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The men from the Emerald Isle are about to release their new album "No Line On The Horizon" on 2 March. The first single entitled "Get On Your Boots" is out soon aswell. Critics who have heard the new stuff have reviewed it favourably but have described it as being very unlike the last 2 albums and a throw-back to the days of their 1990's stuff - obviously referring to "Achtung Baby", "Zooropa", and "Pop". The first of those three is one of the best rock albums ever made; the second, which was only meant to be an EP but morphed into an album, was done very quickly and could hardly be described as a classic; and the third was basically rubbish - even the band have admitted it.

Not only was "Pop" a bad album, which all four members acknowledge to this day, but everything that came with it missed the mark aswell. The imagery, the band photos, the lot. It all made them seem like an AOR band and almost as ridiculous as The Rolling Stones. I was reading about the new single on Wikipedia and the cover photo is all wrong. It lacks that certain punch and conveys an image of a band just churning out material because that is what they do. It is so reminicent of the "Pop" era band photos. So the imagery is wrong, they don't have any freshness or punch to what they are doing (this photo REALLY DOES tell a thousand words!) and considering the sound has been described as a throw-back to their 1990's days as I mentioned, I think everything is about to fall about for them again. Have a look at the "Get On Your Boots" page on Wikipedia and see the cover photo for the single.

If the new direction is like the "Achtung Baby" stuff it could really work - that is such a brilliant album. But if, when the critics said it was a throw-back to the 1990's, they weren't talking about that period of U2 from 1990-1992, but were instead talking about the latter two albums I mentioned, and actually referring to 1993-1998, then this could be the year that U2 finally sink down the plughole and it NEVER gets res-erected!! What do people think?

U2 are a crap band churning out, at best, mediocre music for the masses.

Your post is reminiscent of the sort of stuff written by angst-ridden spotty teenagers... who cares if the next U2 album is crap (other than you, obviously)? Given this is a forum for over 18s maybe you're in the wrong place here!

Steady on Bob, I bet you've enthused about Genesis and Gentle Giant in your time.

U2 are indeed shit- and their one redeeming feature is helping to bring Irish music to the attention of the wider world- eg the Pogues, the Dubliners etc.

They have never recovered from one delusion- that they can be bigger than the Zeppelin. Well, amongst trendy spotty kids and sad bastards they might be- but most watchers of rock know one thing:

Nothing Outrocks The Zeppelin.

The new single isn't one of their better efforts but you can get it from anywhere by now.

Here's the video, which is rather good:

Haven't heard the album, but if it's akin to Zooropa I'll be pleased, as that's one of their best for me.

And the album's sleeve art photo, by Hiroshi Sugimoto, is rather classy indeed.

Yeah Bob, I'm not over 18. No. That is how I remember the period of 1990-1998 so well.

The Last word, interesting what you say about the Zooropa album. As I mentioned that was supposed to be an EP but grew and grew. On the last leg of the 'Zoo TV Tour' in 1993 the band were commuting to gigs in Europe and recording the album in Dublin on days off. I remember the Zooropa album songs were so new that when the band did their 4 night stint at Wembley Stadium, The Edge (who does lead vocals on the song "Numb") had to read the words. We were very near the stage and he had a music stand with a lyric sheet on it. U2 are responisble for two of the best albums ever released in the history of music - The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. They have also released sub-standard stuff aswell. I fear things could go tits up with this new phase of the band.

"U2 are a crap band churning out, at best, mediocre music for the masses."

I think they are a classic case of 'style over substance' I dont really like to diss any musician, however in the case of You-Two, I will make an exception, they are at best mediocre- from a musicians point of view.

Fans of course will beg to differ.

Reggie, I agree with you about that. Them moving their business affairs to Holland last year to avoid Irish taxes, when Bono himself goes on about how $10.00 a week can feed a family in The Sudan, etc, was very bad. It was even worse when you consider that U2 heavily supported a project the Irish Government was doing where for every 50 Euro's spent by the Irish Government, the Government agreed to give 1 Euro to projects helping people in Ireland below the poverty line (or something like that, I'm not sure if I've got the figures exactly right there but that was the jist of it). For him, one of Ireland's richest men, to support this and say the Irish Government should do this, then move all the band's cash out of the country into a tax shelter was very hypocrital and bad. That was a big step towards Rolling-Stones-land by U2.