U2 or PJ. Whose legacy is ruined more by continuing...

[surfndestroy]

U2 were famous almost from the very beginning for being super idealistic socially conscious flag waving rock stars. REM wrote a song making fun of them for it.

U2 have never turned their backs on being socially conscious.

[surfndestroy]

The big difference between U2 and Pearl Jam is that U2 weren't wide eyed idealists in their earliest days. The grew slowly and they've held onto their biggest idea, help for the poorest of the poor. The didn't even truly latch onto this idea until after War. Whereas Pearl Jam has been all over the map on their ideals and adherence to them but I don't think that affects their legacy.

What?

U2 has made plenty of questionable moves in adherence to their supposed ideals. Not that I give a shit but I just found it to be an odd comparison vis-a-vis Pearl Jam.

What ideals do U2 have other than helping the poorest of the poor and a few human right issues they've latched onto?

I'm not sure the comparison you're making here.

If it's a corporate comparison, U2 is about as corporate as it gets, so it's not like they're "better than" Pearl Jam in that arena.

If it's simply about "human rights" causes and the like, well then Pearl Jam has a long track record of stepping up for causes of all kinds (choice, environment, vote for change, Hurricane Katrina, bridge school benefits... those are just off the top of my head).

Sorry, I think I didn't get my point across. U2 has never adopted an anti-corporate or even anti-greed stance, so it was never part of their legacy. The only ideals U2 really professed to have were a desire to be huge and a certain social conscious but ne geared very much to helping the poorest of the poor. They haven't really ever changed from chasing those two ideals.
Pearl Jams ideals have not been as articulately expressed and to many it seems they've gone back on some of their ideals. They went back to Ticketmaster, they are very corporate friendly now. Some ideals they still have such as pro-choice and they (especially Stone) seem to try to stick to being as environmentally friendly as they can be while still being a touring band.

[Lament]

U2 were famous almost from the very beginning for being super idealistic socially conscious flag waving rock stars. REM wrote a song making fun of them for it.

I love REM and cannot for the life of me think of what song you're referring to. I'm super curious now, what is it?

[stip]

U2 were famous almost from the very beginning for being super idealistic socially conscious flag waving rock stars. REM wrote a song making fun of them for it.

I love REM and cannot for the life of me think of what song you're referring to. I'm super curious now, what is it?

bandwagon

[stip]

The big difference between U2 and Pearl Jam is that U2 weren't wide eyed idealists in their earliest days. The grew slowly and they've held onto their biggest idea, help for the poorest of the poor. The didn't even truly latch onto this idea until after War. Whereas Pearl Jam has been all over the map on their ideals and adherence to them but I don't think that affects their legacy.

What?

U2 has made plenty of questionable moves in adherence to their supposed ideals. Not that I give a shit but I just found it to be an odd comparison vis-a-vis Pearl Jam.

What ideals do U2 have other than helping the poorest of the poor and a few human right issues they've latched onto?

I'm not sure the comparison you're making here.

If it's a corporate comparison, U2 is about as corporate as it gets, so it's not like they're "better than" Pearl Jam in that arena.

If it's simply about "human rights" causes and the like, well then Pearl Jam has a long track record of stepping up for causes of all kinds (choice, environment, vote for change, Hurricane Katrina, bridge school benefits... those are just off the top of my head).

Sorry, I think I didn't get my point across. U2 has never adopted an anti-corporate or even anti-greed stance, so it was never part of their legacy. The only ideals U2 really professed to have were a desire to be huge and a certain social conscious but ne geared very much to helping the poorest of the poor. They haven't really ever changed from chasing those two ideals.
Pearl Jams ideals have not been as articulately expressed and to many it seems they've gone back on some of their ideals. They went back to Ticketmaster, they are very corporate friendly now. Some ideals they still have such as pro-choice and they (especially Stone) seem to try to stick to being as environmentally friendly as they can be while still being a touring band.

at a certain point I should just keep this in a separate pile so I can cut and paste this in, but pearl jam's previous position regarding corporations was essentially 'aren't they icky.' You can continue to be opposed to the oligarchic power and influence corporations have in our society, the way in which they pervert democracy, and still sell your albums at them (which, of course they always did).

