Leave U2 Alone

This expression "Leave [...] alone" became popular from a silly young girl and her obsession with pop singer Britney Spears, however it is a good euphemism from what I want to say.

First, U2 are a great band. Obviously, they were better in the 80's and 90's when they had the power to re-invent themselves during 20 years, creating wonderful albums.

Yes, we can't forget that they made brilliant songs. Achtung Baby is still one of the best albums I ever heard. Every single song is brilliant. Love Is Blindness, So Cruel, The Fly, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, etc. And then, they created a completely different album with Zooropa, with Stay, The First Time, Lemon, between other songs. And then, they went again to a different and brilliant album with Pop.

I don't believe that they can do a decade like this again. They are getting old, they don't have the power to re-invent themselves for every album, so the last works follow some  more or less straight line.

Some think that their artistically is covered by speeches about poverty, sunglasses, guitar pedals or cowboy hats, and, sometimes I kinda agree with that.

But, they are still a great band. Their last album is good, it has some beautiful moments as well, great guitar riffs. Bono's voice is, naturally, a little bit aged (compared to his super powerful voice 20 years ago), their lyrics may not have the same "muse" as before but the songs are there, and it is good.

Today, it seems that the press (and a lot music critics) are tired of U2 and want to push them down as much as they can, which is not fair.

For example;

Songs of Innocence was given for free for iTunes users or whatever. Everyone now is saying that U2 are giving away their music because it is bad, because they devalued their own music, because no one wants to buy it.
But, when Radiohead did that with "In Rainbows" they were called revolutionaries, visionaries and it was the best and most spectacular thing someone did to music. Also, Thom Yorke, more or less at the same time that U2 released their last album, made his new solo album available via BitTorrent by a very very low price, but that is not devaluing music, it is a genius step.

Other example;
Someone says "U2 are shit, I hate them". And then "Did you heard the new song by Jack White? Love Is Blindness?" "Yes, it is brilliant I love it" "U2 wrote it" "Oh but I prefer much more this version, U2's version is shit, Jack White really added everything to it". I'm pretty sure White wrote the lyrics, the chords and the melodies for this song.

I don't remember seeing good news on a music website about U2 for ages. Every new is "U2 are going to split" "Bono is getting blind" "The grandfather of the guitarist of the band that had one hit song says that U2 are shit". It'tiring and boring.

So, everyone is trying to put U2 down, I don't know why. It's a pity and music industry should remember the huge influence that the band has on modern pop rock music.