Category: News & Entertainment

No Line on the Horizon – initial thoughts

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I’m listening to U2’s latest album, “No Line on the Horizon” via Myspace today.

@MNFnews asked, why U2 was lending their name to drive up Myspace traffic. Perhaps its because they feared Facebook would claim ownership of the music if they posted it there, or perhaps it was a way to fightback against the folks who decided to leak the album early on P2P networks. Either way, I’m glad its out there and I don’t have to “feel bad” about listening it to it a week early :-).

Kevin Hendricks also did an initial review of the album. I’m sure its good but I’m going to avoid reading his before I do mine and try and write my initial thoughts as I hear each song.

No Line on the Horizon
The guitar and drums remind me A LOT of Achtung Baby, which is one of my all time favorite U2 albums (and the first one I actually purchased when I became a U2 fanboy). Specifically I hear a lot of “The Fly” and “Mysterious Ways” in the song.
She said insanity is a great place to start/Time is irrelevant… The songs in your head are now in my mind…

Magnificent
The opening guitar and drums sounds very White Stripe-ish. Then the guitar and keys bring back echos of “Discotech” and the huge electronic influence on Zooropa and Pop. The rest of the song has a nice Moroccan beat to it, probably getting some heavy influence from the Fez recording sessions. The chorus is catching and interesting lyrically ::
Only love/ Only love can leave such a mark/ Only love/ Only love can leave such a scar.
Seems like an interesting (and true) paradox.
The song’s already the number two most listened to track on the album, behind “Get On Your Boots.”
UPDATE: @kevinhendricks says he thinks the line is actually, Only love can leave such a mark/ Only love/ Only love can heal such a scar I actually like it either way. Guess we’ll have to wait for “the official word” to be sure.

Moment of Surrender
Love the strings in the opening sequence of the track. This could be the “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” Gospel track of the album. The backing vocals on the chorus are interesting. May be nothing more than Bono and Edge with a choral effect but I can see it being performed live with a big Gospel choir behind Bono (Or maybe a kids school in New York performing it.)
Love the organ and everything about this track. Not a rock anthem by any means but I think its a great Gospel song.
I was speeding on the subway/ Through the stations of the cross/ Every eye was looking every other way/ counting down till the pain would stop/ At the moment of surrender/ I folded to my knees/ I did not notice the passersby/ And they did not notice me
This may also be the longest track on the album, which would probably keep it becoming the “ISHFWILF” radio hit but I can’t wait to hear it live in the stadiums.

Unknown Caller
Almost a two minute instrumental opening – another lengthy track coming in at 6:02. Sounds very layered – very Brian Eno. The song seems to tell the story of getting a phone call form an unknown caller in the middle of the night. The caller is calling the person into action (maybe even Matrix-esque). The chorus seems to be another call to action like “Get On Your Boots”. The chorus chants the words ::
Go!/ Shout it out!/ Rise up!/ Escape yourself and gravity…
Restart/ And reboot yourself/ You’re free to go/ Shout for joy if you get the chance…
Wow! The horns are really unexpected after the bridge. Then a classic Edge guitar solo. Nice!

I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight
Sounds like classic U2 with a little different production.
She’s a rainbow and she loves the peaceful life/ Knows I’ll go crazy if I don’t go crazy tonight/ There’s a part of me in the chaos that’s quiet/ And there’s a part of you that wants me to riot…
How can you stand next to the truth and not see it?/ A change of heart comes slow
Every generation gets a chance to change the world/ Pity the nation that won’t listen to you, boys and girls/ The sweetest melody is the one we haven’t heard/ Is it true that perfect love drives out out our fear?/ The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear/ A change of heart comes slow
OK. I’m having to start this one over. Lyrically there’s so much to this song.
Baby baby baby? Are they flashing back to “Ultraviolet (Light My Way)”? Awesome.

