U2
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

It all began with the cotton planters on the banks of the Mississippi. It was the years of the Great Depression, and they sang a rural and raw blues, a blues about the loneliness of the fields and wallets, about the misery of the American dream. I don't think there was television, and besides, Blind Lemon Jefferson was blind and you can imagine how much he cared about checking the stock market quotes. Those were the days when Robert Johnston sang "If I could only change the world" and – damn! – he certainly had good reasons to dream of changing it.
Then, many others followed, and I'm not even sure it was the beginning.

I remember Woody Guthrie and his anti-fascist guitar: he never had an easy life nor glory, except from posterity. He waved his guitar and shouted: here's my rifle, men, I'll fight with this!
Johnny Cash went to play in prisons: he had glory – in life, but almost all outcasts, human beings in desperate search of an anti-hero to cling to. I saw him one last time a few days before he died, and there was a trench carved on his face.
The little good I've learned in life, I owe to these masterpieces of men.

Now this man comes to me, Bono Vox – one with a fresh face, the sizzling bank account, the mansion in Los Angeles, pals with Pavarotti and inspiration from the Gospel – and tells me something like: "Make love, not war, put flowers in the cannons and blah blah blah", and this 36 years after '68 – and I am stunned.
The new work of U2, "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb", is a frightening concentration of cheap rhetoric, disarming clichés, and goodness not even our pitiful left-wing leaders. The rock ride of "Vertigo", the boring electronics of "One Step Closer", the insipid ballad of "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" and the naivety of rock tracks like "All Because Of You". Rarely does Edge's guitar add value, as in the best of the batch, "Miracle Drug".
In "Love, Peace or Else", Bono sings: "We need peace and love, baby don't fight, you can call or I'll call you, the TV is still on" – and I remain stunned.
After the collection of ballads of the Backstreet Boys over 40 in "All That You Can't Leave Behind", U2 now compiles the collection of the most rhetorical political songs of the '60s. Bono and his mates – as lyricists and musicians – can't tell me anything more that hasn't already been written at least 30 years ago.
What can I say – I'm a very hard to please kind of guy.

I hate a gun pointed at a man; I hate this idiotic war for money and oil; I hate Bush and Blair, I hate Pavarotti and I hate the Pope; I hate fresh faces and full wallets. And I hate saints and preachers; at least I prefer saints in hell, dirty and full of anger: in Paradise it's too easy to be a saint.

p.s.: the masterpiece in question is released mid-November: either you wait in eager anticipation or you make do with the promotional copy from "Reckless Record" in Camden Town, or wherever you like. If the latter proves difficult, perhaps it would be better to drink away the 20 euro.
What can I say – I'm a romantic type.