The efficiency of Bradley Morgan’s U2 Until The End of the World belies its heft. In the 240 pages of the 11″ by 9″ hardcover, the author provides a fairly thorough chronicle of the mega-successful Irish band’s history, without any overt agenda or slanted editorializing.
And while the writer doesn’t delve too deeply into the band’s backstories, at least compared to Eamon Dunphy’s Unforgettable Fire of 1988, in this Weldon Owen publication, he is nonetheless comprehensive in his coverage, thanks to the combination of words and photos. Probably because Morgan is also the author of U2: The Joshua Tree – Planting Roots in a Mythic America, he avoids much mythologizing of U2.
That is to say, he’s just about as nimble in avoiding caricature of the foursome as they are. For instance, the undercurrent of self-mockery in the group’s Nineties phase, as seen in Achtung Baby and Zooropa (to some extent), balances out the solemn self-consciousness of the unit during its ascent to mainstream popularity in the previous decade, as evident in War, The Unforgettable Fire, and The Joshua Tree. Bradley Morgan wisely allows those alterations of personae to speak for themselves.
But, also like U2 itself, the author often seems tempted to explain himself and his narrative. He really needn’t, though: his choices of various camera shots of the quartet warrant close perusal, all the way from early informal photos and action pictures from stage (page 37 in 1981) to the obviously posed (pages 204-5 in Washington DC at a 2022 event).
How these men have aged in appearance, however, is less telling than how their music has evolved in its presentation on record and on stage and to that end, Bradley Morgan is meticulous in the flow of his narrative, so much so the growth of U2 over the years is almost as obvious in his text as in their stage attire (as well as the sensory overload of their concert productions).
To that end, photos of the four men in street clothes on pages 144-5 and 154-5 reflect the down-to-earth self-awareness it took to rethink an early version of 2004’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, then reunite with their earliest producer Steve Lillywhite in order to finish it. As a result, the topicality implicit in the latter long player’s title ultimately anchored the continuity of the material rather than distracting from it.
Pragmatism wasn’t always U2’s strong suit, but as Bradley Morgan tells it, they worked at it. By adopting that approach, the band was able to incorporate Bono’s social activism through the same (almost) indiscernible means they had previously employed to interweave the religious faith he shared with guitarist The Edge and drummer Larry Mullen Jr., as seen in 1981’s October.
Such is the theme of humanity/mortality; it echoes through the years to the lead singer’s reminders of his own mortality in 2014 and 2016. Given his clear admiration for the band, the writer deserves kudos for his dispassionate accounts of the relationships within the foursome. Although he seems to quote overly often from 2006’s autobiographical U2 By U2, his own maturity ultimately mirrors that of his subject, which is to say, only precariously. At times, near this book’s finale, the emotional content seems stunted.
Morgan’s account of U2’s alliance with Apple, including the mass download involving 2014’s Songs of Innocence, fortunately gets no more attention from Morgan than his play-by-play assessments of LP tracks. Still, at some of those junctures, Until The End of the World begins to sound like it’s being padded, not to mention hurried in its conclusion.
Nevertheless, the author is discerning (if a bit disingenuous) with his involved descriptions of successive stage designs for U2 tours. His implicit suggestion that those concepts were implemented to bring some measure of intimacy to the live experience mirrors the nearly imperceptible personalization of the band members in the Songs Of Experience album of 2017.
More useful by far than the aforementioned superficiality of his ‘Intro’ or the adoring attitude of his ‘Outro’ is the deserved attention Bradley Morgan affords latter-day U2 endeavors. The television documentary with David Letterman, A Sort of Homecoming, connects directly to the wilful 2023 retrospection of re-recordings titled Songs of Surrender.
In much the same practical way, the writer is well to point out the concerted promotion devoted to the single “Atomic City.” The campaign highlights Mullen’s participation, who had not been present for the 2022 concert run at The Sphere in Las Vegas. Still, at the risk of soap operatic melodrama, some more backstory on that particular subject would be insightful.
By inclusion of plentiful references and acknowledgements, plus picture credits and a truncated discography, Bradley Morgan certifies his scholarship in composing U2 – Until The End of the World. Equally importantly (and perhaps ironically), those academic touches ratify this title as a ‘coffee table book’ that transcends any pejorative in that descriptive phrase.
So, in the end, this is one such item that begs to be left accessible because, opening it at virtually any point reveals reliable information and vivid imagery to pique the curiosity, not only about the work of this band, but also its members as the earnestly creative human beings who produced it.