It's the same way people confuse being greedy with having more money than they need.

[Lament]

U2 were famous almost from the very beginning for being super idealistic socially conscious flag waving rock stars. REM wrote a song making fun of them for it.

I love REM and cannot for the life of me think of what song you're referring to. I'm super curious now, what is it?

bandwagon

Not that it's a tune I dig up very often, but I would have never figured out that that's who it was about.

[McParadigm]

This is some parade, yesiree Bob
Could we have known?
Yesiree Bob, could we have known?
Look at all the flags and all the banners waving
Open up our arms, a magic kingdom, open-armed and greet us all

Oh, Michael...you and your stinging, stinging barbs.

[stip]

U2 were famous almost from the very beginning for being super idealistic socially conscious flag waving rock stars. REM wrote a song making fun of them for it.

I love REM and cannot for the life of me think of what song you're referring to. I'm super curious now, what is it?

bandwagon

Not that it's a tune I dig up very often, but I would have never figured out that that's who it was about.

I read that somewhere, but I forget where. You can see it once you know, but it's not a conclusion I drew myself either

And it may be more about the fans as U2 broke huge around War.


Come on aboard, I promise you you won't hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well
There's lots of room for you on the bandwagon,
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won't we all parade around and sing our songs,
A magic kingdom, open-armed

Greet us hello, bravo, name in lights
Passing on the word to fellow passengers and players, passing in,
Until you're tired looking at all the flags
And all the banners waving
This is some parade, yesiree Bob
Could we have known?
Yesiree Bob, could we have known?
Look at all the flags and all the banners waving
Open up our arms, a magic kingdom, open-armed and greet us all

Come on aboard, I promise you you won't hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well
There's lots of room for you on the bandwagon
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won't we all parade around and sing our songs and wave our flags
A magic kingdom, greet us all hello, greet us hello, greet us hello

[Lament]

I read that somewhere, but I forget where. You can see it once you know, but it's not a conclusion I drew myself either

And it may be more about the fans as U2 broke huge around War.

It does make sense now that you've said it. Kinda funny considering how close the two bands became later in their careers.

[BurtReynolds]

what is thread even about?

[stip]

I wonder how much of it was sour grapes from a band with critical acclaim and no money.

[stip]

what is thread even about?

[evenslow]

what is thread even about?

how U2 helps the poorest of the poor

[stip]

[evenslow]

this might be the worst "duet" of all time. bono just takes a king-sized shit all over it. this kind of song is so far outside of his milieu it's hilarious.

[Lament]

I wonder how much of it was sour grapes from a band with critical acclaim and no money.

That probably had something to do with it. I think that's part of why guys like Ian McCulloch & Peter Hook were always super critical of them as well. They've also just always made themselves an easy target (which is a definite parallel between them and Pearl Jam).

[MemoFromTurner]

this might be the worst "duet" of all time. bono just takes a king-sized shit all over it. this kind of song is so far outside of his milieu it's hilarious.

I remember that "magic" moment and am reminded how special it was when Bono trotted out on stage late like the superstar that he is in his mind and the collective minds of the Irish to drop an epic turd on the audience. Rough sledding for him: not only is his voice shot but had an Eddie moment struggling with the lyrics. It would be highly entertaining to pull a Linda McCartney and isolate his vocals on that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoH9zP_n_g0

[Citizen Dick]

Think what you will of U2's more recent stuff, but it's catapulted them into playing stadiums and that seems pretty farfetched for PJ at the moment.

Haven't U2 been playing stadiums since the '80's?

Yeah. They've been a stadium act in Europe since The Unforgettable Fire, and in the US since The Joshua Tree. In 2001 and 2005 they opted to do arenas instead of stadiums in most of the world, but that was as much because of the make-up of their stage show as anything else. They've never lacked the ability to fill a football stadium in pretty much every major market.

