Hi guys,

so finally i've came across a sentence in the Manhattan Prep which i just cant figure out:

The band U2 WAS just one of many groups on the rock music scene in the early 1980s, but less than ten years later, U2 HAD fully ECLIPSED its early rivals in the pantheon of popular music.

The description quotes that the sentence is valid because the past perfect is the earlier of the two actions???

Because i understand it as if the band was just one of many, and then AFTER 10 years eclipsed. Shouldnt the tenses be swapped then?

Thanks for any help

In this sentence, we have three past events.
Event 1: Band U2 was one of the groups in the early 1980s. This sentence talks about an event in the 1980s and hence the use of simple past is correct.
Event 2: Band U2 fully eclipsed its early rivals. This sentence talks about a past event that took place before event 3: time reference, less than 10 years later
Event 3: The phrase less than ten years later is a time reference and thereby denotes an event, which happens after band U2 eclipsed its rivals.

Remember that past perfect tense must be used to clarify the sequence of events. In this case, event 1 is clearly a past event and hence simple past tense is used. Since we need to clarify the sequence of event 2 and event 3, the author used the past perfect tense to clearly denote the sequence of events.