But even within hip-hop the cream rarely rises to the top and most of the better artists in that genre suffer from the same quandary that a band like Radiohead would find themselves in over in the rock genre. If you are looking at most of the hip-hop that charts through the roof, whether it's JayZ or 50 Cent or even the Black Eyed Peas - they're the very, very pop end of hip-hop. Their cross genre peer is Avril Lavigne, not PJ Harvey. Maroon 5, not Radiohead. The hip-hop artists that are at the Radiohead end of the spectrum do have large, dedicated fan bases, do more than okay in sales, are critically lauded etc - but you'll never hear them on the radio and you'll never see them at the Grammy's and you'll never see them on MTV. They don't make video clips loaded with Cadillacs and scantily clad women. They don't write songs about fucking strippers while stoned on a private jet because life is so tough for a billionaire gangster, they don't have clothing labels and they don't guest on Timberlake and Stefani albums. They do push and sell themselves, but not using the formula you absolutely need to sit up there at the very top of the pile, to be the high rotation commercial FM/MTV artist - mostly because the music doesn't allow it.
I do understand Bono's point (this is the article it comes from:
http://www.u2achtung.com/01/articles/article.php?id=109 ), but I don't quite get how/what he expects a change to come about whereby someone like Radiohead actually gets their songs on the radio alongside Fergilicious or whatever, if it's not by significantly shifting their music along with the 'heavy push'. Radiohead obviously know that. They push themselves very hard and very well, they just know the limitations their music creates for them and don't bother with anything outside those - it would be pretty fruitless. By the way, what was probably the biggest music news story of the past week? And how often did you hear about it, from how many different places? Radiohead dumping their new album out there for free was something I heard/read about on the radio, in the newspaper, on the music news website, on the general news website, from several friends and work colleagues etc etc etc. There are other things they could do - a video clip so brilliant or controversial it demands some airtime, performing more on the kind of tv shows that would have them - but in the end their music limits them, so they either have to shift the music, bring on David La Chappelle for the video clip and have Will.I.Am pop for a verse during the Grammy performance.... or let it be.
Pop and personality dominate, regardless of genre. Catchy throw away songs and an extra curricular lifestyle that is a fixture in celebrity reporting. The quickest way Thom Yorke could get Radiohead back on MTV would be to bed Britney Spears. Failing that, they'd need to overhaul everything to the core. I don't know if that's what Bono wants (perhaps, judging by U2's shift to the middle) or if he's just wishing for a brighter day for the popular music scene, but it's a pretty distinct black and white choice that you'd be making at the moment, and right at this second there are no names popping into my mind of artists who are succesfully stradling both worlds. I do wish someone would though, and I do think U2 are in a last grasp position to be a part of it, perhaps, but they can't go too far.
I think I wandered way off the point there.
It's not about catering or tailoring to the mainstream, it's about pushing your music out there. Which, as he also said, is one of the big reasons why, say, hip hop is where it is these days - they're not afraid to fight for their music to be heard.
