U218 ... the sellout arrives?

Throughout U2's career, charges of "selling out" have been leveled. Just about every album they released after 1984's The Unforgettable Fire has been called a sell-out by someone. And since concerts grow more expensive ever year, every succeeding tour they put on is followed by complaints that they're just trying to get rich, etc. I've never agreed with any of those previous charges because the albums and the tours always contained new music, regardless of your personal opinion of its greatness. And they've never cashed in on their past successes by re-releasing old albums in anniversary editions. They even resisted making a Greatest Hits album until 1998's The Best Of 1980-1990.

The Best Of 1980-1990 was a smart choice for two reasons: 1) Limiting the timeline of the songs meant that the album would stand alone and never need to be revised or re-released with any changes. 2) 'The Best Of' is different than 'Greatest Hits,' and it allowed them to include songs that were never really big hits but are certainly considered some of their best songs ("All I Want Is You," "The Unforgettable Fire," "I Will Follow").

Of course, most 'Best Of' albums include one or two new songs in order to give longtime fans more incentive to buy the album. Again, U2 took the clever route and re-recorded "Sweetest Thing," one of their b-sides from that time period, keeping the title almost entirely accurate. And making it even more compelling was a two-disc version with 15 b-sides from that time period. All in all, the two-disc set was great for hardcore U2 fans and the single disc was great for the more casual or cost-conscious. The only real problem was that a few notable tracks were left off ("Gloria," "40") and "Where The Streets Have No Name" was shortened by a minute. But a CD has a limited total length, so some compromises were necessary.

It was only natural, then, that in 2002 they released The Best Of 1990-2000. They matched the format and the design of the first Best Of. But there were some problems. The word 'best' is subjective, and unlike the first decade of their career, it is more difficult to definitively say which songs were the best of their second. Songs like "Elevation," "Walk On," "Lemon" and "The Fly" (a Number 1 in the UK) were left off in place of remixed versions of songs from Pop ("Staring At The Sun," "Gone" and "Discothéque"). And while the two new tracks were good, they weren't really from 1990-2000. (Ironically, although 1990 is covered on both albums, there are no songs from that year on either album.) And the b-sides disc focused more on remixes than original tracks.

So the announcement of U218 ("The definitive best of") this year was odd. They have only released one new album since The Best Of 1990-2000, so it can't cover much new ground. And they're already in the studio working on their next album, to be released in 2007, so it will quickly become non-definitive.

But it's not even "definitive" in the first place. U2.com states that U218 "is the first single disc collection to span the band’s career from Boy (1980) to How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004)." Yet it doesn't actually have any songs from Boy, nor its followup, October (1981). The oldest tracks on it are from War (1983). So how can it span from 1980-2004? Imagine if you bought a book of the best Shakespeare quotes and the claim was that it had "his greatest iambic pentameter from Romeo and Juliet to Julius Caesar!" and it turned out not have anything from Romeo and Juliet? The claim is misleading at best and deceptive at worst.

The reality is that it is not a "definitive" Best Of but instead a Greatest U.S. Hits. Gone are "Even Better Than The Real Thing," "Bad" and everything from Zooropa and Pop. The 27 tracks from the previous discs are condensed down to 16 crowd-pleasers.

The benefit of U218 is that a casual U2 fan who wants U2's Greatest Hits can buy this one disc that intermingles all the songs instead of both the previous discs that are separated by time. But it's not 1998 anymore, and the abundance of computers and CD burners means that most anyone can burn their own single-disc Greatest Hits without the need to spend another $10-$14 on a CD with dubious choices. And if those people don't own many U2 albums, they can download the single tracks from the iTunes Store without spending much. So the importance of releasing a single-disc Greatest Hits is hardly necessary anymore.

Maybe the goal is just to sell this CD to casual U2 fans who don't have CD burners. I can accept and understand that; fine, I'm not the target market. But they want it both ways. They've included two new tracks on the album that any U2 completist would surely want to have in their collection. Hmmm, purchasing an entire album to get two songs? That's roughly $5 per song at the cheapest price. The simple answer would be to purchase those tracks separately from the iTunes Store, as Entertainment Weekly recommended. But apparently EW didn't bother to see if that was possible, because it's not. Those tracks aren't available for individual purchase and you must purchase the entire album. How quaint.

There's no good reason for this album's creation other than a quick, Christmas-time money grab. Shame on U2.