At last, after a week of pure hell in terms of work, we have come to this, the ultimate guide to No Line on the Horizon, the latest U2 album that has reached #1 status in 30 countries. It topped the Billboard Charts here in America, selling nearly half a million copies in its first week. This marks the seventh time a U2 album has reached #1, tying them with Led Zeppelin for third most ever. (they are still behind The Rolling Stones [9] and The Beatles [19]).
Now a few things of note before we get into this. For one thing, this is going to be very in-depth as this means a lot to me, so I hope you at least read it all and amuse me. Secondly, it would be very, very helpful and make more sense if you're listening to the album/song as I write about it. I'll be referencing particular lyrics, instruments, and even more minor nuances that affect the overall song that are nonetheless important. So if you don't have a copy of the album, go and buy it! You won't be disappointed. Alright, here we go...
This album MUST be listened to more than one time. I'm telling you. You won't like it on your first complete listen, or probably your second, and maybe even the third. But, please give it 4-5 listens and the songs will begin to show themselves as emotionally deep, different, complex, and powerful. It's not nearly as accessible as their previous two works, which gave us such comfortable, radio-friendly songs like "Vertigo" and "Beautiful Day." This was done intentionally. Bono's said recently that music isn't like movies, which you see one or two times. Music gets under your skin and it's something that you (hopefully) listen to your entire life. At least that's how music used to be. With this album, they tried to really make a complete record, meaning an idea from start to finish. The result is such a great success that it is something that they haven't been able to fully do since The Joshua Tree in 1987. I'm not saying that this is the best album since then, but their most complete in terms of imagery. In other words, when you listen to the album from start to finish, there is a clear picture in your head of what the band wanted to get across. For me personally, the recording sessions they had in Fez, Morocco really shine through, and I'll try to point out those Middle Eastern/African influences as I go song-by-song.
1. No Line on the Horizon
The album opener is my favorite (at the moment). You immediately hear the freshness and energy in both the music and Bono's voice. Speaking of which, he's really reaching into the stratosphere, almost yelling, but completely in control. His voice hasn't been this strong since 1993, which is a pretty big accomplishment for a near-49-year-old. The rush of Bono's voice and the funky guitar riff is reminiscent of "Zooropa" (the song) from '93. Towards the end of the song, it really just explodes:
I'm a traffic cop,
Rue du Marais
My siren's wailing,
But it's me that wants to get away
It's very similar to the latter half of "Zooropa" after it sort of slows down and then...BANG, everything explodes from the instruments to the ambience to Bono's voice:
And I have no compass
And I have no map
And I have no reasons for reasons to get back
Anyway, this is a great opener that really lays out how the rest of the album will unfold. It's the type of song you'll want to blast through the stereo with the windows down. Well done, boys.
Best lyric:
I know a girl with a hole in her heart
She said infinity's a great place to start
Time is irrelevant, it's not linear
Then she put her tongue in my ear :)
2. Magnificent
The drone that begins this song is similar to the darkness that was portrayed on their 1991 album, Achtung Baby. However, it quickly turns into a much more positive effort, with Edge's classic ringing guitar notes echoing throughout the song. To me, this sounds like a mix of "Discotheque" and maybe "Zoo Station" and "Mysterious Ways." It's got a synth-like dance beat in the buildup at the beginning and may become the biggest hit from the album. It's going to be the next single and is actually already #73 in the Billboard Hot 100 (anyone know how this is possible? Isn't the Hot 100 based on physical sales??) Whatever, I'll take it. The chorus, after a couple listens, may certainly become a classic U2 hook:
Only love,
Only love can leave such a mark
But only love,
Only love can heal such a scar
Justified till we die
You and I will magnify
The magnificent
Bono shows off his falsetto which HE STILL HAS right before Edge's solo. It seemed for a while that he'd lost it from about 1997-now (partially due to a small operation he had on his throat and his smoking habit, which I believe he's quit). The following is a great guitar solo from the Edge that isn't too over the top and actually quite subtle with the slide guitar. It's really nice and adds a further dimension to the song.
Best lyric is the chorus...because it's true!
