![]() ![]() 'Rattle and Hum' was released in 1988 as U2's sixth album. Random fact: The band intended to release a second album in 2009, featuring unreleased material from the No Line sessions. ![]() But the record's pacing is torpedoed by dimwitted rock duds like "Stand Up Comedy" (dumb) and "Get On Your Boots" (dumber), which is not to mention perfunctory experimental gestures ("Fez–Being Born") that fail to live up to this band's more convincing '90s benders. Bono's lyrics, less preachy than usual, are driven by invented characters-a drug addict, a soldier, a war correspondent-and "Breathe" and "Moment of Surrender" rate among the band's most compelling work since All That You Can't Leave Behind. No Line on the Horizon is the most adventurous U2 album of the new millennium the band recorded in a Moroccan riad in Fez and wound up with ambitious, sprawling material revolving around war, unrest and redemption. 'No Line on the Horizon,' U2's 12th album, was released in 2009. He says he "was clinging to own life" but hasn't revealed any specifics. Random fact: Bono reportedly suffered a near-death experience during the making of the album. Experience fares a lot better when Bono quits trying to throw his arms around the world and just sings a goddamn old-fashioned rock song ("Red Flag Day," "The Showman").īest song: "The Showman (Little More Better)" The resulting album wears its heart on its sleeve-except it's a big, dumb heart prone to facile platitudes like "Love is bigger than anything in its own way" and "Free yourself to be yourself / If only you could you see yourself." When U2 isn't jostling for cultural relevance by collaborating with HAIM and Kendrick Lamar (see: "American Soul," an interpolation of Lamar's own "XXX"), the band dabbles with autotune ("Love Is All We Have Left") and forehead-smacking couplets like "Statues fall, democracy is flat on its back, Jack / We had it all, and what we had is not coming back, Zach" ("The Blackout"). The prevailing narrative is that U2 was essentially done with Songs of Experience in 2016, then decided to rewrite much of the album to reflect the world-shaking sociopolitical eruptions of Brexit and Trump's election. In which our heroes return with a companion album to their least-loved release. 'Songs of Experience' is the 14th and latest album by U2. These are all the albums you can't leave behind (and a few that you probably can). With a new U2 album upon us- Songs of Experience, released last Friday, is a sort of companion piece to 2014's Songs of Innocence-we're revisiting the band's back catalog in detail and ranking every album from worst to best. U2 is too big to fail, even when it does. The band's recent Joshua Tree 30th anniversary tour reminded us how enduring the band's best work remains in uncertain times. Since then, the Irish band's rich discography has spanned genres and transcended chart trends, incorporating post-punk ( War), classic rock ( Rattle and Hum), electronica ( Achtung Baby) and whatever the hell Zooropais. Three things on this dying planet are certain: death, taxes and the reliable appearance of a new U2 album every three to five years until the end of time.Įmpires have fallen, pop stars have come and gone and technology has rewired the world in the decades since U2's exhilarating Boy appeared in the autumn of 1980. ![]()
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