“It’s a travesty”: the genre Bono thought was bad for rock music
Bono was never shy about standing up for what he thought was right in the music industry. Although his beliefs have got him in hot water more than a few times when playing live with U2, there was no doubt that his heart was usually in the right place even if he looked like an absolute dickhead trying to be holier-than-thou over a particular subject. That kind of behaviour may have had its place in rock history, but Bono had no problem when he thought certain genres should be jettisoned off the face of the Earth.
Then again, the entire premise of U2 came about because of disassembling what genres were supposed to be. Their heroes were all members of the golden age of punk, and when looking through all of their favourite records by bands like The Clash, it was tearing down the barriers of what genres are supposed to be and paving the way for something entirely new whenever they went into the studio.
Bono wasn’t exactly shy about making those different leaps, either. War was already one of the darkest records that they would make in the 1980s, but that kind of creativity gave way to them working on something a bit more ambitious on The Joshua Tree. Suddenly, they weren’t afraid to have music that sounded like it was coming from the future, but as soon as Achtung Baby came out, it was clear they were leaving some parts of their sound in the dust.
This was now the age of irony, and seeing Bono play up his rockstar theatrics was exactly what fans needed to see. He wanted to make sure everyone knew that he was the exaggerated version of a rockstar that everyone loved to clown on, so when that kind of macho posturing came back with genuine sincerity, it was not going to go over well with everyone.
“Rap-metal nearly put the white race in jeopardy [as a creative force].”
Bono
But that started in the metallic side of rock and roll. Metal had never died when grunge took over, and while Metallica were busy making some creative detours, that left the door open for people like Korn to rise to the forefront. While Jonathan Davis felt some genuine pain in his voice whenever he sang, many of their musical godchildren of nu-metal ended up turning the genre into a sideshow, especially when everyone was looking to people like Limp Bizkit as their new gods.
For the U2 frontman, this was the kind of musical trainwreck that could not be overlooked, saying, “It’s about other bands [who value songwriting] coming through. It’s not just us. Rap-metal nearly put the white race in jeopardy [as a creative force]. It’s a travesty. Those [rap-metal] people should just take suicide pills and go away. What we have to offer, if we’re lucky, are lyrics, some interesting arrangements, and beautiful melody.”
That’s not to say that Bono hated everything that rap stood for by any stretch. He had been vocal about how Public Enemy were necessary for music to keep pushing the envelope, but as soon as people thought it was a good idea to give bands like Papa Roach the limelight, things started to take a downward turn fairly quickly for him, especially for someone who was as focused on the melody as he was.
While there are pieces to glean from every genre, Bono knew that whatever U2 would be doing next needed to be a retort to what rap-metal stood for. So, whereas people were singing about doing it all for the nookie and needing something to break in the late 1990s, U2 was halfway to writing a song about the beautiful day.
