Elevation (song)
| "Elevation" | ||||||||||||||
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| Single by U2 | ||||||||||||||
| from the album All That You Can't Leave Behind | ||||||||||||||
| B-side | "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" | |||||||||||||
| Released | 25 June 2001 | |||||||||||||
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| Recorded | HQ in Dublin, Ireland | |||||||||||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | |||||||||||||
| Length |
3:46 (Album version) 3:35 (Tomb Raider mix) |
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| Label | Island / Interscope | |||||||||||||
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| U2 singles chronology | ||||||||||||||
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"Elevation" is the third track and third single release from U2's 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. It was also the band's second number one single in the Netherlands, and in 2002, "Elevation" won "Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal." The song lent its namesake to the band's Elevation Tour.
Adam [Clayton] came into his own on "Elevation" because he is the hip-hop man in the band and there is a real hip-hop attitude in the rhythm section.
"Elevation" started with a guitar sound that the Edge got with a vintage pedal that Daniel Lanois had brought to the sessions. Afterwards, the Edge hit on a guitar part and programmed a quick beat box rhythm and the band started playing against it, and Bono improvized. The song has a hip-hop rhythm. The Edge stated that "Elevation" was a light relief in a heavy sequence of songs, unlike "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", "Kite" and "Walk On" that "are farewell songs of one kind of another."
The song was played at all 113 concerts in Elevation Tour. Shows would traditionally open under the venue house lights with the Influx Mix of "Elevation" playing as the band's intro music. During live shows during the Vertigo Tour, it was played without drums and bass for the first verse and chorus before the rest of the band joins in. It has been played at almost every U2 concert since it was debuted until the Innocence + Experience Tour where it was only played sporadically during the B-stage set.
"Elevation" received positive reviews. When reviewing the album, Adam Sweeting from The Guardian praised the song, calling it an "irresistible mix of crude techno and raw guitar-swagger."New Zealand Herald editor Russell Baillie called it a "grand surge" noting the song's guitar and vocals which he described as "churning" and "giddy", respectively.NME was positive toward the song for "the well-exercised U2 template." Along with "Wild Honey" and "Walk On," Entertainment Weekly contributor David Browne called the song "lusty" and stated it has "the charging-horse feel of U2's youth, with a bumpy-noise upgrade courtesy of producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois."
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