U2: Their marketing is better than their music
(Part 2 of the quasi-Christian/Christian adjacent trilogy. For part 1, click here.)
U2’s reputation peaked in 2004. The events of 9/11 propelled the band into a commercial renaissance in the 21st year of their career: they performed at the Super Bowl Half Time Show in 2002, and their brand of transcendent arena rock hit just right. Their relationship with Steve Jobs also payed off as they became the face of music on the iPod (literally). They entered their 40s as one of the hippest bands in the US, assembling late-stage boomers, gen Xers, and millennials in packed arena tours all over the world.
The first U2 song I ever heard was “All Because of You”, and I have to say that half its appeal to me stemmed from the knowledge that they were mega rockstars. Yesterday I went back and listened to it for the first time in probably half a decade or more. It’s still a solid track, assembled and executed with expert precision. I like the imagery in the lyrics. It’s a damn good song.
Little did I know that this was an entirely different U2 than the band that blew up in the late 80s. Drift back to that era, and instead of tightly assembled rock songs, you find meandering meditations on faith, love, romance, and human nature. They were a mix of 80s arena rock, Irish politics, and some hints of New Wave flavored spirituality.
Their infusion of spiritual elements in the 80s seemed profound when it was contrasted with the absurdity of hair bands. Nowadays though, Bono’s performance at Live Aid 1985 come across like a mulleted televangelist, and to this day “worship” bands appropriate the sonic flavors of “Where the Streets Have No Name”.
The 90s brought “Achtung Baby” and a couple weird experiments that sold poorly but helped keep the band from stagnating creatively. All in all, a respectable legacy to be sure.
But don’t worry, I’m not going to get too sentimental about U2. Their legacy has been spoiled by Bono’s hypocrisy and pretension, and everything positive I could say about them can’t help but be colored by that.
Like many of the limousine liberals whose influence peaked in the “Inconvenient Truth” era, U2 responded to the western world’s 2015 and 2016 indictments of their star-studded flavor of globalism with absurd hyperbole, lamenting that democracy was over because the masses didn’t listen to their pseudo-intellectual advice anymore.
U2 had gotten lost in their world of blinding lights and celebrity, cushioned from the rest of the world by several layers of luxury and extremely powerful friends (being very powerful themselves). Once they peaked, I imagine they ran out of people to call them out on their bad ideas, at least until they made 500 million iPhone users listen to their white-bread mixtape. It was the last straw that culminated in a mass backlash against the band, and a lot of people told them a lot of things.
Yes, it’s fun to make fun of powerful and wealthy people, but while I enjoy the comedy of U2’s entropy, I don’t want to lose sight of the good things they’ve done.
Many of their songs are very powerful and deeply moving; they deserve to be remembered. The one that’s stuck with me the most is “One”, especially the version sung by Mary J. Blige. “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” is loaded with powerful songs that still hold up. And if you have time to get lost in their older works with an open mind and some good speakers, you might start to understand what all the hype was about.
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