream it all up again. When they needed it most U2 set about to construct one of the greatest reinventions in rock and roll. They would land a long way from the shores of the Mississippi River.
