Tibi Puiu
U2 No Line on the Horizon
For the last couple of days I’ve been away on a short stray to the mountain side, far from any means of communications – I didn’t even have any signal on my phone, let alone internet. That’s why, when I came home a few hours ago, I kinda felt like the last person in the world who has yet to hear the new U2 LP (if there’s someone who hasn’t, yet, listened to the new U2, please leave a comment :D ).
It’s been all over the folks people, flooding P2Ps and torrent trackers worldwide. Funny thing is, this time, Universal (the label) has no one else to blame but their bloody selves! No, it wasn’t a clumsy reviewer, a snoopy hacker or even a pesky blogger who leaked No Line. It was no one other than Universal itself – sorta. Seems like an Australian online music store, belonging to the Universal group, accidently put out the whole No Line tracklist up for sale, for a few hours. Enough time to spread all over the internet. EPIC FAILURE.
Naturally, Bono and all the other dudes @ Universal were pissed as hell. Yeah, they prolly broke a vase or something… Anyway, since everybody has it on their PCs and iPods (yeah, I know you’re listening to the new U2 tunes as I type. Creepy. I know), it was decided its better to put out the album, in its whole integrity, for streaming on myspace. At least they’re giving people a legal alternative.
As far as the music itself is concerned, No Line is definitely a very strong release. I still am a few listens short to form an unbiased opinion regarding it, but, currently, I’d class it somewhere between “Achtung Baby” and “Zooropa.” And, to tell you the trunth, it blew me away, espectations-wise. I mean, I thought it was gonna be a piece of total bull, especially after the lead single Get On Your Boots came out.
It’s still very much same old U2 stadium, mainstream music. No difference on this side. Lyrics-wise, the band’s getting worse than ever, with an incredibly dull and overly-enthusiastic choice of words present in most of the track list. So, yeah, it’s no classic and definitely not a 5/5 stars record (although, according to Rolling Stone, it is. God!), but no slump either. I’ll play it more in the following days, after which I’ll probably come back with a more in depth review.
Remember, you can stream the whole album down at U2’s Myspace. Be sure to press on the No Line album cover, in the myspace player, so that the tracklist may appear.
