The Complete U2 - A Review

Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a big U2 fan. And that I'm a big Apple Computer fan. So the combination of the two lately has been pretty exciting. But I was a little suspicious about The Complete U2, since it was advertised as having more than 400 songs - 25 of which would be rare and unreleased tracks. *Only* 25?

I've been collecting U2 singles since I first got ahold of the One single, which had three excellent b-sides. Believe me, I've checked the U2 bin at every single music store I've ever visited. It is not easy to find them all, and many are only available on vinyl. So I was happy to see that not only are all the U2 singles included in this set, but also the original cover art of each one.

Of course, songs that were released as singles are also included on their respective albums, and on one of the two greatest hits albums. So almost every song that was released as a single is duplicated three times in the collection.

A unique part of this collection is the included digital booklet. It's a PDF file that appears as a track in iTunes and opens in your default PDF-viewing application when double-clicked. It includes liner notes on all of U2's albums by Bill Flanagan and commentary by The Edge on the unreleased tracks.

The unreleased tracks are from the recording sessions for All That You Can't Leave Behind and How To Disable An Atomic Bomb, including alternate (and sometimes superior) versions of songs from the latter album. There are also three early demo tracks from 1978.

There are also three complete live shows included:a March 1981 club show in Boston; the final Love Town concert in Dublin on Dec. 31, 1989, before they went away and "dream(ed) it all up again;" and a Popmart concert from Mexico City in December 1997. The latter show was released as a fan-club-only CD, but the first two have never been officially released. Bootlegs of those shows are considered great.

I've had difficulty locating the other fan club CD – Melon – which is composed entirely of Achtung Baby and Zooropa remixes. It is included in the collection ... mostly. The liner notes mention that it contained 9 remixes, yet only 7 tracks are included. There are a number of inconsistencies like that: two of the remixes listed in the Unreleased & Rare section were actually released a few years ago on The Best of 1990-2000's B-Sides disc; the Perfecto mix of Lemon appears twice but is only two minutes long (the original song is nearly six minutes); a live version of New York is said to have been performed in 1997, even though the song didn't exist until 2000.

And every single track is dated 2004. That's a problem with the iTunes Music Store in general - albums are dated by their latest release (or addition to the store) rather than their original release date. I don't mind hand-editing ID3 tags, but 446 tracks is a lot of work.

Although the collection is very large, it is not 100% complete. But I noticed that most of the missing tracks are covers: Dancing Barefoot, Don't Take Your Guns To Town, Everlasting Love, Fortunate Son, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Neon Lights, Night And Day, Paint It Black, Pop Muzik, Satellite Of Love, and Unchained Melody. I imagine there are legal issues involved, but it's certainly disappointing because some of them are really great recordings (some really aren't) and I don't have a couple.

It also would have been great if the songs from the Rattle and Hum film that couldn't fit on the original album were included. The film version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," performed after the 1987 Eniskillin bombing, is considered one of their greatest live performances ("#&^$ the Revolution!").

All in all, "The Complete U2" is not 100 percent complete. But it's a massive and far-reaching collection, nonetheless. It's difficult and expensive to find all of the b-sides and remixes since some exist only on vinyl and some are only on European imports which tend to cost $10 for approximately two songs.

I was happily surprised to find that most of the tracks can be purchased individually for $0.99 a piece, so if you don't want to spend $150 for the 400+ collection, you can pick and choose your favorites.

It's only worth the full price if you can count up at least 150 or more tracks in the collection that you don't have (this can now be easily done with iTunes 4.7 by dragging the songs from the Music Store into a playlist). Of course, if you've bought the Special Edition U2 iPod, you've got a $50 instant rebate, so it only took 100 songs to make it worth my while. ;)

I'll try and post an iMix of my favorite U2 b-sides at the iTMS soon. And, of course, I'll post a review of the new album. It's been a good week for this U2 fan.