Get On Your Boots
Love this track. Loved it since the first hearing and its probably the strongest radio/pop song so far into the album. I’m somewhat surprised its not the first track on the album but it does make an obvious single. It also doesn’t seem to match the rest of the album musically – but who cares?! It rocks. I’ve said previously that it reminds me of “Zoo Station,” “The Fly”, “Elevation” and “Vertigo” all rolled into one. Can’t wait to hear this one in the stadiums either.
Women are the future of the big revelations/ I’ve got a submarine/ You’ve got gasoline/ I don’t want to talk about the wars between the nations
Watch the video here:
[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=51841276[/myspace]

Stand Up Comedy
Oh! Love the opener. Great guitar funk going on here. Lenny Kravitz anyone? 45 seconds in and I’m hoping this is the next single.
I’m gonna fall down/ If I can stand up for your love…
I’m gonna stand up for hope, faith, and love/ While I’m getting over certainty/ Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady
Stand up for your love!
Love this track. Could quickly become a favorite!

FEZ – Being Born
Very layered intro. Flashes back to the bridge of “Get On Your Boots.” Let me in the sound, let me in the sound and then turns into something completely new ala Zooropa’s “Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car.” The lyrics aren’t as clear on this track as the others. Not sure if it’s Bono’s vocals or the echoing bells/keys under the vocals. As of this first listen, it’s my least favorite track on the album. Will need to go back and listen again.

White as Snow
The opening guitar, bass and vocals immediately remind me of Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson (U2’s worked with and written songs for both musicians in the past). Yet the melody reminds me of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” It will be interesting to see if Bono blends the songs in concert.
The horns mid-way through the song give it an American/Rattle and Hum feel. This is the second or third track on the album that seems to play up the horns. I’d assume a lot of that comes from Edge’s work with Music Rising and bringing aid to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
And I’m trying to figure out the meaning behind this first line about forgiveness…
Who can forgive forgiveness when forgiveness is not?/ Oh leave the land as white as snow…
The road refuses strangers/ The land the seeds we sow/ Where might we find the land as white as snow?…
UPDATE: Kevin also thinks the last line should be Where might we find the lamb as white as snow? I really like that wording better. I think it goes with the imagery of the rest of the song. It seems like the singer is searching for a purity as white as snow.

Breathe
Reminds me of “Window in the Skies.” Lots of strings throughout the song. I’d like to follow along and read the lyrics on the verses while listening to this in the future (I think I had to do that with “Window in the Skies” as well.) This could be another future radio single from the album. Classic Edge guitar, mixed with lots of strings. Poppy without being annoying and a chorus that sticks.
I have to find the courage to walk out/ Into the street/ With arms out/ Got a love you can’t defeat / Neither down or out/ There’s nothing you have that I need/ I can breathe…
Walk out/ Into the street/ Sing your heart out/ To the people you meet/ We won’t be drowned out/ There’s nothing you have that I need/ I can breathe/ Breathe now…
I’ve found grace inside the sound/ I’ve found grace its all I’ve found/ I can breathe

Cedar of Lebanon
Bono starts off telling a story ala Lou Read “Walk on the Wild Side.” I read that Bono wrote many of these songs in first-person, as new characters rather than simply telling his own first-person stories. From what I can gather, this sounds like the story of someone living in the Middle East
The worst of us are long drawn out confessions/ The best of us geniuses of compression/ You say you’re not gonna leave the truth alone/ I’m here because I don’t want to go home
Choose your enemies carefully because they’ll define you/ Make then interesting, because in some ways they will mind you/ They’re not there in the beginning, but when your story ends/ Gonna last longer with you than your friends.

Overall, this album sounds very familiar, yet like something entirely new. It’s a different direction for U2 (from All That You Can’t Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb), but not in the way that Zooropa, Pop or The Passengers Soundtrack was. Has a lot of the electronic influence from Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno. Classic melodic guitar riffs from the Edge. Driving percussion from Larry and Adam. A broad range vocally from Bono.

Like I said with many of the tracks, I find myself thinking back to other points along U2’s career throughout the album – perhaps that’s what makes it sound so familiar. I can’ wait till the album drops March 3rd and the following tour.

If you want to get a head-start on everyone, be sure and pre-order one of the five versions of No Line on the Horizon, that will be released March 3rd (March 2 in the UK).

Facebook to users, ‘We own you!’

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The headlines a little misleading. They don’t claim they own you… just own all your content and everything else you post to their site.

They’ve changed a little paragraph in their terms of service to read ::

You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.

posted this earlier this evening on Facebook….

