U2 and Bono

[You Look Dead My Dear]

U2 are not that good a band.
Most charity work done by bands are normally to create an audience rather thatn help.
Aswell as it not being a selfless act.

 

[Panthino the Moth]

If I were as irritating as Bono, I'd do as much charity work as possible to try and make it up to the world.  

[derletztemensch]

Panthino the Moth

If I were as irritating as Bono, I'd do as much charity work as possible to try and make it up to the world.

I'm not sure there is that much charity work to be done in the world.

I seem to remember being told that U2 are registered abroad for purposes of taxation, which seems odd.  

[Sir_Catherine]

I sense a lot of anti-U2 hostility.

May I inquire as to why? I know very little about U2 or about pop music and bands in general.  

[Invictus_88]

I think it can be taken as one of the finest examples of British antipathy towards certain personality traits.

In order as I perceive it:

> Self-aggrandising people.
> Holier-than-thou people.
> Hypocrites.
> Mediocrity.  

[Sir_Catherine]

Invictus_88

I think it can be taken as one of the finest examples of British antipathy towards certain personality traits.

In order as I perceive it:

> Self-aggrandising people.
> Holier-than-thou people.
> Hypocrites.
> Mediocrity.

Can you give examples of how U2 fits these traits? I know very little of the band except that it is very popular where I work and that I do like a couple of their songs I've heard on the radio.  

[Invictus_88]

Sir_Catherine

Invictus_88

I think it can be taken as one of the finest examples of British antipathy towards certain personality traits.

In order as I perceive it:

> Self-aggrandising people.
> Holier-than-thou people.
> Hypocrites.
> Mediocrity.

Can you give examples of how U2 fits these traits? I know very little of the band except that it is very popular where I work and that I do like a couple of their songs I've heard on the radio.

I shall answer this one from a personal perspective, rather that presuming to know the more specific resons everyone else may hold.

Essentially, I do admire public-spiritedness. There should be more of it.

However, some stubbly Irishman jetting about the globe shaking hands with political leaders who - unlike him - have some actual grounding and understanding of politics on the world stage, insisting on wearing stupid pop-star shades wherever her goes, and pontificating on matters he clearly cannot fully grasp like some sort of self proclaimed Jesus, irritates me.

If he wanted to help people, he could do it with care, subtlety and dignity, rather than like some crass nobody on a power-trip deciding to heal the wounds of the world.

People should be helped, but to do it in such an egocentric self-glorying style is simply not done. Alright, I accept that he's not properly British and doesn't have the solid cultural backing in understatement and propriety but it still makes me feel mildly annoyed at best and close to disgusted at worst.

In a similar way, I've much more respect for Prince Charles than Princess Diana. Di jetting off to look like she's defusing mines and (I accept, doing good work, lots of it) acquiring the impenetrable mask of a particularly selfless angel. Charles quietly but carefully causes some frankly amazing advances through The Prince's Trust, is ahead of the environmentalist wave and she and Camilla have also helped organisations set up to help with teenage depression and self-harm. Not that you'd hear about it, because they're generally more content to good for its own sake, rather than to revel in the ugly glory it can get you.

Just google Bono under images, ne'er before was such a crass, arrogant and self-congratulatory man found. And yet, he doesn't even pay his taxes.

The band deserve flak merely for not having dropped that twit years ago.  

[Sir_Catherine]

Quite amusingly to me, your analogy to Prince Charles and Diana's different methods of doing good made your point perfectly.

I have my own rants on the issue of Diana. To many ignorant Americans who just remember a pretty face being praised for charity work and not the reserved family behind her doing just as much good but far more quietly.  

[unchienanglais]

Their music sucks as well: pompous, bombastic and formulaic stadium rock.