U2 has a new album, but Jeff Giles explains that Bono hasn’t changed.
Of course, the album still has its problems, the main one being that Bono is still every bit as ridiculous as he’s always been. He helped usher in the era of the Olympus-straddling rock star in the ‘80s, and he’s always seemed most comfortable when shouting to the heavens, but as the years have worn on, the profundity of his message has suffered; here, he wobbles between slogan-ready exhortations (“reboot yourself,” “stand up for your love”) and silly metaphors (“I’ve got a head like a lit cigarette,” “stop helping God across the street like a little old lady”). Still, it wouldn’t be a U2 album without Bono’s outsized grandstanding, and he does get credit for inserting a reference to rock star “Napoleons in high heels” into “Stand Up Comedy” – and although anyone else would sound like a complete asshole singing a line like “I was born to sing for you / I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up,” he infuses it with an undeniably stirring element of grandeur.
