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Trademark flourishes as U2 tick all the right boxes

Irish Examiner, February 14, 2009
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Thanks, that's a new one. Great read :up:, except the childish stabs at Bono from time to time. And the stadium/arena rock references, man I'm sick of reading that. :doh:

BUT it's interested how they call Unknown Caller "experimental", while in other reviews it's described as more or less typical U2.

Confirms my believe that White as snow and Cedars will be extraordinary, outstanding, beautiful tracks.

And again:

From the ghost of Robert Johnson to the spirit of The Beatles, Breathe — which Brian Eno has declared to be U2’s best ever — is a psychedelic epic, with a kitchen sink load of orchestration and enough mellow emoting to have Chris Martin breaking out in an envious rash.
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All those Chris Martin mentions are just too funny.
 
johndarling said:
^Don't do that!

TWO things come to mind right off the bat.

1. I can't stand Jim Sheridan. :mad:

2. I :heart: the line about Napoleon. That's so hilarious that Bono has some idea what an apallingly patriarchal chauvanist he is. He has a ways to go but a tiny bit of awareness is so much better than none. :D

:applaud:

Oh and the linear/in your ear is really funny. :lol:

The lyrics sound to be his best by far. :wink:
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Ok, I don't know what you are talking about. Can you explain what you mean by "patriarcal chauvanist"?

Dana
 
The Sad Punk said:
Best read I've had in WTAHAN for a while, by a long shot.
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Yeah he's a great writer. The 1993 piece called "Empty V" IIRC in the NME was a hatchet job but it was a fabulous dissertation on live music..

I've just read the review in The Word and a lot of the great rock writers that left the weekly's (NME and Melody Maker) ended up here and in Uncut. The writers for NME now are IMO terrible.

I don't mind bad reviews if they are well thought out and articulated. Rock critics have a place and opinions are vital.
 
The Examiner article reminds me how difficult it is for U2 to get anything close to a genuine review (whether the review is positive or negative). There's just so much baggage and cynicism which, while understandable given U2's longevity, constanstly gets in the way of them adequately and helpfully reviewing the music. I don't care if you think Bono is the anti-Christ, just tell me whether the tunes are worth a 53 month wait. Particularly annoying: the constant references (in all the reviews) to "big" and "stadium" songs as if this is even a remotely useful or skillful way to describe pieces of music which are often very different-sounding (Magnificent vs. Crazy Tonight vs. Breathe vs. Unknown Caller, ad infinitum).
 
I love the mixmash of views on the album - all pretty good, some say it's experimental others not, some love a particular song above all others and others say it's they like it the least. The references are all over the place and some have had to re-consider their long standing stance on U2. These are all good signs as far as I'm concerned - there's not much middle of the road commentary on this one.. fantastic!
 
I'm more intrigued/confused by the descriptions: UF, some JT, some AB, some Zooropa, some ATYCLB.

Maybe this is more of a transitional record (like UF) and less so an outright new phase (like AB or ATYCLB).
 
Lets be clear, the reviews that are coming out now are not from the listening parties. Andrew Street had a disclaimer that he only listened to the album once, but if Neil McCormick has the album, then the other reviewers should have it too.
 
U2girl said:
I disagree - and how do you know that the lyrics will be different on the album ?
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There are lyrics from the album posted in the lyrics forum. And some people, including Björn from u2tour.de, confirmed that some of the lyrics are different. NLOTH 2 has a kind of lyrical mishmash in the second verse that makes it sound like a demo, the lyrics sound improvised and you can hardly make them out. In the Wall Mart clip Bono is also singing the chorus differently, he sings: No, no line while in NLOTH 2 he only sings No line. And that's only a tiny part.

