A rant on U2
How in the hell are they the best music artists today?
Yes, they are fine musicians and they make nice safe music for nice safe people, but DAMN. It seems as though people are honoring them simply because they are still together not because of any actual musical accomplishment. Case in point...this years Grammy's:
"The rock gods snatched Grammy history from the comeback queen Wednesday, as perennial favorites U2 took home five trophies while Mariah Carey had to settle for three.
U2 won the 20th Grammy of their careers, including album of the year for "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" _ the same disc that earned them three awards last year."
Excuse me? How can they earn awards on the same album for two years in a row? How crappy does music have to be for one group to win "Best album of the year (on the same album)" for two years in a row? They might as well as given it to Green Day for American idiot! I'm bias, but it seems like U2's current album is nothing but a "b-side" collection to their last mega-selling disc.
I simply submit that Weezer's latest album "Make believe" is fall superior to U2's "All of our leftovers that you can leave behind". If not Weezer, at least White Stripes "Get Behind Me Satan" or even Kanye West! I'm pissed. Not at U2, but at an industry that would give them awards for the same album two years in a row. On a similar tangent I think that U2 should take a lesson from the Rolling Stones and exit the industry on a high note rather than looking like a geriatric/mummified version of their former cool selves. The music shold be preserved for future generatations, the artist should leave the stage gracefully.
"It's better to burn out than fade away" - Mr. Neil Young
Yes, they are fine musicians and they make nice safe music for nice safe people, but DAMN. It seems as though people are honoring them simply because they are still together not because of any actual musical accomplishment. Case in point...this years Grammy's:
"The rock gods snatched Grammy history from the comeback queen Wednesday, as perennial favorites U2 took home five trophies while Mariah Carey had to settle for three.
U2 won the 20th Grammy of their careers, including album of the year for "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" _ the same disc that earned them three awards last year."
Excuse me? How can they earn awards on the same album for two years in a row? How crappy does music have to be for one group to win "Best album of the year (on the same album)" for two years in a row? They might as well as given it to Green Day for American idiot! I'm bias, but it seems like U2's current album is nothing but a "b-side" collection to their last mega-selling disc.
I simply submit that Weezer's latest album "Make believe" is fall superior to U2's "All of our leftovers that you can leave behind". If not Weezer, at least White Stripes "Get Behind Me Satan" or even Kanye West! I'm pissed. Not at U2, but at an industry that would give them awards for the same album two years in a row. On a similar tangent I think that U2 should take a lesson from the Rolling Stones and exit the industry on a high note rather than looking like a geriatric/mummified version of their former cool selves. The music shold be preserved for future generatations, the artist should leave the stage gracefully.
"It's better to burn out than fade away" - Mr. Neil Young
3 Comments:
It certainly is a grave injustice. But between you and me, we can come up with a huge list of better albums from 2005, such as Trivium's brilliant Ascendancy or DevilDriver's The Fury of Our Maker's Hand. Both are sophomore efforts in which the bands really find their niche, evolve, and come out as brilliant songwriters/performers rather than amateurs. Hell, System of a Down's Mezmerize is assuredly better than U2's latest slop of gray music. The award was, as you said, awarded to them because people see them as the old guy with the walker who still gets around everywhere on his own, and is so heroic, rather than going to live in a nursing home. The blah, blah, blah, boring music will always get more recognition than the risky, truly brilliant music.
You guys!
It's the Grammy's! You cannot believe that the folks who give that award REALLY care about good music, can you? Forget about it. Just smile knowingly and walk away. You both sound like those folks who demand that Hollywood make less violent/more wholesome movies that they can watch. Here's my advice (I know you love advice from me), "Don't watch Hollywooden movies!" Likewise, ignore the Grammy's, have no traffic with anything they touch, cuz it's all junk. Think "Silence of the Lambs" (won Best Picture Oscar some years back). Best Picture! Call me a snob, I don't care, but if THAT movie constitutes good art then I'm George Lucas. Reminds me of a Woody Allen joke, "It's like an award for "Greatest Fascist Dictator" - Adolph Hitler! They got awards for everything these guys.
That's not to say miracles won't happen - Rush got a best instrumental Grammy back in '90 or so for a very nice little tune that is certainly not as widely known as Mariah Carey, to say the least.
Again, forget about it. You don't want Weezer or System . . . to get Grammy's. Not if you truly love those acts.
Also, you are too hard on U2. True, even my die-hard U2 fan friends admit that "How to Build . . " is a poor album. But I dare both of you to give a listen to "Yahweh", found on that disc, at peak volume on a good sound system and not be moved, lifted, energized, and inspired.
Just remember, Jon, Jeff Buckley, were he alive today, would probably not win a Grammy. And people who are looking for an ambulance chaser will likely not pay a visit to you once you hang your shingle. Why not? The same reason why you can't get a good glass of wine at McDonald's. The same reason why Kelly's images will never find their way into Playboy magazine. People who eat at McDonald's and look at Playboy aren't looking for anything good.
And people who trust the Grammy's aren't either. So sleep well, you're on the right track.
But I, too, am, a little perplexed that they garnered an "award" for a disc that, unless I am mistaken, isn't ever their most recent. "Vertigo" came out last year, I think. And how they get accolades for the same disc two years in a row is even weirder.
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