Vlad n U 2
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I'm hoping the live performances of SUC will gather some respect for the song from haters.
Review of No Line On The Horizon *****
“Re-start and re-boot yourself” Bono chants during No Line On The Horizon’s trippy 4th track, Unknown Caller. It might not be his most elegant line but it sums up U2s aims on this their 13th record and their best of the decade. No matter what the cynics say, it is as radical a departure as Achtung Baby was and thank goodness. As much as they were lionised at the time, All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic were formulaic and contrived pastiches of their 80s work, entirely undeserving of the Grammys which rained down on them. All of the elements which made U2 so interesting in 1990s- irony, self-deprecation, sonic experimentation were jettisoned for the safe heart-shaped stage of radio rock. Far from f***ing up the mainstream as Bono once summarised their mission, U2 had become the mainstream, and it grated. Realising the need for change, they hooked up with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, the duo behind The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, and most importantly, Achtung Baby and decamped to Fez in 2007.
The result is a welcome departure. And in three respects. Firstly, there is the rediscovery of rhythm. The peerless “Magnificent” must be the musical love child of New Year’s Day and Lemon- an anthemic melody soaring over a dizzily beautiful disco beat. Appropriately, the song’s working title was “French Disco”. “Stand Up Comedy” meanwhile, is propelled by a circular groove of which the Stone Roses would have been envious and “Get On Your Boots” is as filthily rhythmic as any of Pop’s misunderstood gems. Secondly, there are pleasingly experimental forays. The cookie-cutter melodies and arrangements of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb don’t feature here. Even “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Get Crazy Tonight”- the album’s nearest thing to a straightforward pop song, features a redeeming cello cameo. Besides those customary chimes, The Edge teases a variety of sounds out of his guitar – from the snarl on the title track to the trashy glam chords powering “Breathe”. Meanwhile, ambient pieces like Fez and Unknown Caller break out of swirling false starts and dive into new tempos and melodies. In short, U2 haven’t sounded this inventive since Pop. The third revelation is Bono. His well-documented vocal problems since the mid- 1990s had left us wondering if he would ever sing like his old self again. On Atomic Bomb he sounded stronger, but his voice remained scratchy with little of the thickness or depth of old. Miraculously, with the aid of opera training, his voice is back. “Magnificent” includes his best vocal since “Ultraviolet Light my Way”- just listen to the way he yells the title at 3 minutes 40. But there is nuance also- as evidenced by his gentle drawl on “White As Snow”, the lament of a dying soldier. His lyric writing, recently so lazy has also recovered. We have witty self-deprecation (“Stand up to rock stars/ Napoleon’s in high heels/ Josephine beware of small men with big ideas”), existentialist doubt (“My body’s now a begging bowl that’s begging to get back”) and on “Cedars of Lebanon”, the acute observation of a war reporter (“Now I’ve got a head like a lit cigarette/Unholy clouds reflect in a minaret.”) True he doesn’t always get it right and occasionally the sloganeering gets a little heavy, but on this album Bono is on top form.
Thus, No Line On The Horizon is a departure and a welcome one at that- the sound of a band pushing themselves again. If there is a complaint it is that they could have gone even further- Breathe could have been still more edgy for instance. Nevertheless, would Cedars Of Lebanon, Fez or Moment of Surrender have made it on to How Dismantle An Atomic Bomb? Of course not. They are simply too interesting and for the record, too good!
Good review, but disagree regarding view of All That and How to. All That and How to brought many on board to what U2 were about...otherwise, after Pop, the band might have died. I love Pop, but everyone, even the ones who knew U2 well were confused. Evidence: where were all the fans during the tour? I think they did in the early 00's what they needed to do in order to make it possible for the new horizon. I don't think the people that were unfamiliar with U2's back catologue would consider the grammy winning albums cookie cutter. It probably was much different to them from what they had been listening to at the time. Beautiful Day and Vertigo were unlike any other pop songs on the radio during that time, IMO.
I think you make a fair point well, though the Pop Mart tour was huge in Europe and less of a disaster than you might think (I recall that it was in the Guiness Book Of World Records). I accept that some retrenchment was necessary after Pop but they could have produced an album more like NLOTH- i.e. revisiting old sounds, but still moving forwards. I feel ATYCLB and HTDAAB (the latter especially) pushed U2 a little too far into safer waters, so they ended up echoing the oddly prophetic words of "Summer Rain (which ought to have gone on ATYCLB)
When you stop taking chances
You'll stay where you sit
You won't live any longer
But it'll feel like it
Here's my review, on A damn good offering but obviously can never be a classic - No Line On the Horizon by U2 - Epinions.com
I gave it four bangas.