I also LIKE the lyrics in the first verse. "I hear the universe in her sea shells" is very poetic and erotic, I like the whole woman/love/sea metaphor. And the part about the dream, it's a bit surreal.
 
cdirani said:
The Times (London)
February 13, 2009

By Stephen Dalton

Like most right-thinking people, I grew up hating U2. You probably
recognise the symptoms. Queasy unease when Bono claims ownership of
the Third World's suffering from a stadium stage or TV screen; nausea
when he's pictured with his arms around Bush or Blair, who his own
drummer calls "war criminals." And that wet thud of disappointment
when U2's breathlessly hyped new album is just as stodgy and Coldplay-
esque as the last.

And yet, annoyingly, I'm strangely excited about their latest album,
No Line on the Horizon. Perhaps, after 25 years of qualified loathing
and grudging admiration, I've learnt to stop worrying and love U2.

During my teens and early twenties, U2 were easy to hate, with their
windswept mullets and bombastic battle anthems. Their music was
monochrome and sexless, all windy platitudes disguised as Big Themes.
They also seemed suspiciously keen to co-opt half a century of pop
history and global struggle for their own self-promotional ends: from
Elvis to Joy Division, Billie Holiday to Martin Luther King, African
famine to the fall of communism.

But superimposing yourself on to great historical events doesn't
confer greatness by association. You just look like ambulance
chasers. The Forrest Gumps of rock.

I first wrote about U2 in NME in the early 1990s, soon after their
Achtung Baby album. In this period there was a big shift in the
band's musical hinterland, from wide-open, hope-filled vistas to
nocturnal cityscapes of doubt, despair, distorted guitars and
diabolical desires. But it felt fraudulent. I criticised U2's clumsy
attempts to hijack the integrity of more sincere, innovative artists.
In response, Bono sent an axe over to the NME office. As in hatchet
job. Geddit?

But now: a shameful confession. With apologies to fellow U2-haters, I
began to fall for their charms in the mid-1990s. With their 1995 side
project, Passengers, and their 1997 album, Pop, they seemed willing
to experiment -- and, more importantly, to fail. Their music became
more humorous, colourful, adventurous and self-mocking. U2 grasped
the importance of not being earnest. Crucially, they also looked like
they were having fun for the first time, rather than carrying the
world's woes on their messianic shoulders.

Pop became U2's first major commercial stiff, alienating much of
their traditional fanbase with its kaleidoscopic camp and disco
kitsch. But the accompanying PopMart tour was fantastic, and remains
the most dazzling stadium spectacular I've yet seen. Any superstar
rockers prepared to emerge from a giant lemon-shaped glitterball
every night to a thunderous wave of pumping techno are clearly not
taking themselves too seriously. I was convinced.

And then -- they blew it again. After burning their fingers with Pop,
U2 greeted the new millennium by retreating to old monochrome
certainties on their past two albums, All That You Can't Leave Behind
and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Both were safe, plodding affairs
calculated to win back the band's commercial heartland. Reverting to
type, taking care of business.

U2's hard-nosed business methods are a red rag to my fellow haters.
In 2006 the band were criticised for moving a chunk of their huge
Irish operation to a more "tax efficient" regime in the Netherlands.
Bono the charity cheerleader was singled out as a hypocrite, which
arguably he is. But attacking U2 for being profit-driven is like
criticising sharks for being predators. They have always been
disarmingly frank about their ambition to be the biggest band in the
world, and the Faustian deals they will strike to get there. The
history of rock is a parade of millionaire tax exiles, not left-wing
revolutionaries. Pop stars are capitalists. Get over it.

The chink in U2's armour is said to be Bono's outspoken charity work
on African poverty and Aids: and, yes, there are many arguments
against celebrities dabbling in global politics. But if the U2 singer
has saved just one life in his decades of activism, all such
criticism looks pretty flimsy.

U2 are bound to stir debate. After all, the Times critic David
Sinclair branded them "rock's last superpower." Bono has been
criticised from both right and left; for doing too much or too
little. But at least he is prepared get his hands dirty on complex,
prickly problems instead of retreating into perpetual pampered
adolescence like most millionaire rockers.

