BONO: Love, hate, or begrudgingly respect?

Meh.

He's a number one, not a number two.

Bono's sanctimony always irked me but I liked U2's music nonetheless. Larry Mullen Jr's hotness didn't hurt either.

I respect Bono for both the success of the band and his humanitarian work. Like him or not, he has made a difference.

Having said that, I suspect he's a bit of a twat so I'm glad not to be around him.

I know a lot of people who profess to hate Bono and U2, at least since they blew up with The Joshua Tree and became huge stars (though some feel they didn't became insufferable, particularly Bono, until Achtung Baby or or shortly thereafter) But, I remember when they really were "college rock" with Boy, The Unforgettable Fire, War, October and Bono was personally less annoying.

I don't like him. He seems phony. I know he is supposed to support all these causes but what has he actually done? Like, Matt Damon supports clean water in 3rd world countries. He has been actually doing things there. Just an example.

I have Paul McCartney-level hate for him. Another greedy phony rock star.

shmeh...

I still love lots of their songs, some of my all time favorites but now I can understand why some folks feel that Bono in particular is sanctimonious and smug - I refused to see it back in the Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum/Achtung Baby/Zooropa days when I was REALLY into them, but it's true he can be a bit much, however I think he's probably has good intentions overall.

To borrow from "Pulp Fiction": There were U2 guys and there were REM guys. You could like them both but all of us lean to one or the other.

I was always the REM guy.

Bono annoyed the hell out of me for some reason. Especially when they sang protest songs about South Africa and then wouldn't allow their music to be played there. Like who the hell is supposed to hear this protest music? Poseurs.

I would like to put him, Michael Stipe, and Sting in a small, enclosed place and let them annoy each other rather than us.

I thought he was instrumental in bringing meds and money into Africa to fight AIDS.

He praised Mike Pence for his AIDS relief efforts -- even though Pence caused an AIDS epidemic in Indiana.

My first boyfriend grew his white-guy black hair out around the time of Joshua Tree. Bono was not one of his heroes, but someone said he looked like Bono and so he started. dressing. like. Bono, but denying he was doing it. We had spats about it. I took to calling him 'Bono' sarcastically. He would get upset.

Are you talking about me r14?

The most interesting thing about Bono was how, when he was young, he had that uncanny resemblance to Mork.

I have nothing against Bono but U2's music bores the shit out of me.

Agree, U2 music is boring for the most part. I really do not like Bono. I just can't, ya know? He seems too calculating in promoting his image as a humanitarian.

HATE.

He's a twat.

This. He had this outfit complete with hat. Then he would take his hat off and let his hair fall down around his shoulders.

I hope you're all feeling pity for me. (Glossier hair than Bono's, though.)

I hear Adam is gay but deeply in the closet, almost married Naomi Campbell back in the 90's.

Adam does have a bit of the gayface.

The problem with Bono's humanitarian and charity work is that he doesn't simply do humanitarian and charity work, he PERFORMS GREAT ACTS of HUMANITARIANISM and CHARITY.

He does it. He tell everyone he does it. He makes sure that the media and everyone else knows he's done it. He sings about it later.

Then, finally wags a figure at the rest of us for not doing as much as he does although as a percent of his income and net worth, what he does is insignificant - his net worth from his music career ($600 million) and investments (among other investments like Yelp, he owns 2.3% of of facebook market cap $415billion), make him a billionaire by many estimates.

indifferent

I liked U2's music up until Zooropa. The Edge was a pretty distinctive guitar player. Bono's always been a bit of a pompous ass, but for some reason he bothers me less than Sting.

However - if one has to choose between REM or U2 - I was definitely more of an REM person.

I'm a big U2 fan. The last couple albums weren't so great but their overall catalog is amazing. Not many bands can pull off the kind of transition they did between Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby/Zooropa and be even more successful as a result.

Bono is very smart and very well-read. Especially impressive when you consider his lack of formal education. But Larry was always hotter and on the rare occasion that he spoke you could tell he was also much smarter. Larry and Edge were always the more musically talented. A lot of Bono's LOOK AT ME humanitarianism feels like he's trying to make up for lacking elsewhere.

Twat.

Bump

I was always way more REM than U2, but I will say that in the early years U2 was revelatory. "I Will Follow" and the video were favorites, the "Boy" album was so cool, and they deserved the first wave of mega-success that followed.

I had the great pleasure of seeing both bands live around 1988-89. I enjoyed the music at the REM show more, but the U2 concert was on a different level, and love him or hate him, Bono knew how to make a big crowd adore him.

He's been wearing PURPLE tinted shades for decades now. Get it?

I fucking hate REM. and michael stipe's whiny voice.

