U2 No POLL On the Horizon

Breathe

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The 10th anniversary reissue came with a FLAC download that's actually mastered better than the original release - much more dynamic - so I revisited this album again. I actually have a soft spot for it, and it feels like they had a solid and interesting record that was sabotaged by the band's commercial ambitions. Going through its convoluted history, I think it was hurt by 1) the three turds in the middle that were misguided attempts at big hits, 2) dropping "Winter" despite Brian Eno's urging to keep it as it was his favorite track and 3) the band listening to Chris Martin's suggestion to drop "Every Breaking Wave," which may have been better in its original form. (I still like the version they released on their next album, but I thought the guitar part was better on the 2010 live renditions.) If they were fine with a modest release on the level of, say, Zooropa, I could imagine a better record coming out, but with a gigantic tour planned and a five-year gap since their last album, they tried for a big event and failed.

Anyway, this is the personal edit I had on iTunes which I've upgraded with the 2019 remaster:

1. No Line On The Horizon
2. Magnificent
3. Moment of Surrender
4. Unknown Caller
5. Every Breaking Wave
6. Winter
7. FEZ / Being Born
8. White As Snow
9. Breathe
10. Cedars Of Lebanon

One less track, but it's only a minute shorter than the original album. "Winter" is from a DVD-rip of the stereo audio track from Linear, and "Every Breaking Wave" I took from Songs of Innocence since the NLotH outtake has yet to circulate.

Every time I've gone back to this album I've been disappointed. I've tried different track orders (I recall someone suggested adding a song called "Soon," and a different mix of "Winter" (Linear Mix?), among other changes; no "Boots," no "Every Breaking Wave"), the whole deal, but given this is a band I usually like who has made at least four of my fave albums of all time, the fact that I even have to make an effort at all really says it all.

I'll try to dig up the track order I had. There are so many suggested alternate track albums out there that it reaffirms they probably should have maybe just made ... an alternate album.

i know the one you're talking about - for a long time there was a version similar to mind on SoundCloud. If you take my tracklist, include "Soon" as the opener and remove "Every Breaking Wave," that's what it was.

"Soon" was on a bonus 45 of some collector's edition release of the album. It was also never released in a lossless digital format, only as an mp3 download from their site. They apparently played it at the start of their shows on that tour before they stepped on to the stage.

There are two versions of "Winter." An inferior version was created for a movie that didn't do very well, but the one Eno likes was used for the Linear DVD release that accompanied the album release. So 'Linear Mix' is in reference to that, and that's what I used too.

One reason I think "Every Breaking Wave" is crucial is because the album needed another "single" that fit the rest, and even in its newly recorded form, I think it did the trick. The first five tracks (I guess side A) sounds pretty engaging to me and then the last five (Side B) is more low-key and "experimental" for lack of a better word. But without that track, the album doesn't seem to peak like it should.

(That last sentence in reference to the 10-track program I put together, not the actual release.)

there's not really any salvaging this mess, the problems are way bigger than just the tracklist. only "moment of surrender" is really close to a success. if they hadn't self-sabotaged by getting scared about the lack of hits after the morocco sessions, it still wouldn't have been a very good art-rock album, just less confused.

I was under the impression per Eno that they scrapped a lot of the Morocco sessions simply because their attempts at incorporating Moroccan elements into their music weren't deemed anything special, just competent at best.

after the morocco sessions they were like "oh this stuff is too experimental, there's no hits here" & brought in lillywhite to help them rework what they'd done to be more accessible, discarding the most adventurous & moroccan-influenced material. eno later said that the material they discarded wasn't very convincing in its integration of the moroccan influences, which is very believable.

I guess the days of "well, let's put it out as a side project under a different name (e.g. Passengers)" are long gone.