“Slashing songs”: the artist Bono said could wake the dead
The best rock and roll bands of all time were never interested in simply making music for the masses. They wanted to make a mark on the industry so that people would remember them for generations to come, and even if it was for all the wrong reasons, it would be worth it as long as their name went down in legend the same way that Eric Clapton and John Lennon did in their prime. That also means being able to say something of importance as well, and Bono knew that he was listening to some of the most visceral music ever conceived when he ventured underground.
But it’s hard to take Bono at his word, given he’s spent so many years above ground. The entire appeal of U2 was about creating universal music that could reshape how the world feels about rock and roll, and while that can be a noble effort in some spots, it does also manage to put them in a box of being over-exposed to the point where no one should have to see him in front of a microphone with his signature shades if they don’t want to.
When the band ventured into the 1990s, though, they did at least have an axe to grind again. The entire industry had been taken over by grunge, and since they were never going to pull off being a sad and lonely misfit in the same way that Nirvana or Pearl Jam, the next best thing for them to do was to lean into their stature as a stadium rock band, usually playing up their status as one of the biggest acts in the world.
It was an incredibly risky move at the time, but most people managed to see through what they were doing. Bono was clearly doing a pastiche of what a rock star was supposed to be when dressing as ‘The Fly’, and considering how open-hearted many of the songs on Achtung Baby were, even the most jaded fans had to admit that he had some sort of taste in what current music was about.
And since Bono was all about tuning into the next phase of rock, he admitted to learning a lot of his new chops from Pixies. Most of U2’s new moves were about chopping down preconceived notions of their sound and making something that was the antithesis of The Joshua Tree, but that artist approach was what Kim Deal and Frank Black were doing in their sleep years before on albums like Doolittle.
Tunes like ‘Here Comes Your Man’ and ‘Where Is My Mind’ were already etched in the heads of countless indie bands, but Bono felt that the key part of their sound was Black’s voice, saying, “The Pixies invented the high drama chorus-verse gear shift that was such a hallmark of ‘grunge’. Frank Black has a scream to wake the dead . . . slashing songs, but not his wrist . . . paranoia without the self-pity. And humour.”
It’s also important that Bono acknowledge the strange juxtaposition of their lyrics and heavy sound. Most people weren’t ready to hear something as lighthearted as ‘Here Comes Your Man’ from the same person who shrieked at them on ‘Debaser’, but that balance was what made people also manage to fall in love with what Nirvana were doing a few years down the line.
Although Bono had already learned his craft and wasn’t about to relearn everything he knew, he could still appreciate it when someone was bringing something new to the table. Everyone since The Beatles was trying to make something different, and once someone actually managed to crack the code on how to be original, their name was bound to be echoed forever.
