The Edge on why David Bowie was as important as The Beatles
When U2 got started, The Edge understood that none of them were looking to be another flash in the pan.
Their music came from the heart before anything else, and as long as they kept themselves honest every time they made a record, there was a good chance people would be singing their songs until the end of time. And while Bono is convinced that U2’s music will go on for generations to come, the guitarist felt that the true legends will be looked at the same way that people look at the blues legends today.
But when U2 first got started, their tastes were far from the same. The Edge may have been interested in punk rock from the moment The Clash started coming out of his speakers at home, but he was also interested in what prog could do. There was no way that he was going to bust out records by Gentle Giant, but since he considered Yes a big influence, you can hear it in the way that he uses space in his guitar arrangements the same way that Steve Howe did when working on records like Close to the Edge.
The Irish legends did at least stand out among the pack of post-punk bands when releasing Boy, but they didn’t want to ever be pigeonholed, either. It was bad enough for them to get labelled as a purely political band once War came out, but by the time The Joshua Tree crash-landed in 1987, people started to get a better sense of what they were. They were making love letters to their favourite music, but right when they reached their pinnacle, they had to dismantle everything.
Rattle and Hum was the first indication that they were becoming one of the most pretentious bands in the world, so Achtung Baby took all of that and threw it out the window. They weren’t some pompous rock stars; they could take the piss and make fun of themselves as well. So when Bono came out with ‘The Fly’ persona, he managed to pull off the caricature version of what a rock star should be a lot better than most people expected.
Because that kind of mentality was always what their greatest influences did. The Beatles never stayed in one spot for too long, nor did Bob Dylan want to be writing protest songs for the rest of his life, but when it came to taking risks, The Edge thought no one hit the nail on the head better than David Bowie did. He was the essence of a musical chameleon, and no one else could even come close to the amount of ground he covered.
U2 could do alright when transitioning between different sounds, but The Edge felt that no one could match Bowie’s passion, saying, “Next to The Beatles he stands as the most influential artist of all time. He truly altered the course of music history.” That’s a bold claim comparing him to the Fab Four, but looking at his track record, it’s like it isn’t a convincing argument when you break everything down.
Compared to everyone else in rock and roll, ‘The Starman’ pushed boundaries at every opportunity he could. He admittedly had more time to leave an impact than The Beatles did, but on every one of his albums, you could see him trying to find new ways of twisting rock and roll into a different shape, whether that was working with electronic soundscapes on his Berlin trilogy or making love letters to completely different genres, like soul on Young Americans, drum n bass on Earthling, and jazz on Blackstar.
There’s no denying the kind of impact that U2 have had during their career, but when comparing their bold changes to what Bowie did, they practically look like a one-trick pony. They still had the ability to change whenever they walked into the studio, but Bowie was the prime example of an artist who can absorb every genre they listened to and serve it up better than even the industry giants could.
