YMMV / Rattle and Hum

• Anvilicious: The album and, even more so, the film show Bono's then-habit of underlining the messages of his protest songs with onstage mini-lectures. The (film-only) rant against the IRA that he delivered in the middle of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" earned him death threats.
  Yeah, yeah. And let me tell you something. I've had enough of Irish-Americans who haven't been back to their country in 20 or 30 years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home, and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution!
• Broken Base: The anviliciousness, along with U2 associating themselves with music royalty that early in their careers, provoked a persistent image of the band as pretentious and self-important, which led to their going in a completely different direction for their next album. On the other hand, as U2's manager Paul McGuinness put it, "We sold twelve million copies of the record, so that is the kind of failure I can live with."
• Narm:
  • Larry Mullen Jr. eulogizing Elvis Presley by talking about... his movies. As Todd in the Shadows pointed out, that's probably not the most flattering thing to remember Elvis for.
  • "Okay, Edge. Play the blues!" Proceeded by The Edge playing what is definitely not the blues.
• Never Live It Down: This project caused U2's reputation among the general public to take a complete 180°, going from being regarded as a stellar Post-Punk-cum-Alternative Rock act to a group of egotistical, PR-hungry yes-men. Even after the band rebounded among fans and critics with their subsequent work, Rattle and Hum still acts as an albatross around their necks, with non-fans pointing to it as the most naked proof of their perceived arrogance.
• Signature Song: The most popular song on the album is "Desire", though "All I Want Is You" comes very close behind. Then, also "Angel of Harlem" and "When Love Comes to Town" are reasonably well-known.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Van Diemen's Land" has a very similar melody to the old country tune "Lost Highway", written by Leon Payne but made famous by Hank Williams. Oddly enough, U2 did play "Lost Highway" itself live a few times, with The Edge taking lead vocals.

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