Who else in pop has the clout and arrogance to badger world leaders,
hoping to shape global poverty policy? Even as a sometime U2 hater,
this seems to me a valid use of celebrity power. Ethical
contradictions do not make U2 a lesser band; they are precisely what
makes them interesting.

But let's not forget the foundation of it all: the music. After two
drab albums, No Line on the Horizon marks a step change for U2.
Although not quite the Achtung Baby-style leap promised by early
reports, it is their most sexy and experimental work for more than a
decade. A mix of lustrous electronica, Arabic instrumentation and
revved-up guitar riffs, it sounds like a band having fun again.

A bizarre historical pendulum appears to be at work here. When the
Republican Ronald Reagan was in the White House, U2 made thumpingly
earnest and conservative records. Under the Democrat Bill Clinton,
they loosened up and embraced sleazy hedonism. With George W. Bush,
back to one-dimensional pomposity again. This bodes well for their
albums in the Obama era.

About now, my fellow U2 haters, those familiar symptoms should be
kicking in. The urge to smash the TV whenever Bono appears. The wave
of bile as "Get On Your Boots" blasts from every radio. But try to
fight it. Deep breath. The sickness will pass.

© The Times, 2009.
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Funny...I didn't know that anyone from Pitchfork wrote for The Times.

:wink:
 
adypole said:
All we need now's the little old lady.
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I could change my avatar to a little old lady. :wink:

SecretFly said:
Trademark flourishes as U2 tick all the right boxes

Irish Examiner, February 14, 2009

SPEAKING to the press in late 2007, Bono hinted U2’s next album might well be the most experimental of their career.

The recording sessions had, he revealed, yielded a "a lot of hardcore trance", whilst The Edge’s guitar playing was, said the singer, verging on heavy metal.

Thankfully, the spectre of a U2 LP in the style of the Prodigy hasn’t come to pass. If anything, No Line On The Horizon is the most conventional collection they have put together since the 1980s. Having sloughed off their earnest image on 1991’s Acthung Baby!, only to anxiously re-embrace it a decade later on All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the band has spent much of their recent history in a state of nervous flux — a period from which they have finally emerged with a record that adroitly brings together the best bits from their various incarnations.

Recorded in Dublin, London and Morocco with assistance from the group’s three longtime collaborators, Brian Eno, Steve Lillywhite and Daniel Lanois, No Line On The Horizon packs all of U2’s trademark flourishes onto a single disc.

There’s a nod towards their pedal to the floor Vertigo period on the single Get On Your Boots — a molten rocker that rides a thumping treated riff, over which Bono delivers his finest angst-ridden shriek. It’s a sensibility that is repeated on the title track — one guesses this was the song Bono was referring to when he claimed The Edge had ‘gone hardcore’. Here, a beefy slab of reverb doffs a hat to the ‘desert metal’ of outfits such as Queens of the Stone Age, whilst also referencing psychedelic rock and even cribbing a few tricks from The Killers (quite a reversal considering how much the Las Vegas band have taken from U2).

But elsewhere the tone is markedly more retrospective as U2 dip into their full arsenal of tricks and tics. This is probably a reflection of No Line On The Horizon’s convoluted recording process. Coming off their last world tour in early 2006, the band had promised to put out a new album within 12 months. Initially, they hooked up with Rick Rubin, the career reviving ‘song doctor’ whose intervention has helped rehabilitate artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond and, most recently, Metallica.

Yet things didn’t quite gel. Rather than seeking to re-imagine their sound, the group decided to revert to first principles and sought out the three producers who had served as midwives to their landmark 80s album: Eno, Lillywhite and Lanois. One thing they did change, however, was the scenery — in mid-2008, the foursome rented a compound in the city of Fez in Morocco, where they spent several months hammering out ideas with Eno.