Facebook claims ownership of everything you post on their site

As of Feb 4, Facebook updated their terms of service to claim ownership of everything you post to their site — even after you might choose to cancel your account with them.

I’m not real happy with this at all. I’ve made 99% of my creative content available with a Creative Commons 3.0 license. That basically says that you’re free to use and share my content as long as you give me credit, don’t use it for commercial reasons (make money off of it) and you don’t change the licensing of it (i.e. Copyright the material).

But Facebook now claims they have ownership of everything I post on their site. That includes my recent cruise pictures, random videos of me and my friends eating sushi, pictures of my wedding and honeymoon as well as content we’ve created for the something beautiful podcast.

They claim they have the right to it all – and can do with it as they please. Of course now that there’s a lot of hub-bub going on, they finally clarified their changes as of 5 p.m. today — 8 days after they quietly changed their terms of service.

So, until they change their terms of service back to what they were, I won’t be posting any new content of my own to Facebook.

It’s still easily accessible to to those who would like to view it.

I have an RSS feed setup so you can have everything that automatically posts to Facebook already sent to your favorite RSS reader (I like Google — especially with their 10 guiding principles—including #6, “You can make money without doing evil.” Or, in short, “Don’t be evil.”) or you can have it emailed to you.

Simply visit my blog and click My Life in RSS and you’ll be able to subscribe to the same information I post here on Facebook.

Sorry for the hassle, but hopefully if more and more people are made aware and more and more people take action, something will be done.

For more information check out Steve Knight’s great blog post

And check out how other services like Google, Flickr and Twitter compare to Facebooks Terms of Service

And if you want to abandon Facebook all together but still have some fun online, check out these social networks :: encounterthis.ning.com and somethingbeautiful.ning.com

UPDATE: Here’s the license info from Ning.com…

Ning does not claim any ownership rights in Your Content. After posting Your Content, you continue to retain ownership of Your Content, and you continue to have the right to use and license Your Content in any way you choose. The Content that you upload to any Social Network needs to comply with the terms of this Agreement. At any point, you can take Your Content from Your Network and cancel your account and Ning does not retain any license rights except as provided below.

Bono on “non-believers”

Reading a great article on U2’s new album and Bono’s activism and all things in between ::

He says that a lot of people he most admires are non-believers. Bill Gates. Warren Buffett. “People who are prepared to spend their entire life’s fortune trying to make the lives of people they don’t know a lot better. These people are more Christian than the Christians. Zealotry and certainty are worrying for me. Love keeps religion from zealotry.”

SOH So without love, it becomes another kind of fixed ideology?

Bono “Yeah, that’s right! Anyway, there’s loads of pops in there about zealotry, religious and otherwise, and you’re the only person who’s picked up on this in the lyrics. I mean, ‘Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady.’ Come on?”

SOH That’s a pop at the militant atheists.

Bono “And at myself. I mean, I have a bit of it, myself. I have a bit of the helping God across the road like a little old lady.”….z

“You know, it’s like that thing that people said about U2, that most bands start off writing about girls and end up writing about God, but we started off writing about God and ended up writing about girls. But we found the God in the girls, that would be my retort.”

U2’s new album drops March 2 (3rd in the US). You can pre-order all five versions here.

Jeremy Halbreich to head Sun-Times Media

Former Dallas Morning News Manager and CEO of American Consolidated Media (my former employer), Jeremy Halbreich, is heading to the Windy City.

According to the Chicago Tribune ::

The management shakeup at Sun-Times Media Group Inc. continued Wednesday, as the Chicago newspaper publishing company’s newly installed board tapped one of the company’s directors to serve as chairman and interim chief executive officer.

The new chairman is Jeremy Halbreich, former general manager of the Dallas Morning News and one of three directors elected last month when a dissident shareholder’s successful proxy fight ousted all but one of Sun-Times Media’s sitting directors. As chairman, Halbreich succeeds Raymond Seitz, who lost his seat in January in the proxy fight.

Halbreich founded American Consolidated Media roughly 10 years ago after he left the Dallas Morning News. The newspaper group grew and was sold to Macquarie Media Group (for $80 million) a few months before I left the Waxahachie Daily Light (an ACM owned paper).

