We now come to 2009, when U2 was still a band I used to love, but didn't have a lot of interest in anymore. I don't remember exactly when, but they did a week's worth of performances on the Letterman show, and even though I don't watch him anymore, I somehow found myself checking that out, and my interest in the band was suddenly there again. It sure wasn't because of that atrocity known as "Get On Your Boots." IIRC, I think hearing "Magnificent," which sounds like classic U2, was what made me pause and want to listen to them again. Before I knew it, I was listening to their old stuff again and buying the new album,
No Line on the Horizon.
I was pretty wild about this album at first, despite the fact that it is squashed to death. It is unreal how badly compressed this record is. The verses of "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" sound like the mastering is trying really hard to push down and compress the living shit out of it; it ruins the sound of most of the album. But, at first, I liked it a lot. I still love "Magnificent," and "Fez/Being Born" is one of the more underrated deep cuts. Despite the rather silly lyrics, "Unknown Caller" is too much of a melodic pleasure to not enjoy the hell out of. "Moment of Surrender" is really good, but I fear we will never get that one perfect version of it, mostly because the studio version suffers because of the sound, and Bono is too shout-y during the verses of the live versions. A lot of U2 fans are very fond of "Breathe," but while I think it's pretty good, I never have the urge to listen to it. The title track is a mess; there was a good song in there somewhere, but they never really found it. "Cedars of Lebanon" actually isn't bad at all, but it gets lost at the end, especially since they have far better slower songs. "White As Snow" is a snooze fest, and "Get On Your Boots" and "Stand Up Comedy" are both embarrassingly bad. The live dance version they did of "...Crazy..." live is far better than the mess in the studio.
Overall, this is not a bad album, but it's not that great either. The sound of it makes it hard to really judge, but there is some really good music on here. And being that it
did help get me back into the band, I will give it a slight nostalgic bump.