No Line On The Horizon is mercifully free of clunky world-music influences. That’s not to say some of the setting hasn’t seeped into the playing. Indeed, the album’s most interesting diversions, the experimental Unknown Caller and Fez — Being Born will come as a endearing surprise to anyone who believed U2 have long ago ceased to be innovators.

On Unknown Caller, Eno’s influence is immediately apparent: it opens with a loop of Arabic rhythms and a sampled bird tweet before morphing into a widescreen torch song. Even more intriguing is Fez, which may well be U2’s most left-field venture since the overtly experimental 1993 album Zooropa. Sounding, in the best sense, like a Radiohead B-side, it begins with a swirl of disembodied voices, churning static and ebbing beats, which eventually give way to a fantastic Edge solo and swirling prayer chants. For these moments alone, No Line On The Horizon deserves to be fast-tracked into the U2 hall of fame.

Still, too much weird stuff would risk alienating U2’s core constituency — the earnest rock fans of middle America. With that audience in mind, Magnificent delivers a stadium-sized Edge solo and Moment of Surrender contains lashings of free-form emoting from Bono — it’s one of the few moments where the singer sounds as if he’s the only one in the driving seat. You can imagine him fetching up in the studio fresh from lunch with Tony Blair, determined to heal humanity through the holy power of music — in other words, it’s the sort of blue-chip sanctimoniousness which the world expects — and fans demand — of U2.

The tone turns increasingly soulful over the closing straits. Written for Jim Sheridan’s Afghanistan war movie Brothers, the stripped down White As Snow could, for instance, be an updating of Rattle and Hum. Singing in a sparse croon, Bono is devoid of ego while countrified rhythm playing from Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr gives the track the air of a campfire ballad. From the ghost of Robert Johnson to the spirit of The Beatles, Breathe — which Brian Eno has declared to be U2’s best ever — is a psychedelic epic, with a kitchen sink load of orchestration and enough mellow emoting to have Chris Martin breaking out in an envious rash. It’s not quite what you expect of U2 — but it’s interesting to see them have a stab at contemporary arena rock’s vogue for heartfelt balladry.

It closes with arguably its strongest three minutes, Cedars Of Lebanon — a whispered lament which finds Bono emoting in an exhausted croak. Parsing the lyrics, he seems to be addressing the Middle East conflict. But there’s no pat sermonising.

With an understatedness that he might do wise to incorporate into his public persona, the singer whispers his way through an ennui-soaked ballad while guitars shift tentatively in the background. Recalling the less over-the-top moments of The Joshua Tree, it’s a reminder U2 have always made the most sense when they jettison the bombast and sing from the heart.

No Line On The Horizon is released on March 2.

© Irish Examiner, 2009.

Trademark flourishes as U2 tick all the right boxes | U2 news article from @U2
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Another good review in my opinion. :up:
 
Another review that want's to hate them but just can't bring themselves to do it because their music speaks for itself. :up::down:

Pop review: U2, No Line on the Horizon
(Mercury)
4 STARS

Ben Thompson The Observer,
Sunday 15 February 2009 Article history

Ben Thompson The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009 Article history.

First off, let's get a few things straight. U2's new African direction has not really materialised. In fact, it's pretty much confined to the sublime twitter of Moroccan birdsong at the start of Unknown Caller (at least Franz Ferdinand stuck with their Afrobeat adventure for a whole song). As for the inherently ridiculous idea of Bono writing songs "in character" (as if he wasn't already writing them in the character of Bono), well, that amounts to little more than the Iron John day trip of White as Snow, and Cedars of Lebanon's closing nod to the agit-prop genius of mid-period Human League.

U2 No Line on the Horizon Mercury £12.72 And if you've read about Edge's axe-heroes summit meeting with Jack White and Jimmy Page and are expecting a radical shift towards him playing more than one note in each song, there's no need to worry. The patron saint of it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it has kept faith with the two basic moves that have sustained him throughout three full decades in U2's engine room - namely the chug-a-chugga-chug thing and the wobbly note thing.

