The one terrible decision Bono would do all over again: “Slipping it under”
Bono has been responsible for putting his foot in his mouth more than a few times during his career.
There was never a moment when he was unafraid to express his opinion, and even if he did look like one of the most pretentious people in the world while doing it, that was all well and good if it was done in the service of making something bigger than rock and roll. But even if there were some great songs to be found in the band’s discography, that hasn’t stopped them from having more than a few missteps during their career.
If anything, the band almost has more missteps than they do triumphs for some people. Everyone would have loved the idea of the band staying the same kind of post-punk leaning act that they had been in the early 1980s, but as soon as they hit the big time with The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum pretty much solidified them looking like one of the biggest bunches of egos ever to be found in one band.
The film itself isn’t that bad by any stretch, but you can definitely see what the rest of the world saw in it. The band were calling their shot at being one of the biggest bands in the world pre-emptively, and Bono seemed to be the one right in the middle, always there with the spotlight on him, singing about the greater problems with the world on ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but Bono seemed to have some self-awareness of when they screwed up. Pop was a huge step backwards in his opinion, and when looking at their music going into the 2000s, they seemed to be going back to what the fans wanted. But right as soon as they had everyone’s attention again, it only took a few more albums before they started pissing people off one more time.
No Line on the Horizon already had more than a few blemishes when looking at their attempts to be hip and cool, but Songs of Innocence was the dividing line for most people. There are many ways that they could have tried to connect with the next generation of rock and roll, but the idea of cramming their new album onto everyone’s iPhone was far too big a step for anyone to have taken.
There was no reason for them to clog up the airwaves with their music by default, and while Bono was apologetic for what he did, he did admit that he would do the same thing if it was for their album Songs of Surrender, saying, “God bless Apple for allowing me to talk them into that, even if it went far past where it was meant to go. I hope we don’t stop looking for ways to get our music across. Slipping it under the pillows of our audience would be better for Songs of Surrender because they’re whispers, not screams, these songs.”
If Songs of Innocence was a small annoyance for everyone at the time, though, putting Songs of Surrender out to everyone’s phone would have got them crucified. Say what you will about the Apple stung, but that was leading to an album that was still fairly good, but since most of Songs of Surrender is a bunch of reflective reworkings of their old songs, everyone would have been furious to hear old rockstars do glorified karaoke to their own work.
So while Bono has learned when he has taken things too far, there are more than a few moments where he didn’t learn his lesson the way that his fans wanted him to. He knew that there were some experiments that weren’t meant to be done again, but he wasn’t going to stop reaching for new ideas, even if it meant pissing off more than a few people along the way.
