Consumer Guide Album

U2: Wide Awake in America [Island EP, 1985]
Especially after their unstinting live mini, this four-cut "special low priced collection of live recordings and out takes from the Unforgettable Fire tour and album" looks like the usual special low priced gyp. But though the outtakes wouldn't have been missed, they're OK to hear, and the opener, an eight-minute amplification of one of Unforgettable Fire's more obscure titles, is why they could get away with superstar rip-offs if they wanted. Maybe Bono's charisma assumes special access to truth, but he doesn't act like that makes him more important than anyone else, and the Edge's elegiac guitar is self-effacing in much the same way--it exists to serve the awesome effect. Epic humility--take it or leave it. B