So why is it that once the clammy sea mist of all the things that No Line on the Horizon isn't has finally drifted away, the ocean-going leviathan that actually hoves into view is so much more impressive than any of the phantasms conjured up by two or three years of pre-release hoopla? Well, chiefly because this third album in what might fairly be called the "lap of honour" phase of U2's career - in which they have gleefully inscribed ever-increasing circles around the triumphalist spectacle of their own ongoing medal ceremony - offers a brutally effective summation of their achievements to date, and something entirely fresh and new at the same time.

It starts out blustery and familiar, before gradually revealing an unexpected and almost lovable sense of vulnerability. A record whose three catchiest songs - the Abba-tinged, Kiss-worthy I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight, the buzzily priapic Queens of the Stone Age tribute Get on Your Boots, and the glaringly self-referential Stand Up Comedy - are the work of four unapologetically middle-aged men. And a record whose finest moments - Bono seeing his own reflection in a cash machine on Moment of Surrender; the euphoric, computer-generated call-and-response of Unknown Caller; and the Kings Of Leon-vaporising 70s rock power-surge of Breathe - are as memorable as any U2 have ever created.

Of all the four stages of U2's evolution, the last one, in which they have pulled out of the commercial swallow dive of their "ironic" phase into a seemingly endless Indian summer, has been by some distance the most interesting. While every wannabe world-beater from Arcade Fire to the Killers seems to have fixated on the brazen grandstanding of phase two (from War to Rattle and Hum), U2 are the only ones with the courage to remember that they moved backwards as well as forwards in that period, becoming not just the biggest band on the planet, but also for a while the most pompous and boring.

The extent of Bono's achievements in charming cash out of actual world leaders now makes a dazzling humanist mockery of the impulse to take the piss out of him. And by channelling the messianic zeal of their original incarnation - as more spiritually inclined rivals to Echo and the Bunnymen for the affections of long mac-wearing early 80s sixth-formers - into actual good works, U2's fourth coming has set their music free to become the holy-owned subsidiary it always promised to be.

• Download: Breathe; Moment of Surrender; Unknown Caller
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bcrt2000 said:
Lets be clear, the reviews that are coming out now are not from the listening parties. Andrew Street had a disclaimer that he only listened to the album once, but if Neil McCormick has the album, then the other reviewers should have it too.
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That is not a logical conclusion because Neil mcCormick has an extra inside track with the band being a school mate and writer for U2 by U2. He could have heard the album multiple times by hanging out with the band. Other reviewers don't have that kind of access.

Dana
 
sue4u2 said:
Another review that want's to hate them but just can't bring themselves to do it because their music speaks for itself. :up::down:
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4 stars for NLOTH from a guy who kinda hates U2 is very good. :up:

purpleoscar said:
Edge solos per the reviews so far:
Magnificent
Moment of Surrender (2 solos?)
Unknown Caller
Being Born
Breathe

Edge is working overtime. :D
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It depends what they mean by solos, for a solo to be classified as one IMO should go for 30+ seconds, but thats just me. I've heard people saying that Vertigo has a solo, and trust me, that is NOT a solo. :D
 
rihannsu said:
That is not a logical conclusion because Neil mcCormick has an extra inside track with the band being a school mate and writer for U2 by U2. He could have heard the album multiple times by hanging out with the band. Other reviewers don't have that kind of access.

Dana
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He wouldn't be subject to the embargo that other reviewers are subject to if he didn't go through the same channels that the other reviewers went through...
 
i think the begrudgingly good reviews are a very, very good thing.

U2 are due for a backlash after their last two albums which are unqualified commercial and artistic successes -- complain all you want about their straightforwardness, they damn things are dripping with Grammies and glowing reviews.

they were all set for a backlash, but this album seems to be so good, it doesn't matter.
 
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