elevatedmole
Rock n' Roll Doggie
An absolutely horrid article from my local paper. Thought I might post it. Enjoy ripping it to bits.
**
By Jon Dahlager
If record sales were relevant, then J. Lo and Ja Rule should be messiahs. Or if not, at least spokespeople for their generation.
But Billboard chart positions don't make saviors. And neither do radioplay nor meaningless chunks of metal and plastic.
Judging my U2's reception at the Grammys, someone apparently thinks otherwise.
Indeed, with eight nominations and four wins this year, U2 re-elevated to heights they haven't seen since the mid-80s.
Now the self-styled "best band in the world" has been thrust back into the spotlight.
The terrorist attacks were like a shot of Viagra for Bono and the boys as an overly sensitive music industry looked to the most marketable and least interesting way to sell a mourning nation musical Kleenex.
Enter U2's Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, and Walk On, from their 2000 release, All That You Can't Leave Behind. With wonderfully ambiguous lyrics and a sound that reached back to the days of Radiohead's The Bends, the tracks were exactly what record companies told listeners they needed - something numbingly familiar and derivative.
Radio play increased, U2 ended up with the 26 best selling album of the year according to Billboard and the band took home a handful of Grammys.
But someone needs to take off the public's rose colored glasses and break Bono's blue ones - he doesn't need the damn things to see properly anyway - because U2 is not making music or statements that matter.
The Entertainment Industry Foundation gave Bono the Humanitarian of the Year award on Valentine's Day at the first Love Rocks benefit. Tom Cruise, Lauryn Hill and others, including a taped speech by Bill Clinton, paid tribute to the ego-maniacal, stuck-in-a-moment-in-1987-when-he-was-still-cool rocker.
Time plastered a smug Bono, complete with the US flag-lined jacket on its March 4th issue, along with a tagline reading "Can Bono save the world?".
As a spokesman for DATA (Debt, AIDS, and Trade for Africa) a group he founded to help Africa, Bono says he wants the world to focus on dropping the continent's countries' debts, altering the trade rules for poor countries and improving health care.
He met with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Bill Gates in February at the World Economic Forum, espousing his cases and impressing the Secretary.
Of course, this is nothing new to the ever-bespectacled political poet.
Ever since taking part in 1984's Band Aid and a subsequent trip to an Ethiopian orphanage, Bono has been politically conscious, hobnobbing with everyone from the Pope to Bill Clinton.
It all seems wonderful, Bono is the classic case of: guy gets power and money, guy uses power and money to "do good and make a difference," guy feels good as festering, starving Sudanese child manages one final smile before dying as a rich rock star he doesn't know holds his hand and sheds a tear.
Even though Bono speaks intelligently about world issues, it's hard to believe he actually realizes what he's saying.
In the Time article, he says he doesn't argue compassion. Instead, logic is his method.
One of the chief goals of DATA is to erase the accumulated $350 billion public debt of the world's 52 poorest countries, most of these being in Africa.
Bono says the countries should be funding health care and education rather than wasting money paying back loans taken by corrupt and defunct governments.
If he really cared about this sort of superfluous spending, Bono might focus on the expenses of his own band.
For the 1997 Popmart tour, the band spent more than $1.5 million per week to keep the show going.
Ticket prices for U2's recent U.S tour ranged from $45 for nosebleed-but-at-least-I-can-see-Bono's-glasses-on-the-Trinitron seats to $130 gold circle seats.
The band grossed $109.7 million on the tour, according to RollingStone.com, the highest of any musical act in 2001.
And since their stage show was much less extravagant than past years, the band ought to have enough money to personally help out - or outright purchase - at least one poor African nation.
And if not, they can always buy Bono a new pair of glasses.
------------------
"You must not look down on someone just 'cos they are 14 years old. When I was that age I listened to the music of John Lennon and it changed my way of seeing things, so I'm just glad that 14 year olds are coming to see U2 rather than group X." - Bono, 1988
[This message has been edited by elevatedmole (edited 03-05-2002).]
