A rock & roll open secret: U2 care very much about what other people say about them. Ever since they hit the big time in 1987 with The Joshua Tree, every album is a response to the last -- rather, a response to the response, a way to correct the mistakes of the last album: Achtung Baby erased the roots rock experiment Rattle and Hum, All That You Can't Leave Behind straightened out the fumbling Pop, and 2009's No Line on the Horizon is a riposte to the suggestion they played it too safe on 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. After recording two new cuts with Rick Rubin for the '06 compilation U218 and flirting with will.i.am, U2 reunited with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois (here billed as "Danny" for some reason), who not only produced The Joshua Tree but pointed the group toward aural architecture on The Unforgettable Fire. Much like All That You Can't and Atomic Bomb, which were largely recorded with their first producer, Steve Lillywhite, this is a return to the familiar for U2, but where their Lillywhite LPs are characterized by muscle, the Eno/Lanois records are where the band take risks, and so it is here that U2 attempts to recapture that spacy, mysterious atmosphere of The Unforgettable Fire and then take it further. Contrary to the suggestion of the clanking, sputtering first single "Get on Your Boots" -- its riffs and "Pump It Up" chant sounding like a cheap mashup stitched together in GarageBand -- this isn't a garish, gaudy electro-dalliance in the vein of Pop. Apart from a stilted middle section -- "Boots," the hamfisted white-boy funk "Stand Up Comedy," and the not-nearly-as-bad-as-its-title anthem "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"; tellingly, the only three songs here to not bear co-writing credits from Eno and Lanois -- No Line on the Horizon is all austere grey tones and midtempo meditation. It's a record that yearns to be intimate but U2 don't do intimate, they only do majestic, or as Bono sings on one of the albums best tracks, they do "Magnificent." Here, as on "No Line on the Horizon" and "Breathe," U2 strike that unmistakable blend of soaring, widescreen sonics and unflinching openhearted emotion that's been their trademark, turning the intimate into something hauntingly universal. These songs resonate deeper and longer than anything on Atomic Bomb, their grandeur almost seeming effortless. It's the rest of the record that illustrates how difficult it is to sound so magnificent. With the exception of that strained middle triptych, the rest of the album is in the vein of "No Line on the Horizon", "Magnificent" and "Breathe," only quieter and unfocused, with its ideas drifting instead of gelling. Too often, the album whispers in a murmur so quiet it's quite easy to ignore -- "White as Snow," an adaptation of a traditional folk tune, and "Cedars of Lebanon," its verses not much more than a recitation, simmer so slowly they seem to evaporate -- but at least these poorly defined subtleties sustain the hazily melancholy mood of No Line on the Horizon. When U2, Eno, and Lanois push too hard -- the ill-begotten techno-speak overload of "Unknown Caller," the sound sculpture of "Fez-Being Born" -- the ideas collapse like a pyramid of cards, the confusion amplifying the aimless stretches of the album, turning it into a murky muddle. Upon first listen, No Line on the Horizon seems as if it would be a classic grower, an album that makes sense with repeated spins, but that repetition only makes the album more elusive, revealing not that U2 went into the studio with a dense, complicated blueprint, but rather, they had no plan at all.
Wow, I've forgotten about this place. I've also forgotten to collect new music... until recently.The big news in the music world last week was the release of U2's new album, No Line on the Horizon. After much deliberation on whether it would be worth getting the album and whether or not I could should afford it, I decided to go ahead and just pick it up while it was still under $10. The album h...
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“You’ve got to balance being relevant and commenting on something that’s happening today with trying to attain timelessness,” said U2 guitarist the Edge back in the 1990s. And he’s right- that’s exactly what such a powerful, classic, monumental rock band needs to do: find a way to [...]
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You can read my review of No Line on the Horizon at http://treblezine.com/reviews/3020-U2_No_Line_on_the_Horizon.htmlU2No Line on the HorizonIinterscope2009Can you believe that it's been 18 years since U2 released Achtung Baby? It seems that U2 have been overshadowed more by the mystique of that Baby than any other album in their recent canon. Achtung Baby was the album that Bono claimed was th...
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For a man who has traveled the globe, met world leaders, visited war-torn countries, conversed with people from every walk of life and studied all the great texts, you'd imagine that Bono would be more interesting. Perhaps there's a reason why confrontational political lyrics remain the domain of aggressive punk and experimental rock, for it is impossible to imagine listening to this album and ...
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MySpace.com/U2 has been my top web destination these past few days. Having acknowledged the premature "No Line on the Horizon" leakage that took place in Australia, the band and its management/label team have decided to make the entire album available to stream, presumably until the album drops in early March. Thank you, U2, for doing this - now I have a couple more weeks of my life to spend in...
