By Andrew Romano, The Daily Beast
The new single 'Ordinary Love' comes with a tasteful lyric video, but there's been a bothersome trend in U2's music lately.
For nearly five years, the world has been U2less.
Sure, the Irish rock juggernaut has continued to play live shows, setting the record, in 2011, for the highest-grossing tour of all time. But not since No Line on the Horizon came out in early 2009 have Bono & Co. released any new studio material. No soaring choruses about faith and love and Africa. No reverby, ricocheting guitar lines. No martial drum beats. No chart-topping uplift.
Until now. Yesterday, Bono & Co. finally ended the debilitating U2 shortage of the last half-decade and delivered a new song. It's called "Ordinary Love," and it was written specifically for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, the new biopic about South Africa's legendary anti-apartheid crusader and eventual president. It comes complete with a tasteful lyric video and limited-edition 10-inch vinyl release for Record Store Day.