Sculpture entitled Jesus Loves You Too by Frans Smeets

This past weekend, while Canadians were busy stuffing their faces with turkey and pumpkin pie and counting their blessings for their version of Thanksgiving, I was doing quite the opposite.  Instead, I was reflecting on things that have rubbed me the wrong way in 2009.  Of course, there was the Kanye incident.  And then, the Serena incident.  But the thing I was probably most ungrateful for was in fact a double whammy:  a U2 album release and a U2 world tour.  I know I’m treading on thin ice here.  Bad mouthing U2 is like saying bad things about The Beatles.  Their fans, in all their arrogance, just assume that you have to like them.  That they’re the cat’s ass. Here are some ways you too can suck like U2!

Make up a wacky name. Seriously, guys.  It would be cute if you were seven-year-olds playing superheroes on the playground, but as two grown men walking around with names like Bono and The Edge, it’s just plain pathetic.  Apparently, the name Bono comes from a Latin expression meaning “good voice”.  I’m still trying to figure out how that applies to U2’s singer.  As for The Edge, well it’s pretty obvious he got his name because of his cutting edge guitar skills…  NOT!  And don’t get me started on Bono’s alter egos, Mister MacPhisto and The Fly.

Make your own band. It’s easy, really.  The way the story goes, Larry Mullen, Jr. posted a note on his high school’s bulletin board seeking musicians—and I use the term loosely—for a new band.  Bono responded, saying that he could play guitar and sing when he couldn’t.  And when you think about it, he still can’t to this very day.  And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about The Edge for a minute.  When you strip away the layers upon layers of delay and reverb effects, has this guy ever proven that he can actually play the guitar?  So how will Edge’s guitar play out in Rock Band: U2?  Press Red, wait 10 seconds while the effects do their thing, press Yellow, than wait another 10 seconds, …?  I read something interesting in Edge’s Wikipedia article: “The Edge has said that he views musical notes as ‘expensive’, in that he prefers to play as few notes as possible.”  Prefers or just can’t?  There’s a big difference.

Yikes!

Wear foolish sunglasses. Bono reminds me of that dorky father, going through his mid-life crisis, trying to look cool in front of his kids’ friends.  I’ll leave it at that.

Get yourself a few Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Bono got nominated three times for the “prestigious” award.  Oh, sorry, am I supposed to be impressed?  Is this not the same accolade that was given to American President Barack Obama just last week for simply outlining what he planned on doing?  Hmm, an award for people who talk about things but actually don’t get anything done.  Now that’s something!

Get your very own tower! Yes folks, Ireland’s U2 Tower was to originally be completed by 2011, but the global economic crisis thankfully halted that project… for the time being.  Amongst other things, the tower was to contain an egg-shaped pod housing U2’s recording studio, as well as an energy hub containing a large solar panel and wind turbines.  Ah, the possibilities.  I can picture it now, the wind turbines blowing the egg right off the tower, crashing it to the ground.  A previously proposed corkscrew-shaped design would have been more appropriate, seeing how the band is screwing it’s own government out of valuable tax dollars.  And then, Bono will have the nerve to pressure his government to donate money to Africa.  Priceless!  Richard Murphy says it best in an article that appeared on the Bloomberg website: “This is somebody who’s exceptionally rich taking the opportunity to shift his tax burden to somebody else, but then asking governments around the world to spend that tax take in the way that he would like.”

Get an outspoken drummer. An one point or another, the drummer always blows up.  Blame it on an inferiority complex—everyone knows that drummers are not real musicians—or just blame it on the fact that they don’t get as much attention as the vocalist or guitarist of the band, but at one point, they’ll blow up.  Okay, I’ll admit it, I might be exaggerating a bit here in the case of Larry Mullen, Jr.  But, in a December 2008 article that appeared in the Belfast Telegraph entitled “Larry Mullen: Bono’s friendship with war criminals makes me cringe“, he spoke, and for once in a blue moon, the media listened to what a drummer had to say.

Get a big screen. Men do a lot of things to compensate for a small… well, you know.  Some get a flashy sports car, while others opt for a 50-some-inch plasma television.  Hey, while we’re on the subject of big screens, did you see U2’s setup for their latest tour?  (Do you see what I did there?)  Smoke and mirrors, my friends.  Smoke and mirrors.  According to a post on PerezHilton.com, the stage has cost an estimated $40 million to build (I thought I had read somewhere that there were actually three stages used for the tour), not to mention the crap load of money it will take to transport it from venue to venue, night after night.  The Edge had this to say on the subject: “We’re spending the money on our fans, I don’t think there’s a better thing you could spend it on.”  Um, what about Africa?

