U2 & Me

by Matt Patterson

I anticipated the new U2 album, “No Line on the Horizon,” with something approaching dread – the kind of dread only a longtime fan can muster.  

I stuck with U2 virtually my whole life – from their sophomore album October (the first record I ever bought with my own money), through the ambient experiments of “The Unforgettable Fire,” to their earthy and earnest “Joshua Tree” phase, all the way through the avant-garde “Zooropa” wackiness.  God help me, I even loved “Pop.”

Through it all, it had been easy for me to tune out the political pontificating for which the band was known, drowned out as at was by so much wonderful music.  But by the time of 2004’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” that ratio had begun to shift.  The band’s musical output declined in both quantity and consistency, while at the same time Bono’s political activism went into overdrive.   (more…)

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Posted Mar 18th 2009 at 3:47 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Political Humor, Reviews | 63 Comments