Hear Me Out: U2 member The Edge reinvented rock guitar
Much has been said about how U2 have presented themselves through the years. From their various political crusades to their ill-advised partnership with Apple, more than a few PR moves have caused many rock fans to slag off Bono and his appeals to heal the world through the power of music. Even though the man with the shades behind the microphone tends to be the easiest punching bag, people tend to forget that he has a musical genius to his left in The Edge.
Coming from the same background as other punk rockers of his day, The Edge was looking to subvert expectations regarding what was expected on guitar. Although he liked to indulge himself in the rare prog rock band like Yes, the main focus in U2 came down to serving the song, whether that was the chiming riff in ‘I Will Follow’ or the punk swagger of ‘Vertigo’. Although The Edge has never been the flashiest guitar player, he might be one of the most innovative guitarists since Jimmy Page.
While The Edge never claims to play anything too intricate or complicated, his art has been focused on creating sound images in the listener’s mind. Before talking about his guitar playing, anyone with the ability to make something as mesmerising as ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ deserves at least a passing mention in rock history. Using his signature flair for delay, The Edge created cascading rhythms that sounded like a guitar symphony across The Joshua Tree.
If any music analyst were to strictly follow his knack for delay, though, they would be selling The Edge short. Instead of focusing on his ability to create rhythms out of different patches, The Edge practically plays his effects like an instrument by itself, often toying with the mechanics of his setup whenever the group played live.
Even when playing straight, there are always exciting elements whenever Edge straps on a guitar. Take a song like ‘Drowning Man’, taken from the album War, as a prime example. While most of the greatest elements of the album have focused on standard guitar playing, Edge’s ability to create a sonic landscape using just fret harmonics is a sight to behold, especially when playing off Bono’s melody.
Although The Edge isn’t known to be the fastest lead guitar player by any stretch, his approach to his solos also has a world of its own. While any intermediate guitarist could probably figure out the lead guitar break in a song like ‘New Year’s Day’ fairly quickly, The Edge was never concerned with making his Irish answer to Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’. It was about making a musical passage anthemic able to sound good when reaching out to stadiums of people.
He still hasn’t stopped trying to innovate, either. Going into the transition of the 1990s, the various effects used on albums like Achtung Baby made for a tapestry of sounds that no one had ever heard before. Whereas most guitar bands were still going down the rabbit hole of alternative and grunge, Edge’s willingness to embrace industrial textures made for effects that would be co-opted a few years later. While it may have been misconstrued as a joke by some, the octave whammy pedal he employed on the album could be heard just a few years later on albums like OK Computer by Radiohead.
His innovations also haven’t gone unnoticed by his contemporaries, either. When talking amongst fellow guitar innovators like Jimmy Page and Jack White in It Might Get Loud, The Edge could hold his own as a guitarist who has left his stamp in rock history. Despite not having a guitar masterpiece like ‘Stairway to Heaven’ under his belt, his knowledge of where the guitar needs to be in the mix has made him the benchmark of what a guitarist’s role is supposed to be.
Even though The Edge wasn’t the typical idea of what many think about as a “guitar hero”, his need to go beyond the traditional guitarist role has resculpted what the guitar means in a rock band setting. Instead of being responsible for creating solid riffs and being the backbone for the singer, The Edge made legions of guitarists focus on the guitar as a piece of the orchestra of rock and roll.