With the money and backing of the Australian Macquarie Media Group Halbreich told the Dallas Business Journal that “ACM has grown into the fifth-largest community newspaper group in the U.S.”

Halbreich remained as CEO of American Consolidated until August 2008 when he stepped down and Liam Stewart, an ACM asset manager, was appointed interim CEO.

“Now that the planned acquisition and expansion phase of ACM is complete, it is an appropriate time for me to step down from full-time responsibilities,” Halbreich said at the time of his resignation.

Some have suggested that the Macquarie Media Group purposely purchased up many of the smaller-town newspapers along I-35 in order to help control the local media as it relates to the Trans-Texas Corridor (aka the suggested Mexico to Canada toll road). Macquarie Bank (MMG’s parent company) is heavily invested in toll projects around the US and many expect them to play a roll in many future projects as well.

Get on Your Boots

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U2.com has just published the lyrics to U2’s new single, Get on Your Boots.

Haven’t heard it yet? As of today, you can still listen to the full song online at http://goyb.u2.com/.

Loving the song. Instrumentally I think its a great mix of Elevation, Vertigo and The Fly. And lyrically its inspiring as well. It’s one of those great classic U2 lyrics where they can take on several different meanings.

And I love these two lines ::

Night is falling everywhere / Rockets at the fun fair / Satan loves a bomb scare / But he won’t scare you…
Here’s where we gotta be / Love and community / Laughter is eternity / If joy is real

While the song is supposed to be released on Feb 15th for download, you can download it from iTunes today (in the US at least).

Can’t wait till March 3rd (March 2nd US) when the six different versions of the full album, No Line on the Horizon, are released ::

  • Standard jewel case – with album CD and 24 page booklet
  • Digipak format – limited edition with album CD, 32 page colour booklet and fold out poster. Features access to exclusive downloadable Anton Corbijn film.
  • Magazine format – limited edition with album CD, with 64 page magazine. Features access to exclusive downloadable Anton Corbijn film.
  • Box format – limited edition bespoke box containing digipak format album CD, DVD of Anton Corbijn’s exclusive film, 64 page hardback book, plus a fold out poster. (currently on pre-order sale for $66 as opposed to $95)
  • LP vinyl – limited edition with 2 black vinyl discs, gatefold sleeve, and a 16 page booklet.
  • Special edition digital download version (I’ve only seen this mentioned on iTunes so far).

So here’s what you’re really waiting for – the lyrics to Get on You Boots ::

The future needs a big kiss
Winds blows with a twist
Never seen a moon like this
Can you see it too?

Night is falling everywhere
Rockets at the fun fair
Satan loves a bomb scare
But he won’t scare you

Hey, sexy boots
Get on your boots, yeah

You free me from the dark dream
Candy floss ice cream
All our kids are screaming
But the ghosts aren’t real

Here’s where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you?
You don’t know how beautiful you are

That’s someone’s stuff they’re blowing up
We’re into growing up
Women of the future
Hold the big revelations

I got a submarine
You got gasoline
I don’t want to talk about wars between nations

Not right now

Hey sexy boots…
Get on your boots, yeah
Not right now
Bossy boots

You don’t know how beautiful
You don’t know how beautiful you are
You don’t know, and you don’t get it, do you?
You don’t know how beautiful you are

Hey sexy boots
I don’t want to talk about the wars between the nations
Sexy boots, yeah

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Meet me in the sound

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, now
God, I’m going down
I don’t wanna drown now
Meet me in the sound

Let me in the sound

Let me in the sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Let me in the sound, sound
Meet me in the sound

Get on your boots
Get on your boots
Get on your boots
Yeah hey hey

Finally, read what Dave Fanning has to say about the new song and the new album…

First impressions is that there’s eleven tracks on the album and ‘Get On Your Boots’ is the one you’d instantly say is the single. It’s the ‘Vertigo’ of the album – although a completely different kind of song. That was a new song which was an instant hit night after night on the last tour and this song will be the same on the next tour. People will be impressed, it’s very U2 and there’ s nothing wrong with that, a big song with lots of layers but not overproduced. Great track.