An Album You Should Own - 2/27/09

U2 - Achtung Baby

At the beginning of "The Joshua Tree", an organ slowly mounts a clarion call that woke a generation and inspired millions. With the words, "I wanna run", U2 had sounded the cry from what sounded like the great wide-open as the desert sun burned warm on their skin.

At the opening of "Achtung Baby", percussion rattles and the drums stammer and convulse. All the while, the guitar lashes out from the darkness. Larry Mullen, Jr. trades his signature military tap for a distorted industrial "thwack". Bono has never been more emotionally laid bare as he is on this album. The Edge's guitar pulses and stabs, while Adam Clayton's bass flutters and undulates underneath the music like a menacing tide. It was a clear signal to all concerned that U2 traded in their love of American music for something darker, postmodern and more European.

The band had crossed into the 90's sounding more vibrant and alive than they did when they broke through in the 80's. After the colossal success of "The Joshua Tree", U2 had positioned themselves as the most popular band in the world. They were so far out in front of everyone else, you didn't even think about second place.

There was U2...and everyone else.

"Achtung Baby" came on the heels of a period of intense reinvention. It also marked a period that almost caused its members to part company. Recorded at Hansa Studios in Germany, all accounts have the band struggling through tumultuous artistic and personal differences before agreeing to return to Dublin to finish the album.

From that period of struggle, U2 crafted an album of thundering dance beats and mammoth guitar lines that set loose the constraints of conventional song structure and allowed U2 the freedom to expose a palpable sense of emotional imbalance and tortured love. Because of this, U2 took leave of their political message and chose, instead, to deal with the personal-trials that accompany love, lust and betrayal. Unlike previous efforts, "Achtung Baby" abandoned production that made U2's songs sound as if they were recorded under endless skies of bright sun. Instead, the songs found on "Achtung Baby" capture the stale feeling of a self-imposed claustrophobia. The people that inhabit these songs walk through a neon-lit netherworld devoid of romance and idealism. These are replaced with desperate loneliness and feverish longing.

There are many highlights on this album, but the one that sticks out is "Until The End Of The World." The song could be about the most famous of betrayals - Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ. Or, it could be about the break-up of The Edge's marrige. Either way, the lyrics are simple, personal and devastating. When Bono moans, "In the garden, I was playing the tart. I kissed your lips and broke your heart", the betrayal is crushing. When the song closes, the line "You...you said you'd wait until the end of the world", is washed away by the sound of the band exploding in full-force. Other songs are overloaded with sexual imagery that is equal parts disturbing and disquieting. "Love Is Blindness" ends the album with an emotional surrender as Bono whispers, "Take the money....honey....blindness."

At the core of "Achtung Baby" is the anthemic and powerful "One". Rumor has it that the song was the first one the band nurtured to completion during the recording sessions. The simplistic nature of the song allows it to be the album's quietest moment. It is also the the most powerful and direct song on the album. "We are one, but we're not the same", declares Bono. In an album full of songs about love, this is perhaps the most ambitious as the band sets about the task of writing a song dealing with the complexities of man's inability to reconcile the things that divide us from our fellow man. Love is the the only true law and U2 contends that it is imperative to our survival that we surrender to it unconditionally.

This album succeeds because the narrative of the songs and the story arc they create mesh seamlessly. The album also marks a transition that saw the band go from young men who were sure they could solve the world's problems to men who seemed doubtful and uneasy about solving their own personal issues.

"Achtung Baby" is one of the few albums I have ever heard that reveals something new about itself with each spin.

It is arguably U2's finest hour and it is definitely an album you should own.

U2 will release "No Line On The Horizon" on March 3, 2009.
They will also make television history by appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman from Monday 3/2/09 thru Friday 3/6/09.

Further listening: "Boy", "War", "The Unforgettable Fire", "The Joshua Tree", "All That You Can't Leave Behind", "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"

U2 - No Line On The Horizon

When U2 testified "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" in 1987, they weren't really presenting a problem, persay. It could be said that they put forth a manifesto that has carried them for almost thirty years. That same restless spirit has carried them around the world and pushes them ever-forward in a journey that has no end in sight.

"No Line On The Horizon" seems to speak directly to the spiritual longing that has defined U2 as human beings and musicians. If the roads U2 have traveled through this life have led them to any understanding, its that the journey never ends. It restarts as life goes on and new destinations are chosen. For U2, the only real currency in life is some level of self-awareness.

There are no answers, only better questions.
In the end, you are only becoming.

U2 seems to revel in this understanding. The band might understand the way of the world, but that hasn't dampened their desire to change it for the better. "No Line On The Horizon" is an album filled with hope and a healthy resolve. Bono and company have embraced their past and carried it forward. This time around, they have made peace with their roles as pilgrims on an unending spiritual-quest. Their reward, it seems, is that they have been able to make this journey together.

