Et tu, Win?
Le sigh. My greatest disciple has betrayed me.
I've been busy meeting with world leaders of late, but the Edge brought this to my attention on our private jet U2-1 the other day. It seems that Win Butler (of up-and-coming Canadian indie darlings the Arcade Fire) has turned on the hand that rocks the cradle:
Speaking in the new issue of NME, frontman Win Butler had a go at bands who aggressively force feed their music to fans.
Butler said: "It's not like we shun success, but at the same time we don't want to shove it down people's throats. In the UK there's this kind of rock star competition.
"I don't know if U2 started it, or The Stones or Oasis but a lot of bands think in terms of: 'I'm going to be the biggest band in the world. Fuck all those bands who've got no ambition'. I think that's a total crock of shit.
It didn't have to be like this, Win. We played your band's track 'Rebellion: Lies' on the intro tape at all our Vertigo World Atomic Tour concerts. Millions of white middle-American U2 fans who would never have heard of you, heard of you, and said: hey, what's that awesome song playing just before Bono and the boys come on? We made you, guys.
You could have run with it, like Coldplay and Razorlight do. But alas, no.
It's war now, Win. I'm a peaceable guy. I've worked all my life to balance the world's competing geopolitical interests in the name of stopping bloodshed and ensuring that children the globe over have the opportunity to buy the new U2 single. What have you done for world peace and debt relief, Win?
Larry (Mullen Jnr, drummer and founding member of U2) was even angrier than I at this treachery. In fact I had the Principle guys put Larry under house arrest in the empty village he bought for himself, until his temper subsides a little. He can polish his Harleys while the grownups deal with this one.
I will crush you for this impertinence, Win Butler. Never again will the Arcade Fire's uplifting indie rock blare from the speakers at a U2 concert. Fans sporting Arcade Fire t-shirts will be shot on sight. True loyalist U2 fans everywhere will attack your fans on the message boards, and in the street with baseball bats. The cities will flow with rivers of blood.
Is this what you wanted, Win? Your band will be forgotten within months, as U2 shall now bring forward the release of our fourth greatest-hits record "Love Songs and God Bombs" (featuring a bonus global mega-smash single, 'Prodigal Son'), and bury the Arcade Fire under a tsunami of U2 publicity.
You will never work in this town again, Win. I personally quite enjoy your band's music. You could teach us a thing or two about reaching the emotional core, but you just don't get it: this is a business. It's all just a business, Win. Radiohead forgot that, and look where they are now. They could have been contenders, they could have been our opening act. And so could you. Hang on... you were, weren't you? I forget more than you've ever known, in my high-octane life.
You disregard Mammon at your peril, Win Butler. Literally, in this case.
