dsmith2904
ONE love, blood, life
Rock 'n' Roll 'n' the Revenue
By Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Schadenfreude isn't an attractive emotion but it's hard to resist when contemplating Bono's recent run of unwelcome publicity. First an investment company in which he is a partner bought a large stake in Forbes, the business magazine and self-proclaimed "capitalist's tool", prompting criticism that the campaigning rock star had compromised his anti-poverty principles.
Then it was revealed that U2 have transferred part of their publishing company from Ireland to the Netherlands to benefit from lower tax rates. Yet more criticism: how dare Saint Bono lecture us about African debt while minimising his own debt to the Irish taxman? Accusations of hypocrisy are tarnishing the lustre of rock's great humanitarian.
One's natural response is to gloat. There are few sights more annoying than Bono in those bloody sunglasses preaching his way around the world, chumming up to heads of state while acting like the conscience of the west. Next to him James Blunt, recently voted the UK's fourth most irritating thing in a poll behind cold callers, caravans and queue jumpers, is as loveable as a puppy.
But I'm afraid the Schadenfreude must stop. Bono's critics are wrong. He isn't a hypocrite. His life as a businessman and his work as a rock star and campaigner are not contradictory. They are linked by a common thread: the singer's faith in entrepreneurialism.
He made his stance clear in Bono on Bono, an insufferably titled book of interviews published last year. "I've had an epiphany in recent years about commerce, for my work in Africa," he told his interviewer. "You start to see that Africans are looking for a commercial way out . . . Africa needs more globalisation now than less."
A similar spirit of commercial independence is evident in U2's business affairs. Unlike most other bands, they own their master tapes and copyrights, having agreed in return to accept a lower rate of royalties earlier in their career. As a result they operate with an extraordinary degree of autonomy, even in comparison with other superstars. Not for them the protracted record company wrangles that derailed the careers of Prince and George Michael.
"I think there's a lot of baggage carried over from the 1960s, that says a musician shouldn't be a businessman," Bono argues in Bono on Bono. "But these are different times demanding different strategies. Look at hip-hop culture, those old biases against commerce just don't apply." Rappers and R&B divas spend as much time devising new clothing ranges and perfumes as they do making music: why shouldn't the same entrepreneurial ethos be welcome in rock?
Bono reckons it's possible. "We can move into business, and let's bring our idealism into whatever piece of the world we happen to be standing in," he says. Disagree with him by all means but don't accuse him of inconsistency. Bono practices what he preaches.
This latest chapter in rock's turbulent history with taxation - remember The Beatles' "Taxman" and its sour pay-off line "you're working for no one but me"? - reminds me of seeing Robert Plant performing earlier this summer in the 18th-century courtyard of Somerset House, London's most handsome outdoor venue, which also happens to be the home of the Inland Revenue.
Plant was superb, but he didn't approve of the surroundings. "It's spooky, this place," he said from the stage, peering distrustfully at the Revenue's ornate offices. "It represents victory, empire, taxes." His set, composed of solo songs and old Led Zeppelin numbers, attempted a sort of exorcism, blending hard rock, North African rhythms, English folk and American blues as if to suggest that music has its own global commerce too.
His outlook may be antiquated - it's that of the typical 1960s rock star, Bono might say - but hearing him wail shaman-like in a space that was once the Inland Revenue's car park was oddly moving. It proved, in a different way from U2's sharp accountancy, that the taxman does not always have the last laugh.
--Financial Times
By Ludo Hunter-Tilney
Schadenfreude isn't an attractive emotion but it's hard to resist when contemplating Bono's recent run of unwelcome publicity. First an investment company in which he is a partner bought a large stake in Forbes, the business magazine and self-proclaimed "capitalist's tool", prompting criticism that the campaigning rock star had compromised his anti-poverty principles.
Then it was revealed that U2 have transferred part of their publishing company from Ireland to the Netherlands to benefit from lower tax rates. Yet more criticism: how dare Saint Bono lecture us about African debt while minimising his own debt to the Irish taxman? Accusations of hypocrisy are tarnishing the lustre of rock's great humanitarian.
One's natural response is to gloat. There are few sights more annoying than Bono in those bloody sunglasses preaching his way around the world, chumming up to heads of state while acting like the conscience of the west. Next to him James Blunt, recently voted the UK's fourth most irritating thing in a poll behind cold callers, caravans and queue jumpers, is as loveable as a puppy.
But I'm afraid the Schadenfreude must stop. Bono's critics are wrong. He isn't a hypocrite. His life as a businessman and his work as a rock star and campaigner are not contradictory. They are linked by a common thread: the singer's faith in entrepreneurialism.
He made his stance clear in Bono on Bono, an insufferably titled book of interviews published last year. "I've had an epiphany in recent years about commerce, for my work in Africa," he told his interviewer. "You start to see that Africans are looking for a commercial way out . . . Africa needs more globalisation now than less."
A similar spirit of commercial independence is evident in U2's business affairs. Unlike most other bands, they own their master tapes and copyrights, having agreed in return to accept a lower rate of royalties earlier in their career. As a result they operate with an extraordinary degree of autonomy, even in comparison with other superstars. Not for them the protracted record company wrangles that derailed the careers of Prince and George Michael.
"I think there's a lot of baggage carried over from the 1960s, that says a musician shouldn't be a businessman," Bono argues in Bono on Bono. "But these are different times demanding different strategies. Look at hip-hop culture, those old biases against commerce just don't apply." Rappers and R&B divas spend as much time devising new clothing ranges and perfumes as they do making music: why shouldn't the same entrepreneurial ethos be welcome in rock?
Bono reckons it's possible. "We can move into business, and let's bring our idealism into whatever piece of the world we happen to be standing in," he says. Disagree with him by all means but don't accuse him of inconsistency. Bono practices what he preaches.
This latest chapter in rock's turbulent history with taxation - remember The Beatles' "Taxman" and its sour pay-off line "you're working for no one but me"? - reminds me of seeing Robert Plant performing earlier this summer in the 18th-century courtyard of Somerset House, London's most handsome outdoor venue, which also happens to be the home of the Inland Revenue.
Plant was superb, but he didn't approve of the surroundings. "It's spooky, this place," he said from the stage, peering distrustfully at the Revenue's ornate offices. "It represents victory, empire, taxes." His set, composed of solo songs and old Led Zeppelin numbers, attempted a sort of exorcism, blending hard rock, North African rhythms, English folk and American blues as if to suggest that music has its own global commerce too.
His outlook may be antiquated - it's that of the typical 1960s rock star, Bono might say - but hearing him wail shaman-like in a space that was once the Inland Revenue's car park was oddly moving. It proved, in a different way from U2's sharp accountancy, that the taxman does not always have the last laugh.
--Financial Times