As a swell of distortion rises, "No Line On The Horizon"(the album's first track) finds the band attempting to leave a crater on the earth. The band pounds vengefully on the song with flaring nostrils only pausing to whisper the mantra, "No line on the horizon...no, no line." As the song comes to a close, Bono shouts out, "Every night I have the same dream, I’m hatching some plot, scheming some scheme" with such conviction and force that you have no choice but to take him at his word. It's clear that age and success have done nothing to dull the band's sense of purpose. They are still flying out of the starting blocks with their eyes focused forward.

Bono is a master at singing about the act of singing. "I was born to sing for you, I didn't have a choice but to lift you up," he declares in "Maginificent". As the band rolls behind him, Bono restates what he now believes is his life's purpose - to raise you up with his songs. It's as if, in middle age, he has come to terms with his mission and accepts it as good fortune.

The band is hell-bent on exploring different textures and wrapping its songs in the same tenacious melodic grip it conjured on "Achtung Baby". The most glaring of these examples is "Get On Your Boots". As the band explodes through the song, it leaves enough room to break it all down as Bono demands, "Let me in the sound!...Meet me in the sound!" He also celebrates the sheer power of his own voice in the staggering Dylanesque romp of "Breathe". "I'm running down the road like loose electricity, while the band in my head plays a striptease."

Thematically, the bands wants to move its own cursor forward. But, it does so in measured blasts. There is no "atomic" moment that serves as the summation of the album's intentions. Instead, the songs deliberately move forward with fat guitar distortion murmuring beneath the songs and drumming so sharp it sounds vaguely inhuman. There are splashes of piano and the caress-of-steel dash of synthesizers. There are moments where the band is self-referential to the point of referencing sounds heard on this album. The dizzying vocals at the beginning of "Fez-Being Born" seem to foreshadow the line "Head first, then foot...the heart sets sail", as Bono lets loose with the kind of feral wail that calls to mind the singer we first heard on "Boy". The song is a perfect example of how U2 is determined to look back and borrow from its own sonic palette as it forges ahead.

As "Cedars Of Lebanon" rounds out the album, the loose observances of a reporter ("Spent the night trying to make a deadline. Squeezing complicated lives into a simple headline") who is learning to live in a war-zone are interrupted by a lifeless plea to "return the call to home". The Edge, Larry Mullen, Jr. and Adam Clayton play their roles dutifully, providing the limpid, march-like soundscape that lead Bono's voice like a compass in a sandstorm. The song is a marvel of minimalism as Bono surveys the wreckage before declaring, "Choose your enemies carefully ‘cos they will define you. Make them interesting ‘cos in some ways they will mind you. They’re not there in the beginning but when your story ends. Gonna last with you longer than your friends."

This wisdom comes from a man who clearly has nothing to worry about it when it comes to his friends. They are also the words of a man who blurs the line between friend and foe, if it means doing something that might be good for others (see his uneasy friendship with George W. Bush for the sake of relieving Third World debt). It's clear that U2 have faced the world and conquered it, again and again. Contrary to that song, Bono may have made enemies, but his friendships will outlast them. The members of U2 have chosen each other to go through time with...and they have chosen wisely.

As "No Line On The Horizon" reminds us, their journey is on-going and we are better because they are willing to set sail, yet again.

An Album You Should Own - 2/13/09

Morrissey - Your Arsenal

Not many artists have managed to distill the feelings of betrayal, awkwardness and isolation into their music as well as Morrissey. His sharp witted lyrics were full of sexual and social frustration, delivered with a healthy dose of theatrical crooning. In a short time, Morrissey helped turn The Smiths into one of the most important indie bands in British music history. At the same time, he turned himself into an icon.

Your Arsenal rocks harder than just about any of Morrissey's other albums. Boz Boorer assumed guitar duties and churns out swaggering, powerful riffs that give the proceedings a more edgy, ferocious tone. Thanks to the production of Mick Ronson, the music achieves a polished sheen that is a detour from the style that Morrissey fans were used to hearing. The music runs the gamut of Morrissey's usual emotional subject matter and social observances. All the while, his pen is sharper than its ever been. The songs are clever, biting and occasionally moving. For years, Morrissey had been anchored to his adolescence. Truly, the most notable shift is how the songs on Your Arsenal deal with the issues in Morrissey's life on a more adult level.

To many fans, this album was the beginning of a new chapter in this iconic singer's career. This time around, Morrissey's music was made more accessible because he surrounded his sullen lyrics and fragile voice with roaring guitars. By changing the method of his delivery, Morrissey set a new artistic watermark for himself and the legions of musicians/bands he inspired.

Your Arsenal is an album you should own.

Morrissey is about to release a new record on 2/17/09 called Years Of Refusal.

Further listening: "Viva Hate", "Vauxhall and I", "You Are The Quarry"

Further listening (The Smiths): "The Smiths", "The Queen Is Dead"