U2 in Dublin

"We’ve decided to write the tunes before we record them this time. For years we’ve gone into the studio deliberately not knowing what we were doing and I think this time we wanna make a record as a band, as a quartet. We wanna make a really uncool record — raw — that sort of feels like we’ve gotta do. And and we don’t wanna be in a crap band you know, and it’s got to be a great record or we won’t be a band." - Bono on All That You Can't Leave Behind, 1998