Fender's new board members

[Dave W]

Heck, for half of that I'd join Wishbass's board of directors.

[gearHed289]

Maybe if U2, especially Bono, put more effort into making good music rather than saving the planet, building luxury homes, getting involved with Fender, and the list goes on--they might be better off.  As of now, I haven't heard a single U2 song that is actually any good.  The clock is ticking.

I'm not sure what you consider "better off", but I think they've done OK for themselves. 

Does he even use Fenders regularly?

He used a Strat extensively in the early days at least.

[westen44]

I'm not sure what you consider "better off", but I think they've done OK for themselves. 

He used a Strat extensively in the early days at least.

I've posted about this before, so it probably wouldn't be a good idea to repeat myself too much.  But I have never been able to see what it is about U2 that caused people to make such a fuss over them.  To me it was always much ado about nothing.  I was just talking to a guitarist friend about this recently.  We both felt the same:  their music is just plain boring.  On the other hand, this isn't something I look at in a negative way.  I wish I did like them.  It might have made my trips to Ireland even more enjoyable.  To put it simply, when it comes to U2, I continue to remain totally baffled.  I have tried very hard to even like one song by them, but have never been able to.  I could say the same about a few other bands, but I'm not really interested in bashing.  That isn't the point. 

[Highlander]

One man's meat... they must be doing something right...

[westen44]

One man's meat... they must be doing something right...

It's just that it's so puzzling to me.  It reminds me once long ago when there was a movie almost everyone was raving about.  I went and saw it and went home wondering what people were talking about.  The movie was quite a dud, in my opinion.  I actually went back and saw the move again to see if maybe I wasn't giving it a chance.  It was the same.  I feel much the same way about U2.

[Pilgrim]

I've heard and really like their big hits.  OTOH, I haven't bought any albums or drilled down into their work. I find their popular stuff quite listenable.

[Dave W]

One man's meat... they must be doing something right...

By that standard Justin Bieber must be doing something right.   

I understand their success even though I'd never buy any of their music. It's nice safe middle of the road stuff.

[westen44]

By that standard Justin Bieber must be doing something right.   

I understand their success even though I'd never buy any of their music. It's nice safe middle of the road stuff.

I suppose middle of the road stuff must be so unappealing to me that it is genuinely hard to understand why people would want it on purpose.   It would be like going into a restaurant and asking them to give you the most conventional, bland, and ordinary food that they had.  Maybe liking such stuff as U2 is a form of musical asceticism that I can never relate to. 

[dadagoboi]

Unique sound from the beginning.  Interesting lyrical content.  Same four guys as they started with.  No long boring guitar solos.  Still know how to rock.
 


Of course, none of them is dead and they don't have a zillion posthumous albums released after a career that lasted a few years.

[gearHed289]

To put it simply, when it comes to U2, I continue to remain totally baffled.  I have tried very hard to even like one song by them, but have never been able to.  I could say the same about a few other bands, but I'm not really interested in bashing.  That isn't the point.

I get what you're saying. I've never owned an album by the Stones, AC/DC, Guns n Roses, Pearl Jam, or Nirvana. They just never flipped the switch for me, yet they're hugely popular and influential.

It's nice safe middle of the road stuff.

Not in the early days. In my world, in 1981, they were ground breaking. Along with the B52s, Devo, Joe Jackson, and the Police, they introduced me to a whole other world away from long hair and bell bottoms. 

[westen44]

Unique sound from the beginning.  Interesting lyrical content.  Same four guys as they started with.  No long boring guitar solos.  Still know how to rock.
 


Of course, none of them is dead and they don't have a zillion posthumous albums released after a career that lasted a few years.

If you're trying to make an argument for U2, taking a swipe at Hendrix isn't something that would bother me in the least.  He is one among many artists that I like and have listened to through the years.  Plus, his music toward the latter part of his career wasn't even very good, in my opinion.  As for U2, I was there when they hit the scene.  I never liked anything they did from the beginning onward.  That doesn't mean that I'd take any pleasure in criticizing them.  When I say I wish I could enjoy their music, too, I'm serious.  I even had the chance to explore U2-related stuff when I was in Ireland on my visits there.  If I could have liked U2, it would have meant more to me.  But that isn't the way it turned out, like I said. 

[westen44]

I get what you're saying. I've never owned an album by the Stones, AC/DC, Guns n Roses, Pearl Jam, or Nirvana. They just never flipped the switch for me, yet they're hugely popular and influential.

Not in the early days. In my world, in 1981, they were ground breaking. Along with the B52s, Devo, Joe Jackson, and the Police, they introduced me to a whole other world away from long hair and bell bottoms. 

I never owned albums by any of those artists, either, except for a few by the Stones.  But at least in some of those cases I could understand their appeal.  But U2 was boring, bland, and monotonous from the beginning.  I wouldn't want to call it elevator music, but I was bewildered that anybody could come out with one humdrum song after the other like U2.  Yet the crowds adored them.  That was the part that totally mystified me. 

[uwe]

I don't like U2, never did and probably never will. I laughed at a drummer back in the early 80ies who had joined our then band and was clamoring to adjust our sound to "this new band" - he played something off the first U2 album and the rest of the band looked incredulously at him and started laughing in a mean way, the bass player, a particularly nasty person named Uwe, even quipped: "Do they ever play riffs at all or is it all just strumming with lots of echo? What a hopeless bunch, they will never go anywhere."

Fast forward 35 years and I venture the statement that Herr Clayton and his fellow Catholics have proven me wrong. All that huddle-praying before concerts must have goaded great parts of the general public into believing that guitar riffs are not mandatory to be megastars, eat your hearts out, Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi and Ritchie Blackmore! 

You may or may not like U2, they are a hugely influential band, all the Jimmy Eat Worlds, Coldplays and Snow Patrols wouldn't be there without them. Even a lot of New Country these days has a strong U2 imprint. I don't even agree that U2 had an original sound - a lot of post-punk new wavers had a similar style, at least in Europe where we didn't think that all music has to sound like Foghat! -, but via their mass accessability and sheer success they bludgeoned their sound recipe over an unsuspecting world.

So what makes them so popular and gave them so much - thoroughly respectable - longevity?  I think it's Bono's tone of voice which touches many people (not me, I find its messianic fervor hard to bear) and the fact that the music underneath it is unobstrusive (no riffs that get in the way of you munching your food while you're listening to a U2 CD over dinner) and harmonically easy to latch onto, serving predominantly the singer of the song. Add the hymnic quality of a lot of their melodies to that (Coldplay's recipe too). It's rock (I use the term in a roundabout way) music even girls like. And that means having slightly more than half the world population on your side. Ask Rush how it feels if you only play to the other half. 

As regards their board memberships: I'm sure they are flattered by Fender's invitation, but I don't think either needs the money, half a million is small fry for both of them, they give more than that to charity regularly. But I see no basis to deny them their status as professional musicians and as therefore experienced users of all kinds of instruments over decades. And if The Edge hasn't given thought to his playing and his effects-drenched sound then I don't know who has. Saying that Bono and The Edge are not fit to serve on an instrument maker's board is a bit like saying that the Pope has no place in the board of a publishing house printing the Bible because he hasn't worked in the print business before. Digest that. And the Pope is a Catholic too, so there!

That's my take. Still, I like what Journey - bell bottoms or not - did with the same four chords on "Don't Stop Believing" better than what the Irishmen did on "With or Without You" - even though there is no "South Detroit" as such! And this posting could of course not be complete without the universal question for our in-and-out-of-the-closet U2 lovers lurking everywhere (Tom, how I crave for your just punishment, hit me with the Echoplex!!!):

"Couldn't Herr Clayton be a bit more adventurous in his playing, given that the other two instrumentalists don't do much either?" 

Plus it needs a Led Zeppelin , better still Deep Purple ending, U2 never wrote and never will write riffs like this, try singing your psalms over that, Bono boy!!!



You could invent a hundred new Stratocasters for The E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-Edge-ge-ge-ge-ge-ge-ge-ge-ge and he still wouldn't be able to set his delay to write such a riff. Nuff said. Now where's my bell bottom?

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I like U2. I think it's pretty harsh to lump them in with bands like Coldplay, Jimmy Eat World and Snow Patrol. Coldplay may have benefited from a post-U2 music scene, but U2 created their own trans-Atlantic appeal of being pretentious rock, even if hundred lesser bands latched on later. Coldplay's artificial longevity speaks more of the music industry's marketing laziness than anything wrong with U2's music. To me, no matter how smarmy, Bono's conviction is what makes the songs stick. The Edge's reverb bath is the cathedral of radio conveying the size of their aspirations, and think of the balls it took for Adam Clayton to admit he didn't know to play very well and work to improve that well after he was multimillionaire many times over. If anyone can watch It Might Get Loud and say that Jimmy Page's off-key slurring into riffs he can't remember how to steal even comes close to the disciplined and defined playing of the Edge, you've seen a different cut than me (and I watched it for Jack White, thank you very much.) 

Seriously, what's so bad about having musicians with major business acumen running an instrument company that has very nearly been run into the ground by failed investment bankers? At some point, it's nice to know that the art of the instrument is at least acknowledged by " the numbers guys."

[Pilgrim]

Seriously, what's so bad about having musicians with major business acumen running an instrument company that has very nearly been run into the ground by failed investment bankers? At some point, it's nice to know that the art of the instrument is at least acknowledged by " the numbers guys."

Nicely said!  I'm with you.