U2 certainly don’t need another review, let alone one from a hard rock and metal site but there was a time when U2 were at the cutting edge of rock rather than it’s somewhat pompous millionaire grandfathers mistakenly bestowing their last album on everyone because of course the world needed that didn’t it?
We all needed an album forced on us by a bunch of wealthy old men who didn’t need the money, by a company that appears to pay very little to the artists it allows to use its platform (seemingly paying very little tax in the process). Come on now that was surely a post-ironic statement about the state of the music industry these days and the real struggle of young musicians to get heard?
Back in the 70’s Punk tried to kill off the bloated Rock behemoths that has started to (and in some cases always had) taken themselves too seriously and they only partially succeeded. It was a period of huge creativity on all fronts and almost the complete antithesis of today. This album may sound bloated and bereft of ideas but the sad fact is that there are no ‘new Punks’ out there to stir things up. The digital age indeed seems intent on destroying music.
If you must add this latest opus to your collection then there are scant pickings. Largely written by Bono following his bicycle accident there’s a dwelling on the theme of mortality and a scattering of afterthoughts on recent world events – both of which just seem like watered down facsimiles of past glories. There is either nothing left to say or a simple weariness in saying anything of import that creeps into the songs.
Sure there are the anthems, like ‘Love Is Bigger Than Anything In Its Way’ and there are tender moments like ‘You’re The Best Thing About Me’ there are even weary calls to arms like ‘Get Out Of Your Own Way’ but they all sound drab and half-hearted like Bono knows that the stadiums may still be packed for the rafters but no one came for these songs they came for the past and not the future, least of all this rather squalid present.
The lowest ebb perhaps so far in this long and often wonderful career comes with the song ‘Song For Someone’ a track you feel that the ‘lords of dull antiseptic rock’ Coldplay would have dismissed out of hand. Sadly ‘The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)’ a title that conjured up so much promise (the only time I saw The Ramones was incidentally with U2) is awful too.