U2

Woebot

Well-known member
Simon tried to slip this in at the RIU&SA panel, claiming that of the post-punk brigade (and indeed beyond that in the entire field of music) only Bono and his gang have managed to keep alive the link between Music and Life. So cheeky! It would have made the perfect point for a spectacular flare-up, but strangely no-one rose to the bait. Bit of a mind-bomb that one blissblogger!

But let's face it, he's right. I've never once bought a U2 record but I'll concede (not even grudgingly) that U2 are alone in imagining a word where music matters outside the domain of sound. OK I admire Grime for something like similar reasons, it has ceased its own methods of production and created its own fantastic disorientating spectacle, but even though its politicised its politics (here in the broadest sense) appear to say a different thing. I wonder if i'll feel the same way about Grime when IT IS as big as Hip-Hop (aw, probably i suppose!)

But U2! You've got to give them credit. Its one thing to hate on the catholic church quite another to actually meet the Pope and level with him (though naturally some might see that as appeasement, but for my money having a quiet meeting with Murdoch would have a stronger effect of the direction and behaviour of the global media than bombing SKY, thats not compromise in my book). And say what you like about crass charity records, Bono's done as much as he could have done for Africa and the Third World Debt.

I reckon he's pretty bloody cool. And you know what, to boot, i thought they're latest single, the one where they're all standing on what looks like some desert flats and some vaste shapeshiting wind is smearing them downstream at 200mph while they churn a quite fantastic-sounding bit of Hero-era Neu! Well I thought it was excellent.
 

martin

----
I get their songs in my head quite a lot, "A Celebration" was really good. Most of my friends when I was a young teenager were second generation Irish, so there was a lot of U2 / Pogues / Simple Minds (sorry, but this band are complete SHIT and nothing will change my opinion on that one) / Hothouse Flowers (ditto) / Therapy? banter. I like U2 in the same way I like Jamiroquai, I'd never think I did, but when one of their songs comes on the radio or the dancefloor (look, I'm not cool enough to go to Fabric) I find it quite enjoyable.

True story - me and a friend and his sister were crossing a road in Dublin, and Bono was coming the other way - he obviously thought we were trying to avoid him as he snapped "I hate it when people do that" in a loud voice. A while after, he did some interview where he was talking about people in Dublin blanking him cos he's successful, or cos they didn't want him to think they knew he was successful...whatever

Other funny Bono story - Feargal Sharkey banging on U2's dressing room door, going apeshit, screaming "Come out of there!" after they'd performed 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' on the tube. Again, I don't know why, unless he considered it was making light of the event
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
WOEBOT said:
Simon tried to slip this in at the RIU&SA panel, claiming that of the post-punk brigade (and indeed beyond that in the entire field of music) only Bono and his gang have managed to keep alive the link between Music and Life. So cheeky! It would have made the perfect point for a spectacular flare-up, but strangely no-one rose to the bait. Bit of a mind-bomb that one blissblogger!

But let's face it, he's right. I've never once bought a U2 record but I'll concede (not even grudgingly) that U2 are alone in imagining a word where music matters outside the domain of sound. OK I admire Grime for something like similar reasons, it has ceased its own methods of production and created its own fantastic disorientating spectacle, but even though its politicised its politics (here in the broadest sense) appear to say a different thing. I wonder if i'll feel the same way about Grime when IT IS as big as Hip-Hop (aw, probably i suppose!)

But U2! You've got to give them credit. Its one thing to hate on the catholic church quite another to actually meet the Pope and level with him (though naturally some might see that as appeasement, but for my money having a quiet meeting with Murdoch would have a stronger effect of the direction and behaviour of the global media than bombing SKY, thats not compromise in my book). And say what you like about crass charity records, Bono's done as much as he could have done for Africa and the Third World Debt.

I reckon he's pretty bloody cool. And you know what, to boot, i thought they're latest single, the one where they're all standing on what looks like some desert flats and some vaste shapeshiting wind is smearing them downstream at 200mph while they churn a quite fantastic-sounding bit of Hero-era Neu! Well I thought it was excellent.

