***Apologies if this has been mentioned. Feel free to disregard***
I'm liking this album artwork. It's nice to have a U2 album where there is meaning to be found in the artwork. I think their choice to not include themselves on the cover was a good move. Be known for how great the album (hopefully) is. Since this is one of the more artistic approaches to a U2 album cover, I wanted to open this up for deeper discussion. What is the album artwork telling us about the album? Until we all hear it of course, there will be no way to know for sure...
I believe there is a lot more visually happening here than I have heard mentioned yet. Here are some questions I asked myself while examining the artwork. My own conclusions are written afterwards.
1. The cover is black & white, and mostly divided by their prospective colors. With all of the imagery being used to describe the album, why such a mundane palette of colors?
2. A pool of light is at the water's center in the blacker bottom half, suggesting what exactly?
3. The = sign. The great mystery. Kind of reminds me of the box in 2001 (the movie). I see something else completely. More on that is just a sec.
4. The title is No Line on the Horizon, yet on the cover the Horizon is very clearly defined. An obvious contradiction? What could be implied here?
What does all of this mean about the theme of the record?
The horizon line is a particularly interesting choice here. Being as though a good majority of the world is ocean and sky, I'm going with this particular horizon line symbolizing the world as a whole. This particular image depicts the world as a place of light and darkness.
The ray of light on the ocean water is telling me that there is hope for the darkness in our world, but the ripples on the water indicate that it is not easy to overcome, unlike the smooth sky.
The equal sign is the great riddle here isn't it? It's the only element that isn't present in the world that exists in the photograph. Two straight lines, one on the light, one on the dark. But let's remove the background for a second. The obvious choice here is to see an = sign. But let me offer a different take. Two lines that don't touch. There's a term for that. Oh yeah, parallel. Two lines, side by side, and having the same distance between them. Very interesting. But let's look at the musical definition of parallel: containing or denoting successful intervals of the same size in otherwise independent voices.
Notice on the "box set" artwork, there is a graphic displayed U=2, but aligned vertically. It's interesting here that they tie this symbol to their name. Could this be a symbolic representation of the band as they know themselves now in 2009? Independent, yet parallel people?
Let's bring this all together now.
It is wrong to percieve the world as black and white, divided into two halves, light and dark. We as a society of earth-beings need to get past this. We need to evolve to a higher standard of respecting each other. The = symbol (as I am calling it) divides these two falsehoods of the world. The band have accepted that they all contain both light and dark tendencies in life, but always keep faith and optimism regarding their own dark rippled ocean. They are parallel musically and personally in that they all have different voices, but can exist together in the same time and space. And by doing so, they have gotten to do what they love for a very long time now, which has been both challenging and rewarding.
Maybe with this album and the melodies that now lie within it, we all can learn to accept each other's light and dark natures and coexist on both sides of the horizon, forever blurring it's lines and allowing everyone to live their own lives without disrupting the lines of others, for everyone has the right to life.
Interesting and thoughtful interpretation, I like that.
