The return of U2

Just like that, U2 took over the world again. And on Martin Luther King Day, no less.


It was late Sunday night, must have been four in the morning. I’d just finished working on the layout for our last issue, I was mostly asleep, and yet for some reason (I think I may have been double-checking the price of an iPhone app whose review we were about to publish), I ventured into the iTunes Store and was promptly greeted with a simple banner announcing that the new U2 album was available for pre-order. What’s more, the first single was available for download right then and there. Which meant I wasn’t about to get to sleep any time soon.



“Get On Your Boots” is only what I expected in the sense that I knew it would be unlike anything U2 has attempted before. After all, U2’s last two albums landed squarely in the band’s breadbasket, focusing on the kind of music that the band does best, and now that U2 had come fully back to center it was time to veer recklessly into left field again. And based on the first single, at least, that’s exactly what they’ve done with their new album No Line On The Horizon, which less than twenty-four hours after its release already occupied the #1 and #2 slots on the iTunes album chart, seeing as how it’s being offered in both a deluxe and standard version. Mind you, the people buying the album now won’t be able to download it til March.

How do I even go about describing this new song? The best frame of reference I can offer to U2 fans is that it more or less picks up where Vertigo left off in terms of straight- ahead brashness. But it’s got a style of its own. Where Vertigo sounded just a little too much like early middle-period Led Zeppelin, Get On Your Boots probably most resembles Love And Peace Or Else from U2’s last album. But then again, that song had an inherent plodding crunchiness to it, whereas this one is clearly looking to knock your socks off and blow them several miles down the street.

There’s a mechanical sound to Get On Your Boots, but not an electronic one (meaning that POP-phobes can fear not). It’s just…different, for lack of a more descriptive word. And the start-to-end song structure isn’t even close to being what you’d expect from a lead single. You’ll have to go spend the ninety-nine cents to judge for yourself. And while the first single tells me exactly what to expect from this album in terms of how unexpected it’s all going to be, I won’t even hazard a guess as to what the rest of the album sounds like. Just don’t expect much retracing of familiar territory.



And if nothing else, the release of the new song is yet more evidence that U2 knows how to come out of nowhere (what’s it been, five years since the last record?) and within a matter of hours retake the world. On Sunday the 18th they performed at Obama’s pre-inauguration jam, then released the new single the next day, which just happened to be not just a holiday but Martin Luther King Day, which couldn’t be more appropriate considering that the band created THE King tribute for the past quarter century – don’t tell me you’re too young to know who “Pride (in the Name of Love)” was written about – and of course the day after the song was released Obama became President. Only U2 could release a first single on a holiday, when no one is even supposed to be paying attention, and make it work to their advantage.



iTunes says the full album is expected to drop on March 3rd. The rather spare album cover (pictured at left) appears to depict an equal sign – could that be tied to the “free trade” equal sign that Coldplay’s Chris Martin often displays during performances? Or is U2 just having fun with us, calling the album “No Line On The Horizon” and then depicting two lines on the horizon on the album cover?

So many questions, so few answers yet. But U2 is back. It’s suddenly their world again and for the next year we’re just living in it. And that’s not a bad thing at all.