3. Moment of Surrender
This is what I'd describe as a gospel song and may well have fit on the band's foray into American music (1988's Rattle and Hum). It's a slow burner, at least for me, but proves to be a beautifully constructed number. Once again, Bono's showing off his pipes, really reaching high up in register in each of the verses. The song slowly starts to build with an organ, indicating the song's solemnity--it happens to be about a drug dealer who sacrifices everything, including his family for his addiction, ultimately leading to desolation:
Playing with the fire
Until the fire played with me
This man goes so far that he gets to the point where he can't even recognize himself:
I was punching in the numbers
At the ATM machine
I could see in the reflection
A face staring back at me
I'm not too sure, but I think he redeems himself, as Bono sings the chorus:
At the moment of surrender
I folded to my knees
I did not notice the passers-by
And they did not notice me
In the sense that the guy is realizing his faults and surrendering to them. It is really a nice, moving song that's sort of an anti-ballad, in that the subject matter certainly isn't "romantic," but the music in the background indicates a softer emotion. And emotion is a key word for this song, it being the album's most emotional for me. Surprisingly this song was done in ONE TAKE in Fez. Bono said that he has no idea how he was able to sing this high and attributes it to really getting into the character about which he wrote. You'll note the chorus is truly a chorus of people. This, I think, is where the Moroccan influence partially rears its head, although this can be discerned more easily in the next song...
Best lyric:
We set ourselves on fire
Oh, God, do not deny her
It's not if I believe in love,
But if love believes in me...
Oh, believe in me
4. Unknown Caller
This song is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. The band recorded in an open courtyard in a riad they rented in Fez. At the beginning, you can hear birds chirping, which were not added later, but were completely natural sounds of the surrounding atmosphere. The horn-like sound is also reminiscent of Middle Eastern music, in my opinion. In comes Edge's guitar, which provides a really great melodic opening, perfectly reflecting the "Sunshine...sunshine" he sings soon after. You can almost imagine the sun rising/shining over the city of Fez.
The song is different than what we're used to, especially the chorus, which doesn't repeat the words, but maintains the same melodic structure throughout. Again, the voices almost chanting the chorus emits the Moroccan themes they explored:
Go, shout it out
Rise up
Escape yourself
And gravity
Once again showing their dimension, U2 employs some French horns before another great guitar solo by the Edge that invokes a Pink Floyd-esque tone. In U2's work, it reminds me of the end of "Love is Blindness" from Achtung Baby.
5. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
This is the most radio-friendly song of the bunch, which is certainly not a bad thing. In fact, it's one of my favorites. It's familiar, yet new and fresh with a really great hook and chorus (Steve really likes this one!)
It's not a hill, it's a mountain
As you start out the climb
Do you believe me or are you doubting?
We're gonna make it all the way to the light
But you know I'll go crazy if I don't go crazy tonight
And then comes MY favorite part, again the "Achtung Baby" part, if you will:
Baby, baby, baby
I know I'm not alone
Baby, baby, baby
I know I'm not alone
Simple, but it's similar to the refrain of a great U2 song that's unfortunately overlooked, "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)."
Best lyric:
Listen for me, I'll be shouting
Shouting to the darkness
Squeeze out sparks of light
You know we're gonna go crazy
You know we'll go crazy
You know we'll go crazy if we don't go crazy tonight
6. Get on Your Boots
Better in the context of the album as a whole, although it's reached it's peak of likeability for me. Now that I've listened to the whole album multiple times, they should've gone with another song for the first single, but that's neither here nor there. There is still a lot of good on this song, although it might be sonically weird to listen to (especially Bono singing "sexy boots" over and over). Definitely not the strongest song on the album, but not the worst (for me) either. There's a "When the Levee Breaks" drumbeat going on, which is great and the guitar riff is top notch. Unfortunately, the lyrics take probably too long for the casual fan to get into. Either way, once they polish it up for the tour, it should pretty damn good--a nice little adrenaline burst.
7. Stand Up Comedy
The weakest on the album. U2 tried to make a contemporary funk/pop song with the help of Black Eyed Peas (front?)man Will.i.am. Don't ask me why.
It's too bad, too, because the Edge really comes at us with a hardcore guitar sound throughout the song. It's much like "New York" from 2000s All That You Can't Leave Behind, which was amazing instrumentally, but suffered from shoddy lyrics. I'm not sure that was the case here, as the lyrics seem to be solid:
The DNA lotto may have left you smart
But can you stand up to beauty
Dictator of the heart?
