I've slowly been listening to U2's new album No Line on the Horizon (bland album cover on left) over the past couple days while procrastinating on my homework. I admit to being a U2 fan, as much as they are the poster boys for commercialized music, and as much as Bono and his oversized ego annoy me. But they didn't get this big by making bad music.
The album has gotten rave reviews with critics, and I'm inclined to agree that it's pretty good so far, with a few exceptions. One of the first tracks, Get on Your Boots, reminds me of that iPod commercial staple Vertigo that I hated so much--with all its "yeah yeah yeah" jazz that South Park so perfectly made fun of a few years back. I didn't like Get on Your Boots much better.
The other song I'm not crazy about is I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight. A stupid name for a song, and it's as pop-culture as it sounds. I know how much Bono likes his money, so of course I expected a few cheesy probable singles like this.
It gets better from there, however. As a fan of their eighties-and-early-nineties work (think The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby) the song Magnificent sounded like vintage U2 to me, and might be my favorite on the album (so far). I also liked Moment of Surrender, which featured a long, slowly building intro like their old classic Where the Streets Have No Name and is about as long as Streets at 7 minutes 24 seconds.
Anyway, I might get around to listening to the rest of it tonight, and maybe some homework as well.
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