Bono's voice is wayyyy nicer and he still has it!

Poor Eric Clapton, his gig at msg was shit! Even the reviewers felt sorry for him...

Bono/U2 is like that pleasant looking girl who says, "I'm so hot!" all the time.

First, you can't call yourself hot, you have to let others call you hot. And rather than talking about his hot you are, why not actually try bring hot when all you are is mildly above-average looking."

Annoying. But I'd rather listen to U2 than Beiber, Katy Perry, etc.

Bombastic, virtue signaling prick. When I was very young I bought WAR and liked it a lot but grew to hate Bono and the band when they decided that not only were they a rock band , but a secular religion. I cringe at songs like Pride and I Still Haven't Found though I once liked them. Perhaps when one grows up the artifice becomes more obvious. And those ticking sunglasses!

"Fucking sunglasses!" I meant to say...

Same R33, he's more talented than the crop of "musicians" these days, I would listen to U2 first before any of these talentless hacks.

He's old and greedy.

It's amazing how many times I have read accounts of people who have had to be around him in a work situation and have said he is an insufferable twat of the first order. I have read bad accounts about him more than any other celebrity. But never any details! I'd love to know what he does that pisses people off so much.

" Am I buggin you? I don't mean to bug yah..." was Bono at his most insufferable, the rattle and hum period. I used to really love U2 around achtung baby but as the years have gone on they seem to be phoning it in. I also came to realize that they basically ripped off echo and the bunnymen and the edge ripped off Rory Gallagher so their sound is less impressive to me now. I think the band has reached this point of being too big to fail, they just keep the machine going so everyone of their employees keeps getting paid. Not to mention the fact that Bono's taxes help support the irish economy, so I think as much as people might hate bono, they are unwilling to criticize him publicly.

It is obvious he's not that bright.

He and his band's music bore me. Droning and dull.

"I also came to realize that they basically ripped off echo and the bunnymen"

Sorry, but I don't hear that at all. If they were trying to rip off Echo and the Bunnymen it was certainly a spectacular failure.

He was always too fat for the tight pants he was wearing.

I've met him a few times. He's the real deal as far as I'm concerned. Always super nice to me when he didn't have to be. The whole band is.

Do you hear it here? r42, especially the part after 0:44.

That's a stretch R45. Bono has been singing like that since the beginning, before anyone had heard of EATB.

Agree to disagree r46. I think bono's vocal delivery changed a bit by Joshua Tree.

R44 you are so lucky. Are you crew? Caterer? For as much flack as U2 get, millions of fans wanna spend 5 minutes chatting with them. The band is handsome, Bono is ok looking but the other 3 look better now.

Adam is a silver fox daddy. Metrosexual but was a total pussy hound before getting married 5 years ago. Dig their brand new song

Years ago there was a BI about a "very famous, very married rock star, who was having an affair with a 'bookish' super model." Because of the similarity of the related clues, it appeared it could have been a member of "The Police" and a then super model. Turns out it was Bono and the exquisite Christy. (She, at the time of the BI, mid-'90's, was enrolled in NYU.)

Fast-forward to her marriage ceremony to her now husband: Bono "gave her away" to her groom at their wedding.

Larry has finally aged. He was practically frozen in time for a long time.

R50's photo is from 2009.

That silver daddy is gorgeous.

I have no respect for the Bonobo.

I only like one song by U2. Bono is a douchebag.

[Quote]Not to mention the fact that Bono's taxes help support the irish economy

U2 moved its business registration to the Netherlands to take advantage of its low corporate tax rate, when Ireland's rate is only 12.5%.

But bono still lives in Ireland right? I thought he and Larry were the only members still living there and paying taxes.

I'm with r4.

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Can't get past Bono's self importance. Seems every other documentary about someone he is trotted out to talk about what rock n roll really is. Which is odd given he is the embodiment of its' corporatisation. He is an accountants idea of a rock n roller.

Or your Mum's.

Which reminds me, I need to call my accountant.

It was The Sound (whose lead singer, Adrian Borland, committed suicide in 1999) that U2 ripped off more than any other artist. Just listen to the vocal on this, from 1980:

Lost all respect for him after he was photographed hugging Dubya. Seems to have that Whoopi Goldberg disease of praising scumbags all the time.

begrudgingly respect.... an impressive body of work, though nothing good or close in a long time now, and a tiresome personality. I saw 'em live 3x over the years and they clearly tried to put on a good show, bring life and effort to the performances, and succeeded.

I used to think he was a real dick but it turns out the Bono is just a fake...

Never liked U2, couldn't get into them. Bono reminds me of a rat crossed with Robin Williams.

