The only musician God would listen to, according to Bono
For all of the divisive moves that Bono has made over the years, you can never say that the man is a snob.
Preachy, absolutely, but when you look at his track record for noticing great talent, he never liked to distinguish between different genres as objectively bad or come down on a certain band because everyone else was hating on them. He knew that every band had at least a little bit of potential in them, but some of the best musicians that he ever came across came from the other side of the pop sphere.
But there’s no debating U2’s status as a rock and roll outfit. They do have a lot of lighter songs in their discography, but when you look at their track record for great material, there’s a reason why classic rock stations are forever going to be playing tunes like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’. They had genuine hooks behind them, but that also came from Bono listening to a lot more than bands like Ramones and The Clash when he first started learning about music.
He liked the idea of working in other areas, and a lot of the best singers he gravitated to had a lot more going on than a spectacular voice. John Lennon and Van Morrison were laying their souls out on record, and Bono was going to do everything he could to match their level of intensity whenever he made a record. But not every one of his note choices were necessarily normal compared to everyone else.
A song like ‘Drowning Man’ is absolutely beautiful for what it is, but Bono’s melody feels like it’s almost removed from rock and roll altogether. It sounds more like a line that you’d hear out of some old jazz record, and given his friendship with legends like Frank Sinatra later on in his career, it’s not like working in jazz was necessarily out of the question for him when he began finding his own voice.
But even the biggest jazz players are only as good as the people behind them, and Quincy Jones is one of the greatest arrangers in the business. He may have had to face the disgusting racist practices every so often whenever he worked with some of the biggest stars in the world, but from working with Sinatra to the biggest names in jazz to eventually making Michael Jackson’s biggest hits, there was no way that anyone could touch what he did in the world of pop.
And while Bono did have a soft spot for all things rock and roll, he felt that Jones was the kind of musician who would be celebrated on all planes of existence, saying, “Quincy does not distinguish high and low. Only good and bad. ‘We Are the World’ is not only the title of his greatest hit — it’s how he looks at life. As a musician, what an honor it is to have lived in Quincy Jones’ century; as a person, what a privilege to call him a friend. If God has a jukebox, I know which name is on more of the selections than any other. It starts with Q.”
While we’ll never know what it sounds like on the other side, while we’re still here, it’s hard to think of anyone who had the same sixth sense when it comes to music like Jones did. He knew where songs were going long before even the artists he was working with did, and while he wasn’t trying to show off every time he produced, a lot of his job was about knowing the perfect line that a song needed to become legendary.
So, despite Michael Jackson receiving some of the greatest accolades known to man during his lifetime, Jones deserves all the same a few times over based on his track record. No one could have done what he did, and while there were many musicians who could make their music sound heavenly, no one else had the same kind of musical magic that Jones did when he walked into the studio. He knew what perfection sounded like and was going to move the Earth if it meant getting it.
