This issue was for the Reader's and Critic's picks for the 'best of...' 1988. U2 was chosen Band of the Year (no surprise) and there was an article about them. Bono was on the cover (below). This article is not available on RollingStone.com, nor is the cover, for some odd reason.
The following is part of a two-page photo at the beginning of the story - sorry, my scanner's not THAT big!
The following is part of a two-page photo at the beginning of the story - sorry, my scanner's not THAT big!
Artist of the Year
Rolling Stone, March 9th, 1989
By Steve Pond - Photographs by Anton Corbijn
NOW WHAT?
Having conquered the world, U2 tries to figure out what to do next
"What do you think we should do?"
On a cloudy afternoon in Dublin, U2 isn't acting much like the band with all the answers. Instead the members of the group are acting more like four guys who are themselves trying to answer a few important questions, and the main question - which Bono poses within minutes of the time he sits down in a pub and orders a pint of Guinness - is what his band should do on the heels of Rattle and Hum.
If they don't have an answer, at least they finally have the free time to think about it. That's something that's been in short supply for the past two years, from the release of their 1987 breakthrough album, The Joshua Tree, through the subsequent international tour, to the recording and filming of a controversial two-record set and motion picture Rattle and Hum.
"The last few years," says Bono, with his customary intensity - but also with a distracted air that suggests he's groping to put a rather deep-seated confusion into words - "have been such a merry-go-round that when you get off and you're on dry land, it keeps spinning. And we haven't quite come to terms with being at home. I have to be strapped in at night, you know? There's this thing of wanting to move..."
He trails off, then looks around at his three bandmates. "Wanderlust, I suppose," he says. "That's been with the group for a few years, in many ways, and I suppose it's what Rattle and Hum is about. Not just in terms of locations - towns and cities and places - but musical wanderlust. So now we're in detox."
"We would be lying, I think, if we said that everything is okay these days. Everything's not okay, you know? Even talking about U2, we really don't know how to talk about U2 anymore."
Bono shrugs. "I think it's really important to preface your article by saying that one of the reasons we haven't done many interviews lately is that we don't really have that much to say."
cont'd