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It's hard to say, having listened only once, if I love this song or not. I "kind of" like it. It grew on me as the song went on. It's got a muscular riff back there that drives the song. The steady rythmn section is on it tight.I doubt this one will be considered an all-time greatest U2 song. But, they're allowed to try some things. They can't ALWAYS do the chiming guitar thing every song. (Alt...
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U2 are headed on a monolith world stadium tour in support of this week's release No Line On The Horizon. Sure there'll be a fair share of $250 seats, but the band are promising to keep at least 10,000 tickets to each concert at $30 a pop. In addition to the $30 ticket the band will be offering GA floor seating at $55, according to Billboard.The band will play in a 360 floor set-up allowing for ...
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Here's the first single off the upcoming U2 album, No Line On The Horizon, due out March 3.
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For all of the complaints that U2 singer Bono has an inflated sense of his own importance and that the earnest, spectacularly successful Irish rock band is overrated, I've always thought that they were among the greats.And any growling about U2's lack of humor should be squelched by the funny, self-deprecating bits they've done during their unprecedented week-long residence on the platinum-stan...
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U2's new single "Get On Your Boots" only debuted at Number 37 this week. Pretty weak for one of today's biggest selling rock acts. Not that all hope and expectations for the new U2 album No Line On The Horizon should be lost. Comeback kid Kelly Clarkson's new single "My Life Would Suck Without You" was resurrected from 97 last week to Numero Uno on the Billboard Hot 100 this week. But still doe...
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You can read my review of No Line on the Horizon at http://treblezine.com/reviews/3020-U2_No_Line_on_the_Horizon.htmlU2No Line on the HorizonIinterscope2009Can you believe that it's been 18 years since U2 released Achtung Baby? It seems that U2 have been overshadowed more by the mystique of that Baby than any other album in their recent canon. Achtung Baby was the album that Bono claimed was th...
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There's a line in a Son Volt song -- "Sounds Like 1963 . . . Sounds Like Heaven" -- this sounds like a little like 1983 to me. I am diggin' the new U2
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Thanks to the (ahem) "wonderful world" of Myspace, you too can now listen to the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon, before it's released for purchase.As has become the norm with the social networking site, big album releases by bands that everybody "should" love, the new U2 album is being streamed for the next 11 days or so leading up to its release on March 3.Now, are you ready for the big ...
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As you problably have all read in the reviews or from listening to the album yourself, the new U2 album No Line on the Horizon is a good album and is a good addition to their catolog. In a recent review in Rolling Stone, however, it was given 5 stars, which is their delineation for a Classic.I have been a fan for U2 for more years that I would like to count. When MTV first started, our neighbor...
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Well - Listen for yourself... ~leave an opinion...
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I am a HUGE U2 fan however I don't know if i'm feeling their new single. UB The Judge:: http://goyb.u2.com/?fcsc=EML011809&;utm_source=Publicaster&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EMLU2COS_20090119_single_annoumcement_GetOnYourBoots
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The version of the vid that had initially leaked was essentially a (sexy) boot, so if you tried but failed to see it before, U2's latest video is here to say and visually crisp. It also still sounds the same. Watch it forever .
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It's hard to say, having listened only once, if I love this song or not. I "kind of" like it. It grew on me as the song went on. It's got a muscular riff back there that drives the song. The steady rythmn section is on it tight.I doubt this one will be considered an all-time greatest U2 song. But, they're allowed to try some things. They can't ALWAYS do the chiming guitar thing every song. (Alt...
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It’s been two weeks since ‘Get On Your Boots’ was given its first airing and many have already formed opinions of the song (though we still don’t get the Queens of the Stone Age riff comparison) but now we have some visual reference in the form of Alex Courtes’ (who…
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French duo Justice are back at it…and U2 is their reason. Bono and company employed Justice to remix their lead single “Get On Your Boots”. Now I can actually stand listening to this song for more than 30 seconds. Enjoy!mp3: U2 - Get On Your Boots (Justice Remix)
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U2 No Line On The Horizon, the new studio album from U2, will be released in North America on Tuesday, March 3, 2009. Written and recorded in various locations, No Line On The Horizon is the group's 12th studio album and is their first release since the nine million selling album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, [...]
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 No Line on the Horizon |
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| 2 Magnificent |
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| 3 Moment of Surrender |
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| 4 Unknown Caller |
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| 5 I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight |
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| 6 Get on Your Boots |
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| 7 Stand Up Comedy |
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| 8 Fez- Being Born |
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| 9 White as Snow |
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| 10 Breathe |
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| 11 Cedars of Lebanon |
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Click to purchase…
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 "No Line on the Horizon")
