Atomic Road

When 'How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' came out, many U2 fans were really surprised at how the album cover was so much against all previous U2 album covers. It seemed like a throw away, like if the band this time around was lazy to work on a more ellaborate cover. I mean, the band is actually reclining back, as if tired of being U2. What saves it, and actually makes the album cover misterious, are those diagaonal thick red stripes. They provide meaning and establish the premise of the design, while within the scope of what matters in this project, corresponding amazingly with Abbey Road's own street crossing stripes.

Sail on Hero, towards the sea horizon, you will soon arrive. 

'Atomic Road' is one of the latest connections (Seen decades after the first ones). It happened when I was showing the album cover journey to a dear friend in 2018. She pointed to the similarities of the strips in both covers, to their thickness, and suddenly we saw it: I turned How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb up side down and freaked out at how the strips ended EXACTLY at the same height in both covers (see the red line in the bottom image below). I then turned Abbey Road 180 degrees to see the effect it would have. How cool the Beatles looked as if walking on a ceiling. But going back to the previous variation I saw how good the truncated diagonal strip at the border in HTDAAB would fit if I moved it to the left side of Abbey Road...Oh! how well that matched, like if it was the same line continued, half red half white...I also thought it's cool how The Edge's upside down head is tilted to the right and sort of pushing The Beatles to do the walking along the streeet crossing ( See below "Best choice from all Atomic Road Variations" ).

See the video loop below to experience it exactly the way we did!