On the personality side, I find him grating and phony, like Sting and his uberconcerned frau wife, Trudi.

Interesting comparison, r64. I would agree Sting has become insufferable in his later years, like Bono.

But The Police made some great music during their run. Funny how some aging rockers remain cool and relatively humble while a few seem to get the Jerry Lewis "worship me, I walk on water" affliction.

R65, oh yeah I love some of The Police, but not crazy about Stibg's solo work after the album with All This Time. In fact, as much as I like that song, I swear you can begin to hear Sting start to suck in these uncomfortably jammed in word:

They lived and they died, they prayed to their gods, but the stone gods did not make a sooowwwound...

It's like he needed the othe guys in the Police to rein him in.

Since then, his output has been awful: Desert Rose, If I Ever Lose My Faith, This Cowboy Song, Nothing Bout Me. Bloated excess.

The only Sting solos song I liked was the light-hearted "Englishman in New York"

I liked the album he did for the ocean documentary...cannot recall the name! But it's very soothing.

Having them do their new single, Beautiful Day, at the Super Bowl for a 9/11 tribute was tacky as all fuck.

Bump

R48 I never worked for them. A close relative is in the music business and has been good friends with the whole band since they started out. So I've gotten tickets to events over the years and gone back stage and to dinner with them. Not often but enough to know they are genuinely nice and happy to sit next to a commoner at dinner. Sting , on the other hand, is about as pompous as you'd expect. Only met him once and that was enough.

U2 have a lot of long time staff, people who have been with them for decades. That's always a good sign.

R71, get back here. Have you met any other musicians? If so, what are your opinions of them? Thanks.

Echo and the Bunnymen and U2 were contemporaries, R46. I "heard" both bands when I discovered college radio in 1980 or so. And the 80s would have been a much better decade musically if McCulloch and company had been as big as U2. And if the dB's had been as big as REM.

Re: The Police. Sting was nothing without the atmosphere created by Summers and Copeland. They are both musicians of restraint and taste, never playing more than the song required.

Good, bad or indifferent, I don't care to hear about any musician's politicking. More than one album in my collection has been kneed in half and scaled into the waste basket when it's creator(s) became a too-public socially-conscious irritant. If you insist on opening your mouth, do the right thing and place it on a deserving set of gonads. You're not as clever as your publicist says you are.

R74, I love your post, especially your last sentence.

Thanks, R75. I'm what a friend refers to as a passionate jerk. *g*

Add. And if Romeovoid had been as big as Madonna. I was so proud that they were from S.F., and so crestfallen when they called it quits (heavy sigh).

R73 most of my experience meeting famous musicians was in the late 80s 90s and early 00's. Most of the time when I met them it was just because I was hanging out with my family member who knew them all. Usually they all just said hello and took no interest in me. I didn't care, I was happy to just hang back and watch. There were three types: the ones that couldn't be bothered, the ones who said hello and nothing more, and the rare ones who sat and chatted as if they were normal folk. Couldn't be bothered was Bonnie Raitt (I know, I was surprised too), Sting, and kind-of Dave Matthews. The nicest ones were James Taylor, U2, and Mark Knopfler and Michael Stipe. The rest fall in the 'meh' category.

R77 thanks for sharing! Millions of fans worldwide are so jealous!

I always thought Larry the drummer was the most standoffish and aloof. True?

Adam seems like a soft-spoken sweetie pie, who can be articulate when he chooses. Are they handsome up close?

I liked some U2 music but preferred Simple Minds. The New Gold Dream CD still sounds great

R78 Edge has aged best I think. Larry isn't aloof at all. Shyer than the others. But I sat next to him at dinner once and he was super nice. I don't think that I've ever talked to Adam to tell you the truth. I think he kind of does his own thing. It's amazing how close they all are after all the years. They really are like brothers.

If my insider information is correct, Bono really DID get Jesse Helms to clean put aside his anti-homo, anti- aids care and research bullshit (let them all die, slut sinners), enough, to do the "christian" thing and help Bush Jr. improve the catastrophic situation in the developing world with AIDS and access to generic medicines. All those Republicans were persuaded it was good christian charity to do the right thing. Bono gets a pat on the back for this, AND, he was genuinely a rock superstar and is far less cringeworthy than that horrible Geldof. Puke.

r74 Thanks for you insights. I agree with your musical assesment of the 80s. Haven't thought about the dbs in years!

The dbs never made it and have fallen into oubliettes because they were meh. Superstars become superstars for a reason. Big pleasure.

$$$$

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Bono is and has always been a phony. Jumping on any cause that will make him look good and increase his pocket book.

He's a complete idiot. U2 used to be okay, but he's always been an asshole.