U2’s ‘Horizon’ majestic, but could be a tough sell
MELISSA RUGGIERI MUSIC CRITIC
Published: February 26, 2009
THE BEAT: U2's "Horizon" majestic, but a tough sell U2 isn't the type of band you expect to see sitting in with Paul Shaffer for a week on "Late Night With David Letterman."
Those slots are usually reserved for people like John Popper of Blues Traveler or Ashford & Simpson artists whose names aren't synonymous with "global superstars" at this time.
But this is a different era for U2.
In the five years since the Irish quartet released "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb," everyone from Mariah Carey to Neil Diamond has popped up to pimp new projects on "American Idol," and Prince -- never mind Bruce Springsteen -- embraced the benefits of performing to the largest TV audience of the year during Super Bowl halftime.
But it's still a little disconcerting, even cringe-worthy, knowing that U2 will hang out with Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra every night next week as a means of promoting its new album, "No Line on the Horizon."
This mainstream shilling is now a requirement if an act hopes to sell even a few hundred thousand copies of its work the first week out.
But in a musical landscape where John Mellencamp licenses his songs for car commercials and Coldplay turns a new video into an iPod commercial, you have to shrug and swallow the reality that even heritage acts must now pander.
Though U2's "Horizon" won't officially be released until Tuesday, leaks sprouted across the Internet last week. So the band did what every musical act is forced to do these days: Let the public hear it for free.
U2 chose its MySpace page (
U2 on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads) as its official listening room.
And now, with the generous airtime provided by Letterman (you can already hear him crowing, "Aren't they tremendous, ladies and gentlemen?") and the band's first morning-show performance a week from tomorrow on "Good Morning America," U2 will embrace the challenging task of selling its beautifully atmospheric, muscularly constructed and lyrically stimulating album to a nation attuned to three-minute radio hits.
There really aren't any of those on "Horizon," which will please fans of the band's more complicated work ("Zooropa") and disappoint those in love with the soaring melody of "Beautiful Day" or the guitar-slashing adrenaline of "Vertigo."
"Horizon" demands your attention and requires dedicated listening -- you'll miss many of the album's nuances if you merely blast it on the car stereo.
Instead, slap on some headphones to fully appreciate the lightly plinked synth notes in the opening title track and the keyboards that ricochet between the left and right channels and shepherd one of The Edge's sunbursts of sound on the aptly titled "Magnificent."
With frequent knob-twiddlers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois returning for production duty (with some help from Steve Lillywhite, who steered U2's 1980 debut, "Boy"), the album revels in being a dense, textured soundscape, devoid of the airy arena anthems the band has perfected during its career.
There are a few glimpses of classic U2 -- "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" benefits from a sumptuous chorus and Larry Mullen Jr.'s metronomic snare drum drilling, and the album's most infectious track, "Stand Up Comedy," is as funky as it is jaunty.
Since Bono had five years to scribble and rework lyrics, his achievement here isn't surprising, though he still occasionally gets trapped by his own Bono-ness.
But, for every "playing with fire until the fire played with me" ("Moment of Surrender"), there's an "only love can leave such a mark, only love can leave such a scar" ("Magnificent") to remind us that Bono has always been a realistic romantic.
His self-awareness is also commendable, as he sings on "Crazy," "The right to appear ridiculous is something I hold dear"; and his smirk is practically audible on "Stand Up" when he offers, "Stand up to rock stars, Napoleon in high heels. Josephine, be careful of small men with big ideas."
The album's first single, "Get on Your Boots," was met with a combination of indifference and puzzlement, but when it appears on the album -- track six of 11 -- its blast of sonic fuzz and techno squelches comes as a kooky intermission.
"Boots" might be the black sheep of the album, but it's impossible to ignore Bono's pleas to "let me in the sound."
The song is an exquisite mess, but if the goal of "Horizon" is to scrape away the commercial residue and submerge itself in layers of thick instrumentation, it succeeds mightily.
Now let's see how well it translates to the masses.