As much of a dickhead as Bono patently is, I have to defend their music. Some of it is rubbish but some of it is great. Songs by them that I love or have loved include:
I Will Follow
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Stay (Faraway, So Close)
The Wanderer
One
Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
So Cruel
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Party Girl
The Sweetest Thing
With Or Without You
Miss Sarajevo
If God Will Send His Angels
Please
All Because Of You
Despite their stereotyping as assembly line stadium pop artists they have done some quite daring stuff for a mainstream band. Some of those songs above are really famous and sound bland perhaps through over-listening but it is unfair to pigeonhole a band’s 30 years of material when so much of what they have done has “pushed the envelope”.
Because he takes his Christianity seriously. I doubt I could have been nice to Helms, but I’m not known for my tolerance of bigots in trying to soften them.
Bullet the Blue Sky is great! It has that deep trance like quality like Massive Attack - Angel, and no other songs I can think of has.
Also you missed Mysterious Ways. A U2 song with a little more action, which also makes it stand out in a catalogue that does, let’s face it, sound a lot alike.
I’m another one who really liked their early stuff.
Boy, War, and October all had some good stuff, and i liked much of Unforgettable Fire too. And the live album, Under a Blood Red Sky.
ETA: I saw them twice on their Pop tour (1998? '99?). I didn’t pay for either gig; in fact, i got paid because i was working in the venue. What struck me was that the songs that got the best reception from the crowd, by a noticeable margin, were the oldies like “New Year’s Day,” “Sunday, Bloody Sunday,” and “Gloria.”
Guilty-I’m a huge U2 fan, but to each his own. HOWEVER, if you’re going to criticize, AT LEAST know what the fuck you’re talking about. First, Bono, IS his nickname, moron. His real name is Paul Hewson. A friend started calling him “Bonovox” after a hearing aid company (it means “good voice”) and it stuck, and then eventually just “Bono.”
As for the sunglasses, I believe it’s an eye condition-something about being extremely sensitive to bright lights.
Either way, again-if you don’t like U2-DON’T FUCKING LISTEN!!!
-Guin, U2 AND Bono AND The Edge fan girl
ETA: As for Paul-I like “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”.
Man, there’s some snappy guitar work during the second sequence (“If We Ever Get Out Of Here” portion), and the song just (to me) has a generally overall Beatle-y feel to it.
But since you profess disdain for the Beatles too, I guess that’s not surprising.
I’d still like to hear why you believe their production was awful. You’re nuts. The Beatles became nothing BUT a studio band after 1966, and they were on the cutting edge of recording techniques for the time.
Certainly it isn’t going to sound like modern recordings with digital processing, more tracks, etc. It’s an unfair comparison.
No, silly. AIDS isn’t his first choice in charities, its poverty. And that’s why he spent $1,700 to fly his hat from London to Italy when he left it behind. The hat got to fly first class too.
That would cover almost 100 weeks worth of food for the Aboubakar family living in the Breidjing Camp in Chad.
Most bands follow a typical pattern-start out sounding fresh & original (assuming they were good in the first place), hit their creative peak around album 3 or 4, then either break up, or begin a long slow slide down to mediocrity (and below). The output of the Bunnymen and the Church, like U2, has also been less than stellar for the last 10-15 years or so (with some exceptions), the only difference is that U2 continues to get a lot of press attention, while it’s been a long time since you probably read an article on either of the other bands in any music magazine (in the US at least).
I’ve been big fans of all 3 ever since their respective debuts, but I do agree that U2 and Bono especially can be very self-knowingly cloying and in constant search of publicity it seems, but it doesn’t take much away from their peak (Achtung Baby IMHO). That in of itself is enough for some people to hate them I guess.
