Back to Basics
When you're as big as U2 was in the late '80s and early '90s, there's nowhere to go but down. But the band was savvy enough to create an excuse for their inevitable decline by consciously alienating their casual audience. Hardcore fans accepted U2's newfound fascination with dance music on Zooropa, but those
weaned on the hit single "With or Without You" were left feeling lost in unfamiliar territory. The final result of the band's post-Achtung Baby journey was 1997's Pop, an underrated, electronic-dominated recording that demanded multiple listenings before it did indeed reveal itself to be a U2 album.
As accomplished as it was, Pop was in many ways a dead end. The Popmart tour, with its enormous scale and lavish props, felt like a rehash of Zoo TV, without the novelty or political message. U2 had surrounded itself with so much baggage, literally and
sonically, that they were in danger of living up to the title of their 1987 song, "Running to Stand Still." It was time to get back to basics. Last year's Best of album was the first step, and with U2's latest evolutionary transformation on "Beautiful Day," the band has turned back the clock while still retaining what they've learned from the past decade.
The video showcases a welcome mix of old and new. Directed by Jonas Akerlund ("Ray of Light,") and set in a Paris airport, the video's sparse visuals evoke the wide-open spaces of The Joshua Tree blended with the techno-styling of Zooropa. But with Bono running around the terminal, laying on a luggage carousel and dancing on a runway, it's as if U2 has finally broken the dual shackles of idealism and irony and gotten down to the business of having fun for fun's sake. Bono is back with the familiar black outfit and "Fly" shades, Adam Clayton no longer wears the surgical mask, The Edge is as cool as ever, and Larry Mullen Jr. doesn't have to look embarrassed about his freaky band mates anymore.
The song itself is a rarity on MTV these days — an upbeat, immensely listenable rock tune backed by the weight of skilled musicians playing real instruments. The various musical styles U2 has formulated over the years come together effortlessly to evoke the past yet remain grounded in the here-and-now. Reminiscent of work from The Joshua Tree minus its dark themes, it's the band's most upbeat, straightforward single in years. While "Where the Streets Have No Name" was a haunting paean to the yearning of youth, "Beautiful Day" comes from a place of maturity, with Bono simply urging, "It's a beautiful, don't let it get away." Despite the band's rosy outlook on life, it's going to be an uphill battle for U2 to gain mainstream popularity in this brave new TRL world. The video has been getting some MTV airplay, sandwiched between Britney Spears, Nelly, 98 Degrees, and the other flavors of the moment, but by now it's irrelevant whether or not U2 will be able to return to the commercial successes of their past. The band has been together longer than most of the TRL audience has been alive, and after all these years, it seems like Bono and company may have finally found what they were looking for.
