No Line

Now that I have been listening to it for a few weeks, I feel that it is safe to claim U2's No Line On The Horizon as one of their best albums. I do believe that as a piece in its entirety, it is the best album that they have made. Listening to No Line has reminded me of listening to The Cure's Disintegration. The songs are good or even great, but put together they are heavenly.

Upon my first listen, I felt that it was a little slow and I had to work to find the groove. There is a simplistic feel to the record that slowly proves to be a facade. Each listen reveals some new layer of texture that wasn't at first apparent. The sound scape is so rich and dense, that it amazes me that it can come across feeling so simple.

Even though there are fantastic and larger than life songs buried in the play list that are sure to be crowd pleasers in the stadiums and on the radio, it is the context that makes this effort so noteworthy. The non-radio friendly songs are some of the most poignant marks on the album. Fez - Being Born sits in this bass groove, rolling drum part, and layered vocals create suspense and build to other worldly unchorus from outerspace (thank you Brian Eno). Then the next song drops you back to Earth in a quiet and haunting folk tale of a song carried by simply plucked chord progression on acoustic guitar. From there they launch into Breathe, a loud reminder that U2 are still the Irish rock band that once proved that mullets can rock.
I love the notion of a concept album. No Line has it down all the way to the art that it is wrapped in (see above). The whole package of an album has such potential to create mood, tone, and atmosphere. All of it can work together to create a larger experience. I strongly suggest adding this to your record collection if you are someone who has ever enjoyed music in a context larger than one song at a time.

Perhaps the music industry is floundering not only because of an obsolete business model, but because they have forgotten to make a product worth buying. Most albums today are a few singles, some filler songs and a generic, genre image cover art. Black guy looking angry with a logo that is all blingy = rap album. White dude with thumbs tucked in belt buckle under a wide rimmed cowboy hat in a picture that looks like it was taken at Glamor Shots down at the mall = country album. Attractive woman in a form fitting outfit with a some sort of "come hither" look on her face with partly open mouth and lighting that emphasizes her curves = any top 40 female artist. When the cover art is disposable and half of the music is disposable, why would anyone pay full price far an album. Even though music is a product, it only retains its value if it holds up it's artistic integrity.