U2 - No Line on the Horizon

U2's new and much awaited studio album dropped last week. As you know, I've been an observer of U2 for a long time, both because of their Irish connection and their God connection (this last one is debatable, but hey, at one time there was enough evidence surrounding them that some critics accused them of being a Christian band).

I have not purchased the record, but the band is streaming it at their website so I have listened to it in it's entirety.

I couldn't really collect my thoughts and state how I felt about the album until I read what Donald Miller had to say about it. I think he sums it up pretty well.

Among the challenges he feels the band faced in making this album:

Go ahead and speak your spiritual themes, but don’t get too Christian. It’s uncool. Really uncool. Not that you care but you do. Walk the line between expressing the powerful redemptive themes in your work and translating those themes to a western audience that puts those themes in the box of absurd anti-science and judgmental condemnation. Make people who know Jesus think you’re talking about Jesus but don’t talk about Jesus. And do this with a clean conscious. And mean what you sing.

Continue to appeal to a young generation you may not understand. These kids are into technology. They Twitter and blog and have the attention span of gnats. They think you’re old because their parents like you. but they’ve got the money, so throw them a bone. The twenty-somethings are all crazy about Radiohead.