How To Stage a Rock and Roll Funeral
James Bastable
"It's a big occasion and you just got to be careful that you don't upset people. But, to be absolutely honest, I would really have liked this maybe 10 years down the line…It's a great institution, the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame, and I'm just not sure that I'm quite ready to accept institutionalization." – Larry Mullen Jr.
Tragically, Mr. Mullen Jr.’s words betray a complete absence of self-consciousness on behalf of a machine that has been regressing since All That You Can’t Leave Behind. The Facile Four have been on auto-pilot since the critically disastrous but commendably adventurous Popmart debacle and, in reality, the timing of U2’s internment in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could not have been better.
U2 is ready to take its place in the pantheon irrelevance alongside such non-acts as Aerosmith and Santana, a place characterized by predictable Grammy nods, Top 40 hits, movie soundtracks, bloated setlists and acoustic-versions, all of this enabled by the tacit approval of a fundamentally gutless fanbase.
U2 is ready for retirement and it seems that at least on a sub-conscious, that is to say, a private level, U2 knows it and has been preparing for it. Ethical backflips not withstanding, how exactly does Bono reconcile his campaign to forgive the Third World debt with iPod endorsements and $100 cheap-seats? And yes, it is Bono, that self-righteous rock ‘n’ roll martyr who must be held responsible for the public embarrassment that U2 has become for it is his ubiquitous mug that graces the covers of magazines, newspapers and news broadcasts. The wrinkles are showing, the inspiration is fading and I suspect that the other three know it.
As for the oatmeal-flavoured non-music that this dinosaur continues to churn out, the blame lies squarely on said “other three”: Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton, and The Edge (“The Edge?” Is there no end to the unintentional self-parody?) The post-punk bombast of the “early days” and the detached irony of ZooTV have given way to the cynical pandering of “Elevation” and “Vertigo.” As more discriminating listeners (i.e. anyone standing more than a fist-pump away from U2’s cabal of personality-cultists) have noted, these two songs are the same shitty, suburban grind. I am actually skeptical about whether or not Mr. Mullen Jr. has stepped foot inside a recording studio in the past ten years at all.
In the past, U2’s music, while not always good, has at least had an idea behind it. Yes, U2 has always been an insufferably self-important band, but the self-importance of Red Rocks, The Joshua Tree and ZooTV was, if not justified by, at least propped up on, an optimistic innocence. Bono mingled spirituality with sensuality and politics with post-atomic love stories. If Achtung Baby! and the Baroque post-modernism of the subsequent ZooTV tour represent the culmination of U2’s vision, then Pop is the sound of U2 going supernova. Everything since has been the paper on the walls of U2’s nursing home.
As a once passionate U2 fan, I must now declare without reservation that U2 is over. The question now is: will the members of U2 be able to recognize their own irrelevance and step down, as they always said they would? After all, what is more pathetic than an irrelevant rock and roll dinosaur? How about an irrelevant rock and roll dinosaur that once vowed it would never become one?
James Bastable
"It's a big occasion and you just got to be careful that you don't upset people. But, to be absolutely honest, I would really have liked this maybe 10 years down the line…It's a great institution, the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame, and I'm just not sure that I'm quite ready to accept institutionalization." – Larry Mullen Jr.
Tragically, Mr. Mullen Jr.’s words betray a complete absence of self-consciousness on behalf of a machine that has been regressing since All That You Can’t Leave Behind. The Facile Four have been on auto-pilot since the critically disastrous but commendably adventurous Popmart debacle and, in reality, the timing of U2’s internment in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame could not have been better.
U2 is ready to take its place in the pantheon irrelevance alongside such non-acts as Aerosmith and Santana, a place characterized by predictable Grammy nods, Top 40 hits, movie soundtracks, bloated setlists and acoustic-versions, all of this enabled by the tacit approval of a fundamentally gutless fanbase.
U2 is ready for retirement and it seems that at least on a sub-conscious, that is to say, a private level, U2 knows it and has been preparing for it. Ethical backflips not withstanding, how exactly does Bono reconcile his campaign to forgive the Third World debt with iPod endorsements and $100 cheap-seats? And yes, it is Bono, that self-righteous rock ‘n’ roll martyr who must be held responsible for the public embarrassment that U2 has become for it is his ubiquitous mug that graces the covers of magazines, newspapers and news broadcasts. The wrinkles are showing, the inspiration is fading and I suspect that the other three know it.
As for the oatmeal-flavoured non-music that this dinosaur continues to churn out, the blame lies squarely on said “other three”: Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton, and The Edge (“The Edge?” Is there no end to the unintentional self-parody?) The post-punk bombast of the “early days” and the detached irony of ZooTV have given way to the cynical pandering of “Elevation” and “Vertigo.” As more discriminating listeners (i.e. anyone standing more than a fist-pump away from U2’s cabal of personality-cultists) have noted, these two songs are the same shitty, suburban grind. I am actually skeptical about whether or not Mr. Mullen Jr. has stepped foot inside a recording studio in the past ten years at all.
In the past, U2’s music, while not always good, has at least had an idea behind it. Yes, U2 has always been an insufferably self-important band, but the self-importance of Red Rocks, The Joshua Tree and ZooTV was, if not justified by, at least propped up on, an optimistic innocence. Bono mingled spirituality with sensuality and politics with post-atomic love stories. If Achtung Baby! and the Baroque post-modernism of the subsequent ZooTV tour represent the culmination of U2’s vision, then Pop is the sound of U2 going supernova. Everything since has been the paper on the walls of U2’s nursing home.
As a once passionate U2 fan, I must now declare without reservation that U2 is over. The question now is: will the members of U2 be able to recognize their own irrelevance and step down, as they always said they would? After all, what is more pathetic than an irrelevant rock and roll dinosaur? How about an irrelevant rock and roll dinosaur that once vowed it would never become one?
