Originally posted by mbi16:
Then you can argue that entering the 90's they could afford to experiment whereas entering ATYCLB they couldn't.
Again, in the end I'm in for the music and that in itself is still great.
See I have to disagree with that one. I think that the fact that they are so popular right now would increase their ability to experiment. The US has been sold, all the nice little middle class american families will cluster around their TVs and listen to U2 on Super Sunday. "Oh what a nice band they are, isn't their message uplifting? Blah blah blah." They'll say. And to be fair they are right, U2 is bloody terrific, in my opinion they can do no wrong, but here's the thing: I'm a punk.
SO I kinda feel like they sold out. Now I'm not saying that by doing stadium tours and making videos one sells out, they are simply responding to demand, but playing the 1/2 time show at the super bowl? At this point the Super Bowl is basically a holiday for commercialism. The commercials cost millions of dollars, and every corporate whore of a celebrity is out there shaking what they've got to make a buck. Granted U2 isn't making commercials or anything but one feels that it is a small step away.
And here I might make some enemies (sorry to the Southern Californians here) but they have sort of been playing with sell out bands. Cuz as an ex rude girl I could tell you some stories about No Doubt back in my day, before Gwen was the lead singer and basically kicked her brother out of the band. I mean yeah No Doubt still makes good music, but they left their origanal underground ska fan base in order to make it to the big time, and all us kids in black and white suits and suspenders were hurt. We consider them to be sell outs because they abandoned us and their original ideas.(Sorry I know this is kind of random.)
But anyway my point (and I do have one) is that sell out is relative. I don't think that by playing the Super Bowl U2 is nessisarily selling out, but they are walking a fine line. I hope they go back to their Pop era sacrastic ass roots. That's punk rock.
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Please repeat the message, it's the music that we choose.
http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~kljense3/MrTvs.html