U2/ No Line on the Horizon/ Interscope (2009)

By Chaynes

A disclaimer: I am a big U2 fan.

A second disclaimer: I am one of those U2 fans who think that they should have stopped making new albums after Achtung Baby.

Disclaimers aside, this is not going to be an exercise in U2 bashing. Rather, I aim to explore what it is about more recent U2 albums that makes fans like me experience disappointment and a longing for the early days of the band. No Line on the Horizon, although highly anticipated, unfortunately inspires those experiences.

If you watch TV, especially with cable through Comcast, your first exposure to Line was probably the band’s promo videos featuring the song “Get on your Boots.” Whoever let Bono and The Edge release this track as the album’s lead single should be dragged out behind the shed and shot. This song is a testament to how badly modern rock needs to die. Modern rock, luckily for most of us, is on the wane, but for some reason U2 decided to tap into its beer-chugging ethos. If there is any of U2’s usually pointed socio-political commentary/criticism hiding somewhere in Bono’s yelped lyrics, the lame-as-an-old-mare “riffing” blasted out by The Edge obscures any chance we might have had to recognize it (with a name like “The Edge,” he should have known better!)

Fortunately, “Get on your Boots” is an outlier on Line. There are moments where U2 remember and channel the epic, anthemic power of their early output (specifically “Moment of Surrender” and “Magnificent”), with soaring vocals and delayed guitar melodies growing to grandiose levels. While these are staples of the U2 catalogue, helping to define the band above and beyond their contemporaries, something still feels hollow. While we recognize many of the moments we love in U2’s music here, Line starts to feels like well-crafted artifice, rather than brutally honest authenticity.

There is a raw, angry, and violent quality that effectively informs the melodramatic pop of U2’s first few albums, especially so in the wildly successful classic The Joshua Tree. This mixing of emotions, in large part, is what catapulted U2 to worldwide fame and has kept them there for decades. Bono charged his songs with attacks on worldwide injustices and then made good on his threats by becoming and international activist (like it or not, he has done good work!). The music was a perfect complement to these politically motivated messages, creating expansive settings drenched in reverb big enough to encompass the world’s most pressing concerns.

This is the quality I find lacking in Line. While some tracks approach this compelling nature, songs like “Get on your Boots” do not even come close. This album appears to divide along two lines: 1.) embarrassment as we listen to U2 attempt to stay current with rock trends instead of innovating what they have, and 2.) nostalgia inspired by the brief moments where what we used to love about U2 are partially reiterated. Neither of these two paths allow us to appreciate Line for what it is, a mediocre rock record.

The latent energy (bursting forth into subversive political power) of the early records is no more in Line. It is a piece of music, and there are certainly worse pieces of music, but in context, this album falls impotent at the feet of the men who created it. I am the last person to criticize musicians for exploring new territory, but there is always a risk. U2 are getting up in years, they have dominated the rock scene for a very long time, and so there must be constant pressure to both fulfill the needs of longtime fans and catch the eyes of new generations. Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have managed to do this, and Line proves that U2 could, but they just need to keep trying.

Recently, U2 reissued their first few albums in fancy deluxe editions, including excellent packaging and tons of live and unreleased material. This to me seems a more effective way to capture younger audiences: show them why you started rocking in the first place.