Uncritical—By PJ
Kneeling Bono (watercolor, manipulated at Photomosh.com) by Kelly Eddington, 2015. Based on a photo by Justin Kent.
Uncritical
PJ DeGenaro
I hated The Joshua Tree. Hated it.
I was gonna tell you to sit down before you started reading this but ya know what? I don’t care if you’re sitting. It’s not my problem if you can’t handle a 36-year-old unpopular opinion.
In March of 1987 I had been a U2 fan for about four years. I was also a Cure fan, a Joy Division fan, and a fan of a bunch of other “dark” bands now lost to the sands of time. The first time I heard “With Or Without You,” I thought, “Gross, U2 have made a ballad.” It went “dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee” a bunch of times and then the guitar got kind of eerie, but it was still a ballad.
Now listen, you guys know I’m kind of intense, so when I tell you I spent my early teens IMMERSED in all those boring-old-fart English guys who all played the same 12-bar blues song over and over again in increasingly uninteresting ways, you’d best believe me. I got so fascinated with the blues I went out and bought scratchy compilations of Robert Johnson and Bukka White and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and listened to them all exactly once.
But I had renounced all of that by the time I was 18. So the last thing I wanted to see at age 21 was U2 moping around the United States in cowboy outfits with harmonicas. What the FUCK, U2? You’re Irish. Be Irish. Make an album called Tales from the Violent Ould Peat Bog and sing “wack-fa-la-le-rah” or something, but DO NOT get all American on me. I live here and it’s BORING.
The (temporary) end truly came when I was at my part-time job on a Tuesday evening and was approached by a coworker with a large perm, frosted pink lipstick and a Bon Jovi t-shirt.
“PJ, you like U2, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I mean, I like their old stuff? But—”
“OMG, WHAT? U2 ROCKS!”
Nice job, U2. Nice going. Happy now? Go on and gather up all the kids who picked on me in eighth grade. It’s fine, I’ll just be over here in the corner with the Sisters of Mercy. Go on. Run along, Bono. Take your succulent naked arms and go. And also your eyes.
And your long raven tresses. Get lost.
Why did I tell you all this? Because. Because the next bruh on the internet who accuses me of “cult-like behavior” regarding U2, of being a “U2 groupie,” or of failing to “think critically” about U2, is going to find his family jewels kicked up into his solar plexus. (Metaphorically.)
I obviously saw the error of my ways with regard to The Joshua Tree. But I am fucking done with people who won’t allow us to just enjoy whatever the fuck it is U2 are trying to do right now—like, just enjoy it in peace because we’ve come to appreciate how these four men have grown since they got together in 1976, and because we’re glad they still find joy in making music.
Here’s a conversation that kept me awake a few nights ago. It doesn’t make any of us look very good, but these guys will simply not understand that they are LEGION, and that we’ve all heard their crappy takes over and over again, every time U2 puts out a new product that doesn’t match the idealized U2 living inside their heads.
YES, A GUY WITH “CRYPTO” IN HIS TWITTER HANDLE ACCUSED ME OF CULT-LIKE BEHAVIOR AND A LACK OF CRITICAL THINKING.
The fact of the matter is, it’s FINE WITH ME if you don’t like what you’ve heard of Songs Of Surrender so far. U2 have said they began to “reimagine” these songs during lockdown. By all accounts they’re proud of the results and wanted to share them with the fans.
I understand why the two songs we’ve heard so far aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. They both start very quietly and slowly, and you have to have the time and the inner quiet to let them expand and unfurl. When they do, it’s pretty satisfying. These songs have joy and they have gravitas. (And for those who haven’t made it past the first 10 seconds, they do in fact have bass, drums and guitar.) They will never replace the original songs or make you feel how you felt when you heard those songs for the first time, but I don’t think they’re supposed to do that anyway.
No one has to like Songs of Surrender. But no one gets to accuse the people who do like it of being idiots. Which is basically what you’re doing when you call us “uncritical” over and over and over again.
And by the way, if you’ve used the “uncritical” word against women, and given men a pass, you’re a misogynist.
Jewels up in the plexus, buddy. Don’t forget. Have a nice day.