I can stand up for hope, faith, love
But while I'm still getting over certainty
Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady
...but it's just too different (in the bad way). Although Bono has a little poke at himself and his small stature, which I smirk at everytime I hear it:
Stand up to rock stars
Napoleon is in high heels
Josephine, be careful
Of small men with big ideas
It's nice to know that with all the serious stuff Bono deals with, he knows that there's criticism out there and he can take a piss at himself along with the best of them.
8. FEZ-Being Born
Possibly the most challenging and abstract piece the band has ever recorded. It's arguable because they produced some pretty crazy tunes back in the mid-1990s, especially with the whole Passengers project..."Lemon" was pretty strange too, with Bono singing every verse in high falsetto. But I digress.
Despite it's complexity and overall strangeness, this song has really grown on me. If anything, you need to respect and give credit for them experimenting this way. It takes some balls, that's for sure.
The first part (the "FEZ" section) begins with many sounds from all over the place. I think I've got the idea behind it down. I think that the band wanted you to really feel as though you were in Morocco at the time they were recording. You can hear people talking in a marketplace, perhaps, a helicopter flying overhead, and the familiar "Let me in the sound, let me in the sound..." lyric from "Get on Your Boots" panning from left to right and right to left, as if the band's recording sessions in that open courtyard are drifting across the city to your ears.
The second part ("Being Born") begins almost as though someone is tuning a radio--sudden static to clarity. Again, the music is really prominent. Edge uses his echoing guitar notes to complement Bono's almost scat singing. Larry's drumming sets a martial beat to the song. This song, out of all, paints the most clear picture of the area in which they drew their inspiration:
Six o'clock
On the autoroute
Burning rubber, burning chrome
Bay of Cadiz and ferry home
Atlantic Sea...cut glass
African sun...at last
As in the title track, there is a sort of climax as Bono shouts "oh, oh!" and the ambient background noise (it's not really a discernible instrument) increases.
In the second chorus, we again hear the multitude of voices, chanting along with the African rhythms. Bono expresses the idea of being born again:
A speeding head, a speeding heart
I'm being born, a bleeding start
The engines roar, blood-curdling wail
Head first, then foot
Then heart set sail
Again, there is no real melodic hook within the chorus, which is very anti-song, as we have come to know it. Maybe it's just me, but listening to this song many times, you can make more and more out of it because of its depth and complexity. Really well done, I think.
9. White as Snow
Easily the most somber song on the album, evidenced by the lone piano notes at the beginning and the "Wake Up Dead Man"-esque guitar picking during the verses. It seems like this is the most "Irish" U2 has gotten perhaps since 1981's song "Tomorrow" off of October, which featured traditional Irish instruments. This, however, is more of a country/folk element to it. Now, I'm the first to say that I HATE country, but this isn't American country music--it's wholly Irish, and I can't exactly pinpoint why that is, it's just got that feeling to it.
The actual content of the song is a soldier's final lament as he lays dying. He reminisces of his past life, how he went hunting with his brother when they were boys, etc:
My brother and I would drive for hours
Like we had years, instead of days
Our faces as pale as the dirty snow
...
As boys we would go hunting in the woods
To sleep the night shooting out the stars
...
If only a heart could beat as white as snow
This, too, could fit nicely into Rattle and Hum or maybe even The Joshua Tree, as it has similar elements that "Mothers of the Disappeared" also had. Overall, really a devastating song and perhaps the most poetic lyrics Bono has ever written. The guy puts a helluva lot of emotion into whatever he sings and knowing that for almost all of these songs he's writing in the third person (i.e. never experienced directly what he's writing about), he sure can evoke a lot of emotion in the listener through his passion.
10. Breathe
Love the placement of this on the record...it kind of smooths out the roughness of the previous tune. Another new instrument for the band as a cello plays a staccato couple of notes rapidly and then BAM! Here comes the Edge :) Bono employs quickfire lyrics that perfectly goes along with the beat of the song and has you rocking your head and tapping your feet. I'm loving the traditional melodic hook and chorus with the Edge singing a prominent background vocal and harmony (he's got a great and unique trill in his voice).
My favorite lyric?
Nine-oh-nine St. John Divine
On the line, my pulse is fine
But I'm running down the road
Like loose electricity
While the band in my head plays a striptease
The
Roar
That
Lies
On the other side of silence
The
Forest
Fire
That is fear so deny it...