**
By Jon Dahlager
If record sales were relevant, then J. Lo and Ja Rule should be messiahs. Or if not, at least spokespeople for their generation.
But Billboard chart positions don't make saviors. And neither do radioplay nor meaningless chunks of metal and plastic.
Judging my U2's reception at the Grammys, someone apparently thinks otherwise.
Indeed, with eight nominations and four wins this year, U2 re-elevated to heights they haven't seen since the mid-80s.
Now the self-styled "best band in the world" has been thrust back into the spotlight.
The terrorist attacks were like a shot of Viagra for Bono and the boys as an overly sensitive music industry looked to the most marketable and least interesting way to sell a mourning nation musical Kleenex.
Enter U2's Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, and Walk On, from their 2000 release, All That You Can't Leave Behind. With wonderfully ambiguous lyrics and a sound that reached back to the days of Radiohead's The Bends, the tracks were exactly what record companies told listeners they needed - something numbingly familiar and derivative.
Radio play increased, U2 ended up with the 26 best selling album of the year according to Billboard and the band took home a handful of Grammys.
But someone needs to take off the public's rose colored glasses and break Bono's blue ones - he doesn't need the damn things to see properly anyway - because U2 is not making music or statements that matter.
The Entertainment Industry Foundation gave Bono the Humanitarian of the Year award on Valentine's Day at the first Love Rocks benefit. Tom Cruise, Lauryn Hill and others, including a taped speech by Bill Clinton, paid tribute to the ego-maniacal, stuck-in-a-moment-in-1987-when-he-was-still-cool rocker.
Time plastered a smug Bono, complete with the US flag-lined jacket on its March 4th issue, along with a tagline reading "Can Bono save the world?".
As a spokesman for DATA (Debt, AIDS, and Trade for Africa) a group he founded to help Africa, Bono says he wants the world to focus on dropping the continent's countries' debts, altering the trade rules for poor countries and improving health care.
He met with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Bill Gates in February at the World Economic Forum, espousing his cases and impressing the Secretary.
Of course, this is nothing new to the ever-bespectacled political poet.
Ever since taking part in 1984's Band Aid and a subsequent trip to an Ethiopian orphanage, Bono has been politically conscious, hobnobbing with everyone from the Pope to Bill Clinton.
It all seems wonderful, Bono is the classic case of: guy gets power and money, guy uses power and money to "do good and make a difference," guy feels good as festering, starving Sudanese child manages one final smile before dying as a rich rock star he doesn't know holds his hand and sheds a tear.
Even though Bono speaks intelligently about world issues, it's hard to believe he actually realizes what he's saying.
In the Time article, he says he doesn't argue compassion. Instead, logic is his method.
One of the chief goals of DATA is to erase the accumulated $350 billion public debt of the world's 52 poorest countries, most of these being in Africa.
Bono says the countries should be funding health care and education rather than wasting money paying back loans taken by corrupt and defunct governments.
If he really cared about this sort of superfluous spending, Bono might focus on the expenses of his own band.
For the 1997 Popmart tour, the band spent more than $1.5 million per week to keep the show going.
Ticket prices for U2's recent U.S tour ranged from $45 for nosebleed-but-at-least-I-can-see-Bono's-glasses-on-the-Trinitron seats to $130 gold circle seats.
The band grossed $109.7 million on the tour, according to RollingStone.com, the highest of any musical act in 2001.
And since their stage show was much less extravagant than past years, the band ought to have enough money to personally help out - or outright purchase - at least one poor African nation.
And if not, they can always buy Bono a new pair of glasses.
------------------
"You must not look down on someone just 'cos they are 14 years old. When I was that age I listened to the music of John Lennon and it changed my way of seeing things, so I'm just glad that 14 year olds are coming to see U2 rather than group X." - Bono, 1988
[This message has been edited by elevatedmole (edited 03-05-2002).]