U2, Greatest Hits 1990-2000

It’s a stretch to call this a best-of disc, considering that two songs are brand new and five others are remixes. But this was an uneven decade for U2. Except for the brilliant reinvention on 1991’s Achtung Baby that shattered their “poster boys of earnestness” pigeonhole, the 90s found Bono and the boys struggling to connect—stuck in a moment they couldn’t get out of. So think of this instead as a combo hits and rarities package, a way for Ireland’s finest to gather together singles from soundtracks, remixes and a few established unit-movers like “One.” In that sense it’s more curiosity than essential, but even the casual fan will find plenty to chew on. The two new songs are particularly good, especially the soaring ballad “The Hands That Built America,” from Martin Scorsese’s movie Gangs of New York. The tracks here are not presented chronologically, so you won’t get much of a sense of U2’s evolution over the last decade. But that’s just as well. If the two songs from the ill-starred Pop are presented without context and remixed to downplay the awkward disco, it can only help their rediscovery as pieces of songcraft. That approach doesn’t always work: the chanting drone of “Numb” was far better on Zooropa than the version here. The remix isn’t always better than the real thing.