The U2 song that Taylor Hawkins despised
The late Taylor Hawkins was best known for being the smiling and energetic drummer from the Foo Fighters. He was well-loved throughout the music world, providing percussion for a number of legendary outfits, including the likes of Queen, Rush, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Beach Boys and Jane’s Addiction. He also wasn’t afraid to give his opinion, like he did on this U2 number.
“Let me start out by saying that I love U2,” Hawkins said, “I really do, especially the first four records. They’re very, very important records. They were super, duper important to me growing as a musician, whether I was 10 or 12 or 14. Boy, October, War, The Unforgettable Fire, and The Joshua Tree, those records, they’re part of my musical DNA and structure. Then they did Achtung Baby. I was like, ‘okay. I get it, sort of.’ And then they did fucking ‘Discothéque.’”
‘Discotheque’ is the opening song for U2’s 1997 album, Pop. This album saw U2 expand their horizons as several different genres played a part in putting the record together. On ‘Discothéque’, U2 exhibit electronic dance music, really leaning into a previously unfamiliar genre that they became familiar with throughout the ’90s. A lot of people liked the song as it peaked at number one in the UK, Norway, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand and Finland; however, it wasn’t to everyone’s liking.
“My brother and me used to love early U2. We used to listen to early, live U2 records like Under A Blood Red Sky,” Hawkins once said. “Then we were watching MTV and they said, ‘we’re going to world premiere the new U2 song and video today.’ I was like, ‘I hope it’s a little more like the other stuff. I mean, Achtung Baby was fine, but I hope it crosses over that ironic narcissism thing that they were doing on Achtung Baby.’ Then that ‘Discothéque’ song came on and they were all doing the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ dance and shit in the video, and me and my brother were sitting there watching, going, ‘What. The fuck. Is going on?!’”
It seems that the whole song was put together to be a bit of a laugh; U2 weren’t taking themselves too seriously at the time and wanted to be perceived more as a fun party band. That was clear, but it just didn’t land with a lot of fans, Taylor Hawkins included.
“I know it’s all supposed to be all tongue in cheek and, believe me, one of my favourite bands in the world is Queen, the masters of tongue in cheek. But that was just a bummer to me,” said Hawkins. “They were trying to take off their stone-faced, world-on-their-shoulders thing, for lack of a better way of putting it.”
When a band has a discography as big as U2, they can’t all be hits, and the rage Hawkins showed for the song ‘Discothéque’ is undeniably funny. Throughout their career, U2 seemed to struggle to nail down the kind of band they wanted to be and how they wanted to be perceived. It’s important for bands to allow current influences to alter the way they make music, but U2 seemed to let it dominate their sound completely, with Pop being a complete shambles of EDM, which was hard to tell whether or not should be taken seriously.
It’s hard to decipher truly, so the whole thing is probably best left in the words of Taylor Hawkins, as simply being described as “fucking ‘Discothéque.’”
