U2's Unforgivable Flyer

Are there any popular acts you think you ought to enjoy, but somehow, despite your most earnest efforts, just can't seem to?

Various weblinks this week have brought several to my attention. I've spoken before about Stephen King. His advice on writing and teaching is spot-on. When he climbs on his soapbox, he usually wins me over. Then he releases yet another door-stopper that sounds so promising . . . and I pick it up, read the first few pages, keep going for another one- or two-hundred, and . . . something happens that makes me feel like I've just watched Bobby Flay drop the frying pan, only to retrieve it from the floor and keep cooking. No, no — it's alright buddy, keep the pan to the heat. I've just lost my appetite, is all.

Similarly, Elmore Leonard.

Also: James Ellroy — what a character. I love his magazine work, and think the way he openly confesses to and revels in his low-life impulses is a) almost admirable and b) entirely entertaining (I'm in the minority, apparently). The scope and vision and ambition of his fiction is certainly impressive. But the novels leave me cold. It's not a matter of taking offense, or being repulsed. It's just . . . meh, whatever.

“The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.”* So said Paul Hewson, aka Bono Vox, or just plain Bono. Speaking of whom, if there is a group that has nudged me out of indifference into a deep and abiding loathing, it is his U2. And on Tuesday, when I opened the software platform to my Infernal Device, I discovered an entire album in my library that I had no desire whatsoever to encounter. In response, Mr. Hewson has said, “For people out there who have no interest in checking us out, look at it this way . . . the blood, sweat & tears of some irish guys are in your junk mail.”

Speaking as someone who's taken money for producing junk mail of his own, let me inform you of a seldom appreciated fact: there isn't a single piece of junk mail that doesn't contain the blood, sweat and tears of the hacks who created it. The elements of BS&T don't make it any more welcome — or even any good.

Anyway, I won't be listening to it, so don't expect a take-down review from me — except for the title of the opening track: “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone).” Oh, sure: give all the love to poor, sweet Joey. How's about The Miracle of Johnny Ramone, the treacherous, irascible, venomous, right-of-Attila bastard who kept his baffled and befuddled on-the-spectrum band-mate fed and clothed in Levis and leather jackets throughout his entire adult life?

But I digress.

I actually used to be a fan, from way-way-back: Boy days, in fact. If you can predate that, you're not from the prairie grasslands of Canada, you're from Dublin. I remained steadfast right up until The Joshua Tree, when I began to have my doubts about the project (which they nevertheless reached past with the penultimate song on that album). Then came their Ironic Phase, which, at the time, struck me as note-perfect for the age (both mine, and the one I was living in). Even Pop was welcome — the fizzier songs, at least. The more serious songs, on the other hand, made me nervous.

I don't know which track I heard from their next album, but I can remember exactly where I was when I heard it: in the parking lot of a Movieplex, where public speakers were broadcasting a tone of voice and guitar I knew all-too-well. Oh, so now you're SINCERE again? I thought. Well then, permit me to sincerely retort . . . 

"...and the horse you rode in on!"

The more I meditated on it, the clearer the realization became that with this complete about-face these guys had just driven a stake through the heart of rock-and-roll. All that “best band in the world” shite: even their audience took it seriously. Now every band in their wake would strain to sound like Bono and/or Edge, and good luck trying to get any young audience roused if your drummer didn't photocopy Larry Clayton's band-class snare-bursts.

Think I exaggerate? Then why don't you rouse yourself some Sunday morning, and go attend worship service at your local Evangelical Superstore . . . erm, church? Listen to the worship band, and tell me you don't catch more than an echo of everything I've just slandered.

Can't get away from them in the mall, or church, or parking lot or even my so-called personal computer . . . yes, indeed: what a debt we all owe those hard-working Irish so-and-so's.

Alright, I've gotta sit down and catch my breath. Read this or this or even Sasha Frere Jones if you need more.

*Quoting, with attribution I'm sure, Elie Wiesel.

17-ix-14: Old dogs, old tricks: