The artist Bono called a musical prophet: “My favourite songs”
You have to give Bono credit where it’s due; he’s an artist who has always been happy trying something new.
He and U2 had a great deal of success in the late 1980s and early ‘90s with records such as Achtung Baby and The Joshua Tree, and if they wanted to, they could have continued pumping out music like this, it would have certainly kept fans happy and would have cemented them as one of the cooler groups from this period, but they opted to try different things.
From an artistic point of view, you have to respect their decision not to stay stagnant, and far too many artists find something that resonates with the public and then continue leaning into it, rinsing it for every last dollar they can find, but the execution often leaves something to be desired. For instance, who could forget their legendary faux pas in 2014 when they released their album Songs of Innocence for free by installing it on every Apple user’s iPhone without asking permission. For many, this was an invasion of privacy, and for others, it devalued the art form.
“U2 are business moguls, not musicians anymore,” Sharon Osbourne posted on social media once the band released their music for free. “No wonder you have to give your mediocre music away for free, cause no one wants to buy it.”
Controversial business decisions aside, if you were to ask Taylor Hawkins, one of the worst things that the band ever did was try to make something disco-inspired. Despite being a huge fan of U2, even coming to terms with some of their more obscure outings, Hawkins felt they crossed the line when they released ‘Discothéque’, a track which he simply couldn’t wrap his head around.
“My brother and me used to love early U2. We used to listen to early, live U2 records like Under A Blood Red Sky,” said the Foo Fighters drummer. “Then we were watching MTV, and they said, ‘We’re going to world premiere the new U2 song and video today.’ I was like, ‘I hope it’s a little more like the other stuff. I mean, Achtung Baby was fine, but I hope it crosses over that ironic narcissism thing that they were doing on Achtung Baby.’ Then that ‘Discothéque’ song came on, and they were all doing the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ dance and shit in the video, and me and my brother were sitting there watching, going, ‘What. The fuck. Is going on?!’”
While the track was hardly an out-and-out disco tune, there were certainly some more funk-inspired elements to it. The guitar took on a Studio 54 feel, and Hawkins has a point, the video was pretty dreadful. However, while this sound might have been a slight left turn for U2, when you better understand the artists that Bono adores, it all begins to make a bit more sense. When he was highlighting how much he adored the Daft Punk song ‘Get Lucky’, he began discussing his obsession with Nile Rodgers and how the funk and disco bassist is responsible for what he believes are some of the best songs ever written.
In an open letter, the U2 frontman went so far as to call Rodgers a musical prophet. Strong words, sure, but when you consider the number of hits that the brains behind CHIC is responsible for, he may well have a point.
“Dear Nile, You have been the holy host of some of my favourite songs ever.. a prophetic figure,” said Bono.
Concluding, “You didn’t have much of a family, so you wrote WE ARE FAMILY. You weren’t having good times, so you wrote GOOD TIMES. You wrote songs so you could be in them, and that light touch is never better than on this one. You were across a few of my favourite songs ever… Thank you.”