Get a strong management team. During these last ten years, U2 have proven that it’s not about reality, it’s about perception.  And you have to hand it to their management team.  They have done a terrific job in creating some buzz around a band that been nothing short of, well, ordinary.  Thankfully, there a few of us wily folks out there who can see past the illusion.

Get an ego. Everyone in the band doesn’t need one, but someone in the band does.  In U2’s case, only Bono has one, but it’s so big that there wouldn’t be enough space for more anyway.  Besides publicly self-proclaiming his band as the “the biggest” and “the best” on multiple occasions, Bono doesn’t stop there when it comes to seeking attention.  Bono’s pride has brought him to fight in the name of Africa (oops, I did it again).  Yes, folks, yet another celebrity cause of the day!  Bono has been pressuring governments to contribute funds to Africa, while his band has been racking up hundreds of thousands in concert revenues from their recent tours.  Apparently, Bono makes it a point not to openly disclose his personal donations to charitable causes.  Pretty convenient, huh?  It’s funny how rich celebrities like to reach into pockets of regular folks.

Be a Number 2. (See video below.)

I forgot to mention the bassist.  Ah, who cares about the bassist anyway?

The Beatles

Attacks on Nickelback by my fellow blogger Vic Stanley was cheap. It was almost like kicking a dead horse. Oops, sorry, did I just use a cliché. I know how he hates those. I am not saying that Nickelback don’t suck, but, come on, have the balls to go after some bigger names. Seeing how I have the said balls, I’ll go after a big name right off the bat and tell you why The Beatles suck.

The Beatles played pop music. I am not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying that they were as guilty as any other past or current pop act of using the basic verse, chorus, verse, chorus format. They may have experimented a bit over the years, but their biggest hits remain pop music.

Backstreet Boys

The Beatles were a boy band. When I look at pictures or video during Beatlemania, I don’t see many guys there. The few guys that were in attendance were either there for the girls, or they were gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course). As embarrassing as this may be for Beatles fans, there is one more recent boy band who have trumped two of The Beatles’ biggest-selling classic albums. The Backstreet Boys’ album Millenium has sold 40 million units. The Beatles’ best album in sales is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with 32 million sales. And that’s despite the clear advantage that the average Beatles fan has bought the album in vinyl, 8-track, cassette and compact disc formats. On the flip side, the Backstreet Boys were robbed from many sales courtesy of Napster. Please, don’t give me your crap on how music sales don’t mean squat. That argument may apply to underground indy bands, but they don’t apply to The Beatles. People know who the Beatles are and they know who the Backstreet Boys are. The numbers are clear, black on white. So think about it, Sgt. Pepper’s has sold 32 million albums, in redundant sales, under multiple formats, over a 40-year span, while Millenium sold 40 million units in just 10 years. Oh, and did I mention that the Backstreet Boys’ self-titled debut album has sold as many units as The Beatles’ Abbey Road?

Paul McCartney let Michael Jackson buy the publishing rights to the majority of the John Lennon/McCartney compositions. What makes it so funny, is that McCartney was the one who introduced Jackson to the financial potential of music publishing.

They were far from being musical geniuses. They were simply stoned out of their minds when writing their songs. Sure, the Rolling Stones don’t have the most insightful songs, but then again they never set out to change the world with their music. They just wanted to have a good time rocking out, snorting some blow and doing some chicks. How egotistical can you be to think that your very own music can change the world. Not everyone is looking for deep lyrics and revolutionary compositions. Some people just want to let loose, dance and forget their daily problems.

Every Beatles’ song remake is better than the original. I’m not talking about sound quality, that’s a given.  Check out “Helter Skelter” by Aerosmith, “Yesterday” by Ray Charles and Our Lady Peace’s version of “Tomorrow Never Knows“, just to name a selected few.

Even John Lennon didn’t like the Beatles. In the song “God” by John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Lennon sings: “I don’t believe in Beatles/I just believe in me.”

Buddy Holly

Eric Clapton played lead guitar, including the solo, on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. No one from The Beatles was good enough to do it.

Yellow Submarine. ‘nough said.

Their fans act as though music didn’t exist before The Beatles. Um, what about Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard, just to name a few? They were as influencial on future artists as The Beatles.

They can’t spell. It’s beetles, not beatles.