Billboard reports that U2’s new record, No Line on the Horizon, is slated for release on March 3— a few months after its original release date, which had been slated for this year—on Interscope Records. U2 fans should be excited that it was recorded with the holy triptych of U2 producers: Steve Lillywhite, Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois. Heck, I’m excited. I admit it; I’m a huge U2 fan. Huge. There was a time where I think I wanted to marry Bono (side note: I typed “bury Mono” first!). Yeah, I know. He’s pompous and arrogant and U2 sucks, etc. etc. I get it. I understand the haters’ complaints and even agree with a lot of them, but I still love U2. Sometimes I just want unbridled anthems and romanticism, okay? Sometimes I want big statements and big recordings. I must admit, however, the 2000s have left me feeling a little “meh” on the band. I liked All That You Can’t Leave Behind for the zing it added to the live shows (that was a good tour), but How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was just crappy.
The other day I busted out Zooropa for no good reason, and I honestly think it’s held up quite nicely. It’s off-the-cuff, ballsy, and filled with lots of questionable ideas. That’s not a negative! Pop, too, is rife with bad ideas, and, though the songs are a bit lackluster, I think the thing’s got chutzpah. The last two records were a “return to form,” but they feel more like going through the motions. I’ll take bad ideas over bland ones any day. According to “one source” at Billboard, the new material is “amazing and a little out there.” That has me hopeful. This statement from Jimmy Iovine, explaining the delayed release, does not:
“I met with the guys in U2, and they say to me, ‘You know what? This album needs two more songs, and it will be exactly what we have in mind.’ I go there and I listen, and I agreed with them,” Interscope-Geffen-A&M chairman Jimmy Iovine told Billboard last month. “It’s a great record, but it deserves the time.”
Uh-oh. Even as a huge fan, I can’t think of a time when I ever said, “I wish that U2 record was longer.”
U2 Looks Toward New ‘Horizon’ [Billboard]
I have to agree. The deafening praise that greeted the last two records was totally nonsensical to me. How hard is retreading your own glory sound of yore, only with vastly inferior ideas behind it? I think perhaps U2’s feelings never recovered from when noone what “got” their weird phase, which like you, I love.
I have hope for this album. Please don’t go stomping on it with a throwback pile of crap, Bono.
At long last, the long-title trilogy comes to a close.
Look, the guitar line at the end of the Clash’s “Complete Control” is as good as the one at the beginning of “Gimme Shelter.” OK? Me & my friends are like the drums on “Lust for Life,” also. U2. Pshaw.
I liked All That You Can’t Leave Behind for the zing it added to the live shows (that was a good tour), but How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was just crappy.
See, I was totally the other way around on that pair. I still say once you get past the first four tracks (all radio singles), All That You… is not much better than Pop. In short, it’s a front-loaded album, designed to reinvigorate the U2 “base” and not much more.
But Atomic Bomb had a first single that was a truly new sound for them, a couple of other good ones, and a more consistent tone and quality all the way around. It’s no Achtung Baby or anything, and yeah, you could’ve packaged it in a generic white box with “U2 ALBUM” in Helvetica type on it, but for all that it did the job ably. I think I placed it at the bottom of my Top 10 that year.
The other day I busted out Zooropa for no good reason, and I honestly think it’s held up quite nicely.
There, we agree. Zooropa is far and away the most underrated album in their canon. Which is a little odd to say about a record that debuted at No. 1 and sold a couple million, but it produced no hits and is generally regarded as the “weird” album, and I think it’s actually more traditional, and a better representation of the core of what makes U2 U2, than anyone realizes.
I think you mean their œuvre, not their canon.
Bury Mono? No way.
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>> generic white box with “U2 ALBUM” in Helvetica type on it
Will make an awesome iTunes thumbnail.
@How do I say this … THROWDINI!: HA! Loves it. I met Siobhan de Maré once in the late ’90s. She was a real firecracker, that one. And she smelled amazing.
@Elmo Keep: [philthomson.ca]
@Halfwit: It took this long for a Negativland reference?
@Halfwit:
Also a totally underrated U2 album.
Perhaps All That You Can’t Leave Behind was over-praised but put its arrival in the proper context: the mainstream music landscape was littered with the likes of N*Suck, Natalie Imbruglia, Staind, and Korn. Against that backdrop U2’s album was like a gallon of ice water in the desert, with a clearly legible map to the nearest oasis affixed to it. Yes, lately they’ve been pandering to the base–and drummer Larry Mullen, who’d had enough of the band’s experimental phase–but who else are you gonna try to please, the Top 40 folks with severe ADD?
In the end, Pop, Zooropa, and the most recent two, may be individually different from each other but they’re pretty much the same in terms of consistency, which is to say, not much. Some good tunes, though.
@Lucas Jensen: I was a little surprised as well.
@KikoJones: N*Suck? Really?
@dyfl: Glad to see the Zooropa love here! I thought I was the only one.
Ever since The Waterboys abandonded their ‘Big Music’ (I know, they tried to return, but it wasn’t the same), U2 has served as a good (albeit water-downed)(no pun intended)alternative. They always seem to paint with the largest brush strokes possible, which frequently leave listeners hanging. But when it works it, it’s electric. I also think it cynical and far too easy to paint Bono as a pompous ass. His heart is in the right place, and after acheiving the level of success that he has musically, of course he is going to try and cast a wider net. He has to do something with his time and money. At least he isn’t all bravado and hubris. At least he doesn’t talk non-stop about himself or refer to himself in the third person. At least he doesn’t whine about not winning some stupid industry award, which certain artists with a lot less integrity seem to spend an awful lot of time blogging about.
Love this post - and I have to agree, I hope this new album tries something a little more adventurous. I can’t stand another three years of defending myself as a U2 fan whenever someone mentions Vertigo (or chastising those who DO like it). :P
Count me in as another one who thought ALL THAT… wound up overrated and ATOMIC BOMB under-rated. That said, the tours for said albums were the reverse — they were great in ‘01 and robotic in ‘05.
And yes, ZOOROPA is a masterpiece. And what I wouldn’t give for a time machine to go back to late 1996 and march into their studio and say “No, gents, you’re doing it wrong. HERE’s how you produce POP.”
‘Zooropa’ is by far my least favourite U2 album - ‘Pop’ is the underrated one in my opinion. I used to hate it but it took me a couple of years to appreciate it.
‘ATYCLB’ was excellent…very little filler on there and it contains probably their best non-single (”In A Little While”). ‘How To Dismantle….’ wasn’t a huge step away from what they did on the previous album but I didn’t mind at all.