They didn't start playing stadiums consistently til the Popmart tour, and going by their setlist archive they didn't play many before that, in the States that is. Only one pops up on the Joshua Tree tour. Anyway, I don't really remember anyone calling them the biggest band in the world til ATYCLB, so the more recent stuff has done quite a bit to enhance their legacy.

If this is true, then it's the fault of your own experience. They were absolutely bigger in 1987 than they were in 2001.

And while they played a mix of stadiums in the states from Joshua Tree era on, they've always been big enough for stadiums. Note in areas where they did arena shows, they were typically doing multiple nights.

r u drunk? they might have been better, but they were not bigger

The Joshua Tree was the fastest selling album in UK history when it came out. It spent six weeks at #1 there, and nine weeks at #1 in America. It's sold 25 million copies worldwide at this point. They had 2 #1 singles in America that year. They became only the third band ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine.

ATYCLB spent a single week at #1 in the UK, only got to #3 in the US, and has sold less than half of what The Joshua Tree sold (12 million copies).

Thanks, those are interesting #s. I still think they are bigger (more popular, wider audience) in 2001 then they were in 1987.

That's just not true. Joshua Tree was one of those once in a career phenoms. Zeitgeist grabbing, like, where a band is rising with no end in sight. ATYCLB was the "comeback", it was big but it just re-validated the bigness they had earlier acheived. No comparison. Kind of like how Adele's 21 was except bigger .....

that’s an awesome comparison, maybe I was too young to remember

I guess it’s been sufficiently rebutted in this thread already, but I’m absolutely baffled by any sort of perception that the early 2000’s and ATYCLB was U2’s peak in any form, or that U2 wasn’t a stadium act until then.

Make no mistake, ATYCLB and Beautiful Day were very big global hits, but they were also very much seen as a late career “return to form” and solidified the template that U2 has followed for ever diminishing returns since. Hell, even the Wikipedia page quotes U2 during that period as “reapplying for the position of world’s best band”. And yes, I know it says best, not biggest, however if you payed even passing attention to Bono interviews around this time, the two were synonymous in his mind – there’s even a Pearl Jam article somewhere from that period where Bono was urging Ed to similarly push hard to be the world’s biggest band in order for rock to reclaim the pop culture landscape. He saw Ed and Pearl jam as one of the only other bands with a big enough sound to do it.

The peak(s) for U2 – commercially, critically and pop culture impact – were undoubtedly Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby/ZooTV tour. I was only 8 at time of Joshua Tree and yet that thing was etched into mainstream culture for the next decade (you know that With or Without You charted again after it was used in Friends during Ross and Rachel’s first kiss?). Whether or not you believe it succeeded, ZooTV’s entire raison d’etre was blowing up the popculture spectacle to an absurdist, overblown spectacle (something they would later try to outdo themselves on for PopMart) and playing stadiums was intrinsic to this (even if they did still perform the show in only arenas in some markets). There were multiple news reports on it years before it would even hit the shores of my country (Aus). It had Salman Rushdie making LIVE appearances on stage right in the middle of the fatwa for fucks sake!

As a kid I had a Mad magazine, from about 1990, that had a “Awards in Modern Rock We’d Really Like To See” skit and one of the awards was something like “Award for Tom McIntyre – the only guy who didn’t buy U2’s The Joshua Tree”. That pretty much sums up their position in the late 80’s click into 1990’s.

All of this is, of course, different from debates about the quality or artistic merit of different periods.

[WtOB?]

this might be the worst "duet" of all time. bono just takes a king-sized shit all over it. this kind of song is so far outside of his milieu it's hilarious.

I remember that "magic" moment and am reminded how special it was when Bono trotted out on stage late like the superstar that he is in his mind and the collective minds of the Irish to drop an epic turd on the audience. Rough sledding for him: not only is his voice shot but had an Eddie moment struggling with the lyrics. It would be highly entertaining to pull a Linda McCartney and isolate his vocals on that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoH9zP_n_g0

God, I HATED how Bono decided he was more important than everyone else on stage and came out later to his own separate applause.

[WtOB?]

And since when do Pearl Jam even care about making poverty history? I thought they just wanted to keep the oceans clean so Eddie can go surfing.