I posted this a while back...but there's a lot of new people here that haven't read it, and it's relevant, so here goes:
Have you ever hated a band for no reason? By that I mean, you hadn't really listened to their songs, but for some reason you just got this vibe, and decided to despise them, however irrationally?
I confess: I felt this way about U2 for six years!
I first heard U2 in 1992, when Mysterious Ways was being plastered all over the radio. I didn't have anything against the song, it was okay, but for reasons which I cannot explain I just thought to myself, "U2 sucks!" It might have been because they were so popular and I have a thing against really popular bands (like today's N'Sync or Limp Bizkit). If anyone asked me what I thought of U2, I would say, "Yeah, Mysterious Ways isn't bad, but other than that I don't like 'em."
A short while later I turned on MTV for the very first time. I saw a leather-clad man wearing enormous sunglasses and bounding across a concert stage. In the corner was an icon reading "ZOO-TV."
"What is THIS?" I said, and changed the channel.
A couple years later, I think 1995, I was riding in the car with my best friend at the time and her mom. Her mom was a big U2 fan, and we were listeing to Zooropa in the car. The only songs I specifically remember having heard were Numb and Lemon. When I heard Numb I thought, "Wait a sec...I remember seeing this guy on TV! They were like, tying him up and stuff!" Lemon I liked but was kind of freaked out by the falsetto vocals. I thought it was a woman singing "She bought lemons..."
So from then on, if it was brought up, I said "Well, I like Mysterious Ways and Lemon and Numb, but other than that U2 stinks."
In 1997 I did two reprts on Northern Ireland. One was a history of the conflict there, and another was an argument paper about whether I thought the situation would ever be resolved. It was a long and involved process, writing these, and one night in the middle of it I was listeing to the radio and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" came on. I'd heard the song before but not known what it was about. But now it had a very significant meaning to me. Thankfully the DJ came on immediately afterwards and said, "That was U2 with Sunday..." and I thought, "You mean U2 does that song too!?"
So I went out and bought a used cassette of War. (Wouldn't want to risk spending too much money on these guys!) I listened to the first three songs, then ran out of patience. New Years Day was good, too, but Seconds was kind of boring.
And so then, if someone brought up U2, I had to say, "Well, I like Mysterious Ways, and Lemon and Numb and New Years Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday, but thats IT..."
In 1998 I became obsessed with Tommy Lee Jones. I rented and watched all his movies, including "Blown Away," a film about Northern Irish terrorists. In the film Tommy's character buys a copy of the Joshua Tree (even though he's never heard of U2) and listens to it while he builds his bombs (Bono would NOT be happy to hear this). They played WOWY, ISHFWILF, and WTSHNN. The songs actually went really well in the movie, and I thought "Hey, I've heard these before. I LIKE these songs! You mean U2...? Oh dear."
So I went out and bought a copy of the Joshua Tree. I listened to it alone one night at full blast while I was cleaning my room. And I thought, "You know, maybe U2 isn't so bad after all..."
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*Echo the Pimpstress* ... Proud Owner of Animatronic Edge!
"Sting, you know I love you but you got a hell of a lot to learn about Rock n' Roll." -Bono
"We're fighting something we barely understand...Esperanto!"
"For the good of the nation, you must defile Bono!" - Me
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