11 November 2004
Well, this is a pleasant surprise: re-listening to ‘Vertigo’ now reminds me there’s actually stuff about it I really like. In short, it’s a U2 song that’s genuinely fun. Yeah, I know!
Come on now: you have to enjoy Bono’s supremely goofy dog-Spanish count-in (translation: “Some! Two! Three! Fourteen!”) and Edge’s chord-crunching intro. Plus, that chorus is U2-mahoosive yet carefree and un-self-conscious: you’ll never go far wrong by shouting “Hello, hello!” as your hook, and ‘Vertigo’ is a cool thing to call a song anyway. Other tracks on parent album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb—I think especially of the snappy ‘All Because Of You’—have a similar fast-acting glam-pop swagger; U2 actually strike a profitable seam here.
And yet the sky grows dark with the usual U2 faults circling the runway. The verses are a blank space where a tune and a guitar should be. Edge’s solo is basic and underwhelming. ‘Vertigo’ also continues the bizarre habit of ’00s U2 singles coming to a sudden, idea-less halt in their mid-section. The climactic line of “How to kneel! Kneel!” is an unwelcome reflux of that old performative U2 religiosity, always lurking in buzz-kill mode.
Still, none of those lapses are fatal to the track as a whole. I wouldn’t commit to calling ‘Vertigo’ good, but it’s certainly enjoyable. Look at me being all positive about a U2 record! Dizzy times.
