popkidu2
War Child
totally didn't even pay attention to the author of this...thoughts?
Part I. Dysfunctional Institutions
(1) U2
The rock band U2 is a morbid study in the dialectic of art and ego,
and I think it's worth taking a minute to trace this dialectic in
action. U2's 1983 album "War" still holds up. By superimposing
stories from Northern Ireland onto the more universal vibe of the Cold
War, they found a way for rock to mean something again. Many people,
including my early-20s self, found this persuasive. I wouldn't say
that I was ever a hero-worshipping fan, but I did go to the lengths of
reading interviews with the band, accepting song lyrics as slogans of
my own, and the other things one does at that age.
But then something insidious started happening: U2 turned into the
worst sort of monster raving ego freaks. It took about ten years.
The process holds a certain fascination in retrospect, provided that
one adopts a sufficiently cynical point of view -- in other words,
the opposite extreme point of view from the one U2 had originally
represented. At the time their progress from sincere musicians
to ego monsters was confusing and weird, the weirdness deriving not
least from the fans' own denial. The most fascinating moment is their
live EP, "Under a Blood Red Sky", which is generally considered to
be their best work. Their later pretentiousness was just taking form,
and if you can imagine embryonic pretention then that's what it was.
The struggle between art and ego had just begun. If they had
gone immediately off the deep end, then the story would not be so
interesting. But it was more complicated than that. I can still
find their 1987 album "The Joshua Tree" moving; even though their
megalomania was now in full fury, they managed to sublimate it to a
remarkable extent. You had to ignore things, like the huge symbols
that they tossed gratuitously into their lyrics. But you could do it.
The struggle of art and ego then intensified to an amazing extent.
They are evenly matched in "The Unforgettable Fire" (whose lyrics
make a lot less sense than they are commonly given credit for), and
ego won decisively in their film and double album "Rattle and Hum".
And in "Achtung Baby", a zillion dollars of producers and machinery
brought forth an impressive hunk of musical technology that, despite
the Berlin Wall atmospherics, had precisely nothing inside.
About this time, singer Bono became insufferable. He has remained
so ever since, and despite his undoubted good works on behalf of
the poor I cannot bear to hear the first word about him. The critics
tell me that U2 have sworn off the bloated rock-star personae, but
I am totally unpersuaded and refuse to have anything to do with them.
I realize that the critics mostly like their latest record, "All That
You Can't Leave Behind". But I think the critics have been fooled.
Nothing is worse (or more contradictory) than ego parading in the
guise of spirituality, but that's what "All That You Can't Leave
Behind" is. I can't bear to listen to more than a few seconds of it.
It is arguable, of course, that this whole arc would have bothered
me much less if I hadn't been hooked by the rock-and-roll promises
of Meaning in the first place. Though I wrote large parts of my
dissertation while listening to Husker Du, I was born too early for
the subculture of anti-commercial underground music that endlessly
changes form to avoid being eaten by the corporate marketing machine.
The promise of communal meaning still meant something when I went
to school, and I had that promise torn out of me in the most brutal
manner at the precise moment that it died.
When U2 got into the rock star business, they thought they knew what
they were doing. It was all ironic, they said. They could stop
whenever they wanted. But they were kidding themselves. They are
tedious fame addicts, dinosaurs who never earned their bloat but
grabbed it in the most disingenous way.
It was a good system when rock stars died young.
Part I. Dysfunctional Institutions
(1) U2
The rock band U2 is a morbid study in the dialectic of art and ego,
and I think it's worth taking a minute to trace this dialectic in
action. U2's 1983 album "War" still holds up. By superimposing
stories from Northern Ireland onto the more universal vibe of the Cold
War, they found a way for rock to mean something again. Many people,
including my early-20s self, found this persuasive. I wouldn't say
that I was ever a hero-worshipping fan, but I did go to the lengths of
reading interviews with the band, accepting song lyrics as slogans of
my own, and the other things one does at that age.
But then something insidious started happening: U2 turned into the
worst sort of monster raving ego freaks. It took about ten years.
The process holds a certain fascination in retrospect, provided that
one adopts a sufficiently cynical point of view -- in other words,
the opposite extreme point of view from the one U2 had originally
represented. At the time their progress from sincere musicians
to ego monsters was confusing and weird, the weirdness deriving not
least from the fans' own denial. The most fascinating moment is their
live EP, "Under a Blood Red Sky", which is generally considered to
be their best work. Their later pretentiousness was just taking form,
and if you can imagine embryonic pretention then that's what it was.
The struggle between art and ego had just begun. If they had
gone immediately off the deep end, then the story would not be so
interesting. But it was more complicated than that. I can still
find their 1987 album "The Joshua Tree" moving; even though their
megalomania was now in full fury, they managed to sublimate it to a
remarkable extent. You had to ignore things, like the huge symbols
that they tossed gratuitously into their lyrics. But you could do it.
The struggle of art and ego then intensified to an amazing extent.
They are evenly matched in "The Unforgettable Fire" (whose lyrics
make a lot less sense than they are commonly given credit for), and
ego won decisively in their film and double album "Rattle and Hum".
And in "Achtung Baby", a zillion dollars of producers and machinery
brought forth an impressive hunk of musical technology that, despite
the Berlin Wall atmospherics, had precisely nothing inside.
About this time, singer Bono became insufferable. He has remained
so ever since, and despite his undoubted good works on behalf of
the poor I cannot bear to hear the first word about him. The critics
tell me that U2 have sworn off the bloated rock-star personae, but
I am totally unpersuaded and refuse to have anything to do with them.
I realize that the critics mostly like their latest record, "All That
You Can't Leave Behind". But I think the critics have been fooled.
Nothing is worse (or more contradictory) than ego parading in the
guise of spirituality, but that's what "All That You Can't Leave
Behind" is. I can't bear to listen to more than a few seconds of it.
It is arguable, of course, that this whole arc would have bothered
me much less if I hadn't been hooked by the rock-and-roll promises
of Meaning in the first place. Though I wrote large parts of my
dissertation while listening to Husker Du, I was born too early for
the subculture of anti-commercial underground music that endlessly
changes form to avoid being eaten by the corporate marketing machine.
The promise of communal meaning still meant something when I went
to school, and I had that promise torn out of me in the most brutal
manner at the precise moment that it died.
When U2 got into the rock star business, they thought they knew what
they were doing. It was all ironic, they said. They could stop
whenever they wanted. But they were kidding themselves. They are
tedious fame addicts, dinosaurs who never earned their bloat but
grabbed it in the most disingenous way.
It was a good system when rock stars died young.
