dry grass singing

champagne supernova

One of the most energetic explosive events known is a supernova. These occur at the end of a star's lifetime, when its nuclear fuel is exhausted and it is no longer supported by the release of nuclear energy. If the star is particularly massive, then its core will collapse and in so doing will release a huge amount of energy. This will cause a blast wave that ejects the star's envelope into interstellar space. The result of the collapse may be, in some cases, a rapidly rotating neutron star that can be observed many years later as a radio pulsar.


I never thought I'd say this. But the truth must be spoken, even if it hurts (cue melodramatic background music). And the truth is, U2 is now a has-been. Actually, it’s been a has-been-in-the-making ever since the curiously-labelled 'comeback album' “All That You Can't Leave Behind” that the critics went radio-gaga about when it was released four years ago. But the latest album “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” is the final nail in the coffin of what used to be the best band in the world. And if the members of the former best band in the world had any sense at all, they'd quit now while they're still ahead, while the music critics are kind (or deluded) enough to continue writing good reviews of their work, while listeners around the world still have enough goodwill to give them, despite the evidence, the benefit of the doubt.

The new album is not bad. In fact, as most albums go, it's pretty good, and is definitely a worthwhile addition to my ever-expanding CD collection. U2 is still more than capable of writing a decent melody. Bono's voice still has that faintly Messianic edge that all the postmodern sunglass-wearing irony in the world has never been able to erase, and there are tracks like ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own’ and 'Yahweh' in which The Edge's guitar riffs soar in good ole Joshua Tree fashion over the solid bass lines provided by Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. Some things you just can’t leave behind. This album sounds polished, well-thought-through. Tracks like 'Vertigo' might even fool the casual listener into thinking that the band has managed to translate the spontaneity and sense of mischief it's always shown in performance into a studio effort. The songs are all based on suitably important themes. To all intents and purposes, it looks like U2 is back for good. Yet, despite all the apparent likenesses, the group's old spirit has gone. U2 has produced, for once, a thoroughly listenable and decent album.

Decent. Competent. And boring.

There’s nothing really wrong with the new album. Upon repeated hearing, it even takes on its own comfortable charm, like a favourite t-shirt well-worn with age. It’s something that grows on you. But U2 never used to be just a band that just grew on you. They were a band that grabbed you by the scruff of your neck so that you simply had to pay attention, whether you liked it or not. They didn’t do ‘floataround stuff’ like the blatantly radio-friendly music that has characterised their recent efforts. And even when they courted their fans in the most outrageous of ways, they never looked as abject in their courtship as they’re starting to look now.

I used to be a loyal U2 fan. And because I'm the sort of person who doesn't love in half-measures, my fandom used to border on worship. For someone who doesn't like collecting things (I don't like the way they clutter up my life and eventually take on a life of their own), I own an uncharacteristically impressive collection of U2 paraphenalia: eight CDs, an oversized t-shirt, a book entitled 'Until the End of the World', the credit card receipt for the tickets to their 1997 'Pop' gig that I had to sell because I couldn't make it back to London in time to catch the show. But the band meant more to me than just the sum of the shelf space it took up in my room. For years, U2 was to me an emblem of a life lived in perpetual quest of that something more, proof that passionate engagement in the world around us is more than just a hypothetical possibility, a beacon of purposeful and meaningful audacity in a world that so often seesaws between pointless rebellion and mindless conformity. Of course, I was aware that all of this was probably just a clever marketing gimmick designed to sell an image to gullible consumers like me, but at least it was an image that I could buy into, one that I wanted to believe in, in contrast to so much of the other trash that Hollywood and MTV try to hawk to us nowadays.

What I used to admire most about U2 was that they were always so eager to try out new things - new genres, new philosophies, even new identities. I've watched them evolve from the earnest born-again Irish Christians who rocked entire stadiums with anthems like 'I Will Follow' and 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', to the postmodern self-reflexively ironic (and, may I say, patently ludicrous) rock stars who strutted on stage in gigantic plastic lemons, wailing the lyrics to songs with titles like 'Mofo' and 'Lemon'. Their music ranged across an entire spectrum of different genres - stadium rock, intimate ballads, electronic dance grooves, and their own unique brand of rock-pop-jazz that simply defied categorisation.

They sang about love, of course - but not just romantic love, though as far as that went they did it in a way that most other bands have never even come close to emulating. Crowd-pleasers like 'One', 'With Or Without You', and 'All I Want Is You' contained edgily bittersweet lyrics that explored the complexities of loving another person with needs and desires equal to but different from one's own. Then there were songs like 'Love Is Blindness' and 'So Cruel' that, with their lacerating self-awareness, slowly and methodically peeled the layers off dysfunctional romantic relationships to reveal the obvious but rarely realised truth that most unhappy relationships exist because, basically, people choose to be in them. Then there were other kinds of love - love of country, love of humanity, love of God. All of which were expressed in songs that had nothing much in common other than intelligent lyrics, truly original music, and a certain passionate urgency in the delivery that shone through even the most polished of studio-editting – ‘MLK’, 'Bullet the Blue Sky', 'Pride (In the Name of Love)', 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For', 'Until the End of the World'.

They sang about our times - war ('Miss Sarajevo'), the media (‘Babyface’), alienation ('Numb', 'Zooropa'), consumerism and excess ('The Playboy Mansion'), urban angst ('Stay - Faraway So Close'). They sang about things that mattered, yet somehow managed not to come across as preachy and heavy-handed. And damn, they were good.

No matter that their excesses sometimes made them look a little ridiculous (in the case of the lemons, for example, or the ridiculously over-the-top make-a-statement supermarket launch of 'Pop' in 1997). Never mind the grand posturing, the cross-dressing, the silly sunglasses (said The Edge: "In the beginning the idea of wearing sunglasses for an interview seemed kinda stupid. Now we realize that in fact it’s not whether you wear sunglasses that’s important, it’s what kind of sunglasses you’re wearing."). U2 dared to do things that no one else had the balls to do. And their sheer audacity somehow made it all okay.

And how could you not forgive them their occasional trespasses, when they used the publicity generated from such rock star wankiness to further various good causes such as raising AIDs awareness and relieving third-world debt? Of course, one can be cynical and accuse them of milking the public's sympathy in order to boost their own profile, but whatever their motives, the fact remains that they've done more to engage in and contribute to the world around them than any other pop or rock group I know of, and that in itself deserves to be acknowledged and lauded.

So this is my tribute to the old U2, the band that were once the unacknowledged legislators of my emotional world. It feels strange to write about them in the past tense. And, even after their latest disappointing offering, there is still hope that the unforgettable fire which used to inspire their music has not yet been wholly extinguished. And that someday, they will find it in themselves to once again write, and perform, music that truly matters.

posted by eothen @ 11:55 PM