Hopefully if you don't have the album, the way I structured those lines might help you to visualize how it might be sung. I have a feeling this will be a great hit as well. The last verse is really great as Bono sings:
We are people born of sound
The songs are in our eyes
Gonna wear them like a crown
Walk out into a sunburnt street
Sing your heart out, sing my heart out
I found grace inside a sound
I found grace, that's all I found
And now I can breathe
Bono has always expressed his "amazement" about the song "Amazing Grace" and that grace is a sound. Kinda cool/interesting when you think about it. Fun fact: when asked once if U2 were playing their last concert, what song they'd close with, Bono answered "Amazing Grace." Probably kidding, but shows how he's intrigued by that particular lyric.
11. Cedars of Lebanon
Wow, after that rush of energy comes this slow really pessimistic and negative closer. They usually close on a positive note, penning songs about God directly (1983's "40", which was taken right from Psalm 40 of the Bible, up to 2004's "Yahweh"). Here, however, is something rather sinister, similar to the closer of Achtung Baby, "Love is Blindness," a song about a messy divorce.
"Cedars of Lebanon" is written by Bono in the third person about a war correspondent who seems to have become so accustomed to his life following the brutalities of war that he can find himself to go back home, despite the pleas from a "voice" telling him to "Return the call to home." In fact, he's beginning to forget about his past and his family:
I have your face here in an old Polaroid
Tidying the children's clothes and toys
You're smiling back at me
I took the photo from the fridge
Can't remember what then we did
...
I'm here 'cause I don't want to go home
Bono's voice here isn't so much singing as it is reciting, which isn't a bad thing. It adds to the overall effect of the song. He sounds tired, raspy, worn out. Bono even expresses his disillusionment, both with the war and its increasing normality and with the seemingly absent God:
Child drinking dirty water from a riverbank
Soldier brings oranges he got out from a tank
...
You're so high above me,
Higher than everyone
Where are you in the cedars of Lebanon?
Effing powerful statement right there, probably expressing the thoughts of those people who are affected by horrors of war/condition that despite being religious, they question God's participation or lack thereof.
For me, though, the most powerful statement is the final lines--the last of the album:
Choose your enemies carefully
'Cause they will define you
Make them interesting 'cause in some ways they will mind you
They're not there at beginning,
But when your story ends
Gonna last with you longer than your friends.
I mean, wow. Ending the album on that note? Intense. But it does hold a great element of truth. Grudges can certainly outlast friendships. People change and grow apart, but those who you are enemies with have the capability of lasting a lifetime. And in them, they can reveal who you truly are--they can define what you do and make you act in a certain way. Phew.
And so we come to the end. Overall, the influences both in the location in which they recorded the album as well as their revisiting familiar sounds from their more experimental efforts ("Time is irrelevant, it's not linear) yield extremely positive results. Once again, it's very complex and has a LOT going on, so it's important to let this one grow for you. It was not made to be an instant classic with sweeping, grandiose melodies, but rather turning that idea almost on its head. For that, you should applaud their effort and respect their reinvention. Although not as dramatic a turnaround as was The Joshua Tree to Achtung Baby, it is certainly enough to warrant that a "new" U2 has come. I myself liken the reinvention to the one the took from War to The Unforgettable Fire--both have similar elements present (i.e. discernible guitar/bass/drums/melodies), but the latter focused more in ambient music and more open-ended ideas. Here we see a move from straightforward rock and roll without glitz and glam (Behind to Bomb) to the "anti-song" structure, African rhythms and sounds, and the physical use of surrounding recording space to achieve something different (although there are still "radio-friendly" songs on there).
Is this their best album? No, not at all. Is it one of their best? Yes. Time will tell whether it could be their best, but in my estimation, I don't think it will be. Of course, when Achtung Baby came out, people were PISSED because they didn't understand why U2 would mess with a good thing. Now that is considered by many to be their best work. I personally find The Joshua Tree to be better, but not by much. What it comes down to for me is the imagery that is conjured up in my head when I listen to it that perfectly coincides with what the band was feeling and wanted to express, which I'm sure is a very, very difficult thing to achieve. Achtung Baby may have more developed ideas and songs, but lacks the cohesiveness of the former.
No Line on the Horizon for me is their 3rd best, supplanting Behind, which had a weak second half. This one is strong from start to finish and each song is peppered with hints of old, present, and future sounds. A great, great, great collection of music that certainly has gotten under my skin. I hope this review will help it get under yours.
A change of heart comes slow
No comments:
Post a Comment