U2 - Best Band Evahhhh?

I started bringing some mp3s into work to play into headphones. It helps kill the tedium and even helps me concentrate when I actually have something to do. Right no I have a modest 20 or so albums on my work computer (as opposed to the gigs and gigs of music I have at home and the 170 or so CDs that I actually bought). Last night I was looking through my files wonder what music to take to work, copied some U2 albums onto a flash disk and plugged them in today.

I've always really liked U2. I've always said that The Joshua Tree is one of the five best albums ever made, but lately I've been neglecting the boys from Belfast. So today I bring in Achtung Baby.

Holy shit!!!!

I remember being in 7th grade listening to Achtung Baby in the back of the ski bus on the way to go skiing at Swain Ski Centre in the asshole of upstate New York on some Saturday morning in the middle of winter. The bus is dark, most people are sleeping. The trip takes about an hour and a half. I'm sitting along, third seat form the back, blasting Who's Going to Ride Your Wild Horses on my walkman, staring out into the dark barren fields alongside Route 17. I keep re-winding the tape to play each song twice, some of them three times. Sometimes I kept wanting to hear One over and over again, sometimes it was So Cruel, sometimes it was Acrobat.

Now, some 15 years later (no dear god say it ain’t so!!!), I see just what a piece of genius the album was. Did any album capture the Zeitgeist of the post-communist euphoria as well as Achtung Baby? Seriously, how did the U2 manage to tap into every fiber of the time in the early 1990s when people really believed that it was the end of history? This is truly amazing stuff.

If you haven't listened to the album in a while, dust it off, pop into the CD player (or cue it up in WinAmp), put your headphones on (this is key) and think back to when you first heard songs like Mysterious Ways and Even Better Than the Real Thing. Think about was going on in your life and in the world. Then listen to the album again, this time as though you were listening to it for the first time. that's the really amazing thing. It still sounds fresh and new. Innovative. Creative. Edgy.

Put that album together with All That You Can't Leave Behind, The Unforgettable Fire, Rattle and Hum, even Zooropa and Pop have grown on me in recent years. What does this mean? Well, if you ask me, (and you won't, but I'll continue anyway) U2 is the Best Band Evaaaahhhhh!!!! Seriously, say what you want about the Stones, the Beatles, Floyd or Zeppelin, U2 has been fresh, new creative and ballsy for more than 25 years now. No band has their track record of trying new stuff and making it work, the record of concerts as cultural events reflecting the times instead of just "shows." Best Band Evaaahhhh!!! You can argue with me, you can discuss the fact, but that's about all you can do....


And on a sidebar: do you realize that Bono has adult kids? How do you have a teenage life when your dad makes a point of having a rock star image? Who do you rebel against? How do you deal with all your girlfriends secretly wanting to get into your dad's pants? It's like the skit on the old MTV show The State with Doug. Remember Doug - the kid who wanted to rebel so bad but all the adults around him were really cool?
"That's a lot of oregano Doug."
"Better be, I paid 150 bucks for it."
"Doug, I don't want to be your prin-ci-pul, I want to be your prin-ci-PAL."

Or better

"Bob Dylan's not dead Doug, I produced his last three albums."
"Oh, you mean Uncle Robert?"

Is this what you have to deal with if you're Bono's kids?

Am I bugging you… Didn’t mean to bug ya… Okay Edge, play the blues!