Simply Too Good for their Own Good

U2 Dusts off a Song from the White Album

U2 Discusses Get On Your Boots

The one new song every crowd knows is No Line's first single, "Get On Your Boots" — which the band plays in a more straightforward, harder-rocking arrangement live, stripping it of its electronic elements. U2 love playing the song, but three out of four members now acknowledge that it was the wrong choice for a first single (Edge continues to defend it). 

Bono Discusses No Line on the Horizon

"I walk out and sing 'Breathe' every night to a lot of people who don't know it," says Bono. "I'm a performer — I'm not going to hang on to a song that doesn't communicate and add up to something. They're great songs live, and I think it's a great album. I think it will be seen as 'Gosh, one of their more challenging albums.'"

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/u2-live-from-outer-space-launching-the-biggest-tour-of-all-time-20110411#ixzz3j6C6681z 

NLOTH: The Much-Maligned Album Got Five Stars

"I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a choice but to lift you up," Bono declares early on this album, in a song called "Magnificent." He does it in an oddly low register, a heated hush just above the shimmer of the Edge's guitar and the iron-horse roll of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. Bono is soon up in thin air with those familiar rodeo yells, on his way to the chorus, which ends with him just singing the word "magnificent," repeating it with relish, stretching the syllables.

But he does it not in self-congratulation, more like wonder and respect, as if in middle age, on his band's 11th studio album, he still can't believe his gift — and luck. Bono knows he was born with a good weapon for making the right kind of trouble: the clean gleam and rocket's arc of that voice. "It was one dull morning/I woke the world with bawling," he boasted in "Out of Control," written by Bono on his 18th birthday and issued on U2's Irish debut EP.

O Lord, loosen my lips

March 6, 2009

Without a line on the horizon, we may feel like there is no limit to how far we can go. But it also makes the seas difficult to navigate.

That is, in many ways, where we find ourselves today. It's as infinitely terrifying as it is exciting. Where do we go from here and how do we find our way?

U2's 12th studio album, "No Line on the Horizon," gives a few great answers, if you have the ears to hear and the eyes to see them. (I hope you do.)