Sunday, March 08, 2009

Clueless Music Review

This Time review of U2's new album has to be one of the most clueless ever:
The trouble begins with "Magnificent," another catchy, thunderous love song out of the recent U2 playbook. At least it seems that way until the arrival of the portentous line "I was born to sing for you/ I didn't have a choice but to lift you up/ And sing whatever song you wanted me to." Delivered with an ambivalent growl by one of the most famous men in the world — one who got that way by being a singer of songs and lifter of souls — it suddenly sounds less like a love song and more like a grievance. . . . .

[I]n a moment he will probably regret, [Bono] impersonates your office IT guy ("Restart and reboot yourself") on a ham-fisted attempt at life-coaching.
It's impressive that the reviewer managed to miss such glaringly obvious religious allusions. Indeed, U2 hasn't been as unabashedly religious (without the doubt and struggle seen in songs like "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") since the early 1980s.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at such an obvious error. It would be one thing if U2 was a new indie band; but at this point it's inexcusable for a reviewer not to pick up on religious references. One can only imagine how the reviewer interpreted 'Yahweh' (who's that?) or 'All Because of You' from the HTDAAB?

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  2. I'm just shocked that you read Time.

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