Et Tu, Bono: You, Too?

As if in response to the massive media campaign that has geared up to promote U2’s latest album, NO LINE ON THE HORIZON, Andrew Gumbel has penned the following article for The Wrap, “Bono, U2 Blasted as Hypocrites and Sell-outs.” Gumbel chides U2 for turning its back on its fans as revealed by the band moving its business operations offshore in order to escape Irish taxes. While Gumbel may have a point, one might do well to remember that the history of rock is marked by continuous controversy: the strongly negative reaction to Bob Dylan’s going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, for instance, or the commercialization of the Woodstock 1999 festival, and the violence that erupted there. While I sympathize with Gumbel’s position, I think his article is, in part, a response to the problem of feeling disenfranchised. Alienated from the products and services of mass culture, one feels drowned by consumer goods.

New Year's Day

I’d like to be able to say that the world is fundamentally different this morning from the way it was last night when I went to bed, but alas it is not. The daunting political and economic problems that existed last night still exist this morning; they didn’t vanish into thin air overnight. And so while change may be in the air in 2009, and holds the potential for positive change, on this New Year’s Day I can think only of these lyrics from U2’s “New Year’s Day”:

And so we are told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you,
To be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year’s Day