What is the supposed connection between the empty, flaccid pomposity of U2's music and 'life'? The point about postpunk was not that it was transcendently political (i.e. that it urges you to action after listening to it) but that it directly acted upon you - posing all sorts of question about the relationship between formal reinvention and political transformation. The relationship between U2's tedious old man r and r posturing and their 'concern' is entirely transcendent - buy this hyper-predictable commodity and also get to feel good about yourself...

U2 - including their 'concern for third world debt' - are capitalist ideology in itself, hawking the absurd notion that third world debt is some contingent accident rather than a necessary and inevitable consequence of capitalism. Bono is no different to Gordon Brown, an apologist for and defender of the existing world order whose reformist moralising serves both to lower expectations (all we can expect is some modest 'reforms' of the system) and to conceal the real political situation beneath layers of mystificatory, simplifying, personalist nonsense (if only people were less gwwweeeeedy).

The notion that the world is improved by U2 is the best ever argument for nihilism. Surely better a destroyed or worsened world than one in which we have to put up with their bluster.

U2 are the anti-punk. Only when they are universally lambasted, only when it is as embarrassing to listen to them as it was to listen to ELP in 1977, will we begin to reclaim any of the ground corporate rock has won since the demise of postpunk.

(Obv the comparison with ELP is unfair to ELP; even they didn't pretend to be hip and relevant twenty five years into their miserable career....)
 
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Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
I'm astonished that Woebot's post is not some sort of obscure satire. I mean this is U2. Everytime I see Bono, I want to punch him. Their best album by far, Achtung Baby, is still absolutely awful (go, on listen to it!).

I mean, U2. Really?
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
Diggedy Derek said:
I'm astonished that Woebot's post is not some sort of obscure satire.

Surely it is... like Mr Agreeable in reverse.... take a loathsome, obviously oppressive corporate rock monstrosity of no conceivable merit and make a case for them....
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
"Waves that leave me out of reach
Breaking on your back like a beach."

For that single lyric alone U2 should be damned to all eternity.
 

3underscore

Well-known member
The topic of U2 will pretty normally get a rise out of me, so I don't see why I should make this occassion an exception. The primary rise is the matter of confusion between U2 keeping Life and Music together, or the actual act of one individual using/abusing his fame to push political issues. U2's career of songs actually meaning anything political really ended in their early years - Sunday Bloody Sunday era I would hazard a guess (I am no U2 fan, or record owner, so any obsessive can take me to task if they choose).

No U2 work since Rattle & Hum has struck me of being of any particular comment whatsoever. They are being misaligned with bono's constant self-promotion and charity work (when have Clayton, Mullen Jr or The Edge been seen giving a shit about Bono's campaigning?!?). A cynic would suggest that Bono clearly identified from the moment Band Aid launched his band to the big time that being involved in charity (especially "confrontational" artistic charity going against governments) sells a shitload of records. And hence, his campaigning was born.

WOEBOT said:
say what you like about crass charity records, Bono's done as much as he could have done for Africa and the Third World Debt.

Maybe so, but no more so than the poor student who gives up their time to work at oxfam. Bono makes serious cash indirectly through his public campaigning, surely?
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
3underscore said:
A cynic would suggest that Bono clearly identified from the moment Band Aid launched his band to the big time that being involved in charity (especially "confrontational" artistic charity going against governments) sells a shitload of records. And hence, his campaigning was born.

indeed. nothing i've ever seen bono say or do has made me think for one second that he's a nice, caring, thoughtful person who really gives a shit about the charity stuff that he does. (i'm not saying he doesn't, but he's certainly never convinced me the other way). i've always just thought of him as a smug, self-promoting, arrogant cunt.

musically though, the jamiroquai comparison is spot on - i've always wanted to hate all their songs though will occasionally find a few of them to be quite good...
 

martin

----
3underscore said:
Maybe so, but no more so than the poor student who gives up their time to work at oxfam. Bono makes serious cash indirectly through his public campaigning, surely?

