dsmith2904
ONE love, blood, life
U2 Marks 25 Years of Rock 'n' Roll Innovation
By Brian McCollum
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Twenty-five years ago this week, a scruffy young Irish band had little chance to celebrate as copies of its debut LP arrived in the record shops of Great Britain. Rolling into the homestretch of a hectic European club tour, group members already had their eyes locked on the calendar’s next big item: a nine-day sprint up the East Coast of America, their introduction to the United States.
For U2, that pivotal week in October 1980 was the latest high point in a budding career that was to bring high points yet unimaginable. For the rest of the world, it proved to be the dawn of a phenomenon. The scruffy group went on to position itself as one of the groundbreaking forces in pop music’s long story. A quarter-century later, the band’s impact on the sounds and sensibilities of rock culture is so entrenched, it’s easy to take for granted.
Rock has undergone big changes in the years between then and now. And the band’s fingerprints are all over them. Just turn on the radio to hear how the very chassis of rock has been overhauled, its blues roots diminished, even replaced, by an elaborate spectrum of tones.
Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. have spent much of their careers flying in the face of trends.
When punk went nihilistic, they delivered the earnest, emotional music of “October” and “War.” When ’80s pop veered into colorful frivolity, U2 got spiritual and majestic. When grunge brought somberness to the airwaves in the ’90s, the band launched into the cyber-age carnivals of giant onstage lemons and “Zooropa.”
That willingness to experiment and morph, and to fail if need be, is one reason U2 has wound up in the same league as pop’s other brand-name pioneers, from the Beatles and Bowie on down. And like so many of those premier artists, the band’s stealth skill has been absorbing pieces of the culture around it, reprocessing them and ratifying them for the wider public — a maneuver found in U2’s dabblings in techno, world music, even gospel.
But for all the specific traits U2 has bestowed on the pop scene — from innovations in concert production down to the scrupulously studied echo effects of the Edge’s guitar — the band’s bigger contribution is something less tangible. It’s about the infusion of a certain spirit, one embodying both passion and smarts, that sets the stage for the latest chapter in rock’s evolution.
Talk to contemporary musicians, even those enamored of U2, and you’ll be hard-pressed for citations of bands that have explicitly mimicked Bono and company. Although the early ’80s produced a brief crop of direct descendants — groups such as the Call, the Alarm and Simple Minds — U2 never spawned the legions of imitators in the manner of Led Zeppelin or the Velvet Underground.
So maybe the most crucial result of U2’s breakthrough into international prominence was the path it paved. It can be hard to remember the day when the sounds now so familiar were the exclusive province of what was dubbed college rock. But before the arrival and explosion of U2, aided by the simultaneous efforts of R.E.M., it was even harder to imagine a mainstream embrace of the intelligent, impassioned music that was everyday fare a decade later.
The Edge has said that Bob Dylan once remarked to him: “Everybody’s going to remember your songs; it’s just that nobody’s gonna be able to play them.” For all the grand pronouncements about U2’s originality and impact over the years, that may be the most honest testament of them all.
By Brian McCollum
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Twenty-five years ago this week, a scruffy young Irish band had little chance to celebrate as copies of its debut LP arrived in the record shops of Great Britain. Rolling into the homestretch of a hectic European club tour, group members already had their eyes locked on the calendar’s next big item: a nine-day sprint up the East Coast of America, their introduction to the United States.
For U2, that pivotal week in October 1980 was the latest high point in a budding career that was to bring high points yet unimaginable. For the rest of the world, it proved to be the dawn of a phenomenon. The scruffy group went on to position itself as one of the groundbreaking forces in pop music’s long story. A quarter-century later, the band’s impact on the sounds and sensibilities of rock culture is so entrenched, it’s easy to take for granted.
Rock has undergone big changes in the years between then and now. And the band’s fingerprints are all over them. Just turn on the radio to hear how the very chassis of rock has been overhauled, its blues roots diminished, even replaced, by an elaborate spectrum of tones.
Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. have spent much of their careers flying in the face of trends.
When punk went nihilistic, they delivered the earnest, emotional music of “October” and “War.” When ’80s pop veered into colorful frivolity, U2 got spiritual and majestic. When grunge brought somberness to the airwaves in the ’90s, the band launched into the cyber-age carnivals of giant onstage lemons and “Zooropa.”
That willingness to experiment and morph, and to fail if need be, is one reason U2 has wound up in the same league as pop’s other brand-name pioneers, from the Beatles and Bowie on down. And like so many of those premier artists, the band’s stealth skill has been absorbing pieces of the culture around it, reprocessing them and ratifying them for the wider public — a maneuver found in U2’s dabblings in techno, world music, even gospel.
But for all the specific traits U2 has bestowed on the pop scene — from innovations in concert production down to the scrupulously studied echo effects of the Edge’s guitar — the band’s bigger contribution is something less tangible. It’s about the infusion of a certain spirit, one embodying both passion and smarts, that sets the stage for the latest chapter in rock’s evolution.
Talk to contemporary musicians, even those enamored of U2, and you’ll be hard-pressed for citations of bands that have explicitly mimicked Bono and company. Although the early ’80s produced a brief crop of direct descendants — groups such as the Call, the Alarm and Simple Minds — U2 never spawned the legions of imitators in the manner of Led Zeppelin or the Velvet Underground.
So maybe the most crucial result of U2’s breakthrough into international prominence was the path it paved. It can be hard to remember the day when the sounds now so familiar were the exclusive province of what was dubbed college rock. But before the arrival and explosion of U2, aided by the simultaneous efforts of R.E.M., it was even harder to imagine a mainstream embrace of the intelligent, impassioned music that was everyday fare a decade later.
The Edge has said that Bob Dylan once remarked to him: “Everybody’s going to remember your songs; it’s just that nobody’s gonna be able to play them.” For all the grand pronouncements about U2’s originality and impact over the years, that may be the most honest testament of them all.
