Me4U2? Part 2

I'm glad I listened to U2's new album, if only for the fact that I now feel entitled to an opinion.


'No Line On The Horizon' is by no means offensive to the ears in a musical sense. In fact, I had an overwhelming feeling that U2 were actually victims of their own success: as I listened, a rash of relatively new bands came to mind, who now seem able to pull off the U2 sound more convincingly than U2 themselves. For instance, opener 'No Line On The Horizon' lacked the punch of, say, similar-sounding Kings of Leon numbers, 'I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight' is schmaltzy and pompous, but somehow lacked the glorious absurdity of The Killers. Similarly, the more earnest gospel-esque tracks left me thinking 'It's been a while since I listened to Arcade Fire'.



Bizarrely, such seeming overfamiliarity with the album tracks meant that when lead-single 'Get On Your Boots' arrived (which, when I heard it on the radio, I despised) it came as a welcome relief. Ironically, this track sounds like U2 being influenced, with a hint of electro fuzz, and a heavy debt owed to 'Hail to the Thief' era Radiohead. Unlike the rest of the album, it at least portrays some sort of interest in music, rather than an interest in getting bums on seats at the Enormo-Dome. In the context of the album, it's a real shot in the arm, despite the terrible lyrics...


... which, as someone who rightly or wrongly privileges lyric writing, will always mean I cannot love U2. Each line is a compromise, each verse written with an open mind, each chorus vaguely inspiring. After 30 years of being in a band, you'd expect their words to reach beyond the awe-struck Americana of 'White As Snow' or the cod-irony of 'Stand Up Comedy'. It's all so safe, so fucking calculated.


I'll be phrasing all of this a little more diplomatically to my tutee. After all, it's not U2's fault that subsequent bands have evolved their sound; in fact, I'm sure it must be a source of pride. But as someone who was secretly hoping for a road to Damascus-style conversion, aware of the many 5 star reviews in the more 'serious' music mags, I do feel a little disappointed.

Special Needs

If you really want a laugh this Xmas, check out the customer reviews for this. I've never known someone have so much contempt for their fans. He's already released 3 DVD versions of the same stand-up show, but apparently even that wasn't the nadir. Never has someone gone, so literally, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Simon Amstell summed it up best on Buzzcocks this week: "I'm glad he's brought out a new DVD - I need a present for someone I hate who's thick."

Hunger

Our first trip to our local independent cinema 'The Phoenix' in East Finchley, a splendid place, and what a film it was: 'Hunger', a gruelling, agonising, painful depiction of life in the cells for Republican prisoners in 1981, culminating in the hunger strike and death of Bobby Sands. A monumental piece of cinema, which carefully navigated the line between representing the prisoners' plights and fetishising their suffering. Bleak stabs of context (the brutal murder of a prison guard in front of his mother) also reigned-in the inevitable temptation to see the film as a pean to martyrdom. Sands' story was nevertheless inspiring and his conviction conveyed expertly. The acting throughout (and especially in the long scene featuring Sands and the priest) was extraordinary. Steve McQueen has made the leap from art installation to the big screen without losing any of the attention to detail or any of his vision. I've always been fascinated in the events of the years I was alive, yet too young to know what was going-on (the early eighties) and so for me this was especially illuminating. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Gareth