Well, "overwrought" is one thing, but when it's manufactured! ... Whatever criticisms you could lay at the feet of U2 (e.g., too anthemic, earnest, political, self-righteous, Christian, etc.), sounding "mass-produced" or "formulaic" (to draw upon the more derogatory dictionary definitions of "manufactured") is not one of them. I don't know what 1980s you were living through, but nothing in 1980 sounded like the opening riff of I Will Follow, and nothing on AOR radio sounded like New Years Day or Sunday Bloody Sunday in 1983. By the time they did War, they were on the last legs with their little record label, Island. This was before Bob Geldolf decided to create be socially aware pop artist bandwagon. But you're saying U2 was the essentially equivalent of some generic boy band dreamed up by suits in a board room? Sorry, but no.