How many students give up their time to work for Oxfam? None of the fuckers I've ever encountered!
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
I should impartially point out that U2 were directly responsible for the ruination of a genuinely great group - Simple Minds. After Kerr took that walk on the beach with Bono and decided to degenerate from New Gold Dream to U3, the Minds were aesthetically done for, though sadly and immensely successful commercially as a result. Have you heard "Speed Your Love To Me" recently? It's the sound of New Pop being strangled, or drowned in a sweaty Linn drum tsunami.
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
Yes: everything falsely claimed on of U2 - that they muster a panoramic, widescreen vastness - was actually true of Simple Minds circa New Gold Dream. Post NGD, Simple Minds managed the considerable achievement of sounding even more pompous and bloated than U2.

But at least they didn't have Bono.
 

ladyboygrimsby

Active member
I once spent the day with U2 when I found The Edge lost outside the hotel I was working in, well before they were famous (they were promoting their first album in Switzerland). I'd seen them play the night before. I took him back to his hotel and spent the whole afternoon sat in the bar with them. Even then Bono was an insufferably pompous wanker and no one even knew who the fuck he was. The Edge, in contrast, was lovely.

The reason Bono gets on so well with politicians is because he's like one himself. His songs are full of opaquely bland statements that sound grand but are in fact empty of all meaning.

However, you can't not like I Will Follow or that one he wrote about Michael Hutchence (Stuck In A Lift That You Can't Get Out Of?)
 

ladyboygrimsby

Active member
k-punk said:
(Obv the comparison with ELP is unfair to ELP; even they didn't pretend to be hip and relevant twenty five years into their miserable career....)

PS Check out From The Beginning on Trilogy. Fine bit of CSNY-style Moogy soul.
 

jenks

thread death
surely part of their problem is their desperate search for 'authenticity' (they mean it, man, they are not afraid to show they have emotions,... , really they do blah- the striving for 'real'emotions) when in fact is all we have is bloat.

they've tried irony, appropriation of blues/gospel, they've even gone for eno swathes of ambience (unforgettable fire being about the only listenable thing they've done) and what have they come back to time and again, big guitars and empty gestures in stadia.

the bono speech at the labour conference manged to be both incredibly arrogant (i'm not used to playing such small venues) whilst also being fawning and nauseating (brown and blair as lennon and macartney) giving tony a patina of good old rock'n'roll rebellion.

bono has used his public face to get famine issues raised in unlikely places but all the time he is gaining kudos (and record sales) as a direct result and still perpetuating hoary old rock cliches(including wearing some very bad hats) shit he was even on the front of the observer food magazine yesterday.
 
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francesco

Minerva Estassi
"The Unforgettable Fire", love or hate it, is one of the key record to understand the '80.

From a personal point of view i love of that records the Eno production and the guitar landscapes of the Edge. Pity the rhythm section is inane and the singer is a idiot....
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
francesco said:
"The Unforgettable Fire", love or hate it, is one of the key record to understand the '80.
.

Yes, and the Final Solution, love it or hate it, is one of the key political policies to understand the 1930s.
 
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mms

sometimes
i think they were victims of their own success really. i think they could have been more exciting if they didn't colmpletely believe in their own righteous brilliance.
you can't deny edges guitar sound is his own and very memorable, you know their instruments are tuned down at least a semi tone i think it is, so the clangourous resonance is uniquely theirs.
I think the reason for this is cos bono can't sing in tune tho.
edge looked like he had it in him to go out on the hoof a bit, he with arthur russell and holger cuzay in the early 80's didn't he?
each time they have a new album out they endlessly repeat versions of the songs '20th century boy' and 'all day and all of the night' like an undergrad student who writes out a sentence they have read, in their own words without really understanding the original,with some uninteresting ballads in between.


god knows who buys it, i used to live over a guy who really really loved them, imagine the fun i had with the bass boost on my stereo !!
 
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