The one rockstar move The Edge considered going “too far”
In order to make it as a successful musician, you’ve got to be able to rise above all criticism and any sort of setbacks you might encounter on your path to stardom. If you’re unable to live down embarrassment of any kind, then it’ll ultimately get to you and plague you for the rest of your career. On a personal level, I feel embarrassment about minor things I do on a day-to-day basis, so god knows how I’d fare in dealing with the level of fame and public scrutiny that a band like U2 will have been subject to throughout their career.
Their early work in the 1980s saw them attract a modest audience, but with the release of their third album, 1983’s War, they began to accrue a much larger fanbase and were propelled into the spotlight, with eventual worldwide fame and notoriety following after. With that, they also began to face a higher amount of criticism from their detractors, and those who weren’t on board with their sound didn’t hold back from being ruthless when it came to dishing out their critiques.
By 1998, the band was an almost unstoppable force in rock music and had released a string of albums that still remain regarded as some of the finest of their era, with records such as The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby being among the most acclaimed that they ever released as a group. U2 were global superstars, and they certainly played up to this fact by increasing their palatability and pandering to a broader audience with their brand of stadium-ready rock.
As many bands of their stature do when they reach the apex of their fame, 1998 also saw the band release a Greatest Hits compilation, which collected all of their finest moments from their debut in 1980 to 1990. Many might have thought that this release was long overdue, and given that they only continued to release even bigger hits in the eight years after, they could easily have stretched the compilation out over multiple discs.
Considering they were looking to cash in on the success of their first decade with such a release, you’d think that they had plenty to be happy about from the period, and speaking to CMJ in support of the compilation’s release, guitarist The Edge revealed that he was “very proud of the whole collection”. In particular, he singled out the period stretching from The Unforgettable Fire to The Joshua Tree as being the most “creatively satisfying” period of their career.
However, it wasn’t all positive for him, and when asked if there was anything he was personally embarrassed about from that period, he responded with a humorous line about a publicity faux pas that has dogged him for years. Laughing about his memories of the period, he said that he felt the most embarrassment from “allowing Paramount Pictures to airbrush my stubble out of the promotional pictures for Rattle And Hum” before adding, “That was actually the moment when I realized things might be going a little too far.”
Of course, U2 had many more successes and failures after this point, but for an issue with The Edge’s facial hair being the only thing to have embarrassed him for 10 years is a remarkable sign that the band really didn’t let fame faze them in the slightest.
