No Line On the ForeheadHorizon

Ok, so Bono is not the first rock star to head towards AARP age, but still. I remember when I mentioned to my father that I was going to see U2 at the Fleet Center back in 2001, and he said, "kids are still listening to those guys?"

The commercial success thus far of their new album strikes me as more an indictment of the current musical scene than anything else. From the alternately scorching and soaring tracks of their early to middle years, they long ago settled into a comfortable and unthreatening senescence. Likewise, it will be interesting to see if their music survives beyond their singular stylization of it. There's an old joke that covers of Bob Dylan are so popular because anybody can sing his songs better than he can, but Bono in his earlier days was without a doubt one of the great vocal talents of the last century.