U2 - No Line on the Horizon
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
U2 began working on a new album with Rick Rubin in the middle of 2006 and at the end of that year Bono said, “Our band has certainly reached the end of where we've been at for the last couple of albums. I want to see what else we can do with it, take it to the next level; I think that's what we've got to do. We're gonna continue to be a band, but maybe the rock will have to go; maybe the rock has to get a lot harder. But whatever it is, it's not gonna stay where it is.” Two songs from the Rick Rubin sessions have been released on a singles compilation, but the rest of that material was shelved. Then U2 started working on new songs with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois in the middle of 2007. No Line on the Horizon is the culmination of this second working arrangement, but in no way is it “the next level” for the band. Unless, of course, they were planning for the next level to be much, much lower than where they started.
This is where I should explain that I disagree with most U2 fans about the band’s best material. I didn’t much care for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (4× Platinum in the US) and I’ve never thought The Joshua Tree (10× Platinum in the US) was as great as the sales would lead you to believe. (I really do like the reworked blues-y version of “Bullet the Blue Sky” though. And I guess “Vertigo” is okay.) This is my order for their top five albums: Pop, Achtung Baby, Boy, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and War. Admittedly, it has been a while since I’ve listened to several of those albums so the order of the bottom four might need to be tweaked a bit, but (the critically undervalued) Pop is definitely my favorite.
- Score
- 23%
Bono was right about needing to change something with the band…they need to (once again) take things to the next level because they’ve already explored this territory. U2 are at their best when they redefine their sound (Pop, Achtung Baby) and even though Eno and Lanois both share songwriting credits on this album it feels more like some other band trying to mimic the sonic qualities of U2 than anything else. But getting the producers to help write songs isn’t necessarily a mistake…their main problem is the decision (conscious or otherwise) to stop taking risks after the “commercial failure” of Pop (only Platinum in the US) in 1997. The next biggest problem is Bono, or, more specifically, his lyrical choices of late. The musical elements on this album could probably be enjoyable if almost every song didn’t have at least one unforgivable phrase. An article about No Line on the Horizon quoted Bono saying, “If this isn't our best album, we're irrelevant,” and if he truly believes this, then, unfortunately, U2 is now irrelevant.
