And Then There's Tom Petty. . .

As Martin Mull might have said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."  Despite an overabundance of music criticism, music itself remains stubbornly impervious to prosaic interpretation--like nine-year-old-resisting-bedtime stubborn.  One can read about literature or movies or plays and experience some semblance of the emotional response generated by the work under discussion.  Many times I (and I suspect you, too) have read a plot summary or other critical report and thought, "Man, that sounds awesome!  I need to read/see THAT!"  But music?  Descriptions of instrumentation and comparisons to other pieces of music get you only so far.  Music has to be experienced in order to be. . .well, experienced.

Fear not, though, Sloppists. I have devised a handy-dandy ranking scale to help you when trying to decide whether a piece of music or a particular performer is worth your time and effort.  No longer do you need to feel inadequate about your paltry knowledge of music theory, your limited musical vocabulary, your inability to distinguish a tenor sax from a set of bongos (although that last one is really pathetic and you should do something about it).  Because to make your life easier, all you really need to do is place each piece of music into one of the following four categories:

THE INFALLIBLES.  These are those whose every product is pure gold--or at least worth your lunch money.  They come out with something new?  You buy it.  And you can feel fairly confident that you won't be disappointed.  These are your Springsteens, your U2s, your Elvis Costellos.  You love them! (Either that, or you're wrong.  Sorry, that's just how it works.)  Other personal Infallibles--if you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for your favorite blogger (just sayin')--include Radiohead, Aimee Mann, Bright Eyes.  Go get 'em.

THE GREATEST HITS CLUB. You hear these folks on the radio all the time, and you like pretty much everything you hear, but you don't particularly feel like you need to hear more.  In other words, get yourself a "Greatest Hits" collection or two, and you'll probably have about everything you need.  A number of classic rock bands fall neatly into this category: The Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who.  (In case you're wondering, The Beatles are closer to Infallible.)  Great bands all, to be sure, but does anyone really need to hear the B-side of "Honky-Tonk Women"?  What?  "You Can't Always Get What You Want"?  Seriously?!?  OK, bad example, but you get the point.

THE FREE CONCERT TICKET ARMY.  OK, you don't really care one way or the other about these bands.  They're fine.  They play well, sound good.  They probably even have one or two songs that you find yourself bopping along to on your morning drive.  But while you're more than willing to download those one or two earworms to your iTunes, you wouldn't bother with a whole album.  Still, if somebody came up to you and said, "Hey, Solipsist, I have an extra ticket to a ___________ concert, you wanna go?," you would--after explaining that you are NOT the Solipsist, no matter how great the resemblance--say, "Sure, why not.  Beats organizing my sock drawer."  These include a lot of current bands (who, admittedly, might graduate to the Greatest Hits Club over time): The Black Keys, for one, being a good example.  I would put Los Lobos in this category, too, but God only knows what trouble that would get me into.

And then, finally, there are THE UNLISTENABLES.  This category includes Tom Petty.  That is all.

Ask The Solipsist

Dear The Solipsist:

Every time I hear someone referrin' to a "YouTube video," I find meself stuck for a moment thinkin' they're speakin' of a "U2 video."  I used to feel what I can only consider to be understandable pride in the continued popularity of our little Dubliner punk foursome, but lately it's gotten annoyin'.  When I hear talk o' "U2 videos," I start to wonderin' whether I'm missin' out on royalties, which could be put to truly noble use!  Microloans for Indonesian kelp fishers!  A new library for the war-widows of Guinea-Bissau!

D'ye think I'd be actin' too much the bouncin' caffler if I were to ask people simply to enunciate the 'B' in "YouTUBE," so as not to be causin' me such distress? 

Yours,

Bono
______________________________________________

Dear Bono (if that is your real name):

While I understand your distress, I think you need to look at the big picture: You're a world-famous rock star, worshipped by millions, who will probably win the Nobel Peace Prize before even I do.  I think you should just ignore the whole issue.  It's not worth getting upset about.  Be mellow.  Just ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"  Or better yet, Edge.

PS: Why do you write with an Irish accent?

And Then There's the "With or Without You Polka"

This morning, a radio station was giving away tickets to a U2 concert. In order to win the tickets, one had to correctly identify snippets of three U2 songs that had been arranged as lullabies. We easily picked out the first two, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "One," but we were stumped by song number three (turned out to be "Beautiful Day").

The POINT is, there MAY be creepier things in the world than a music-box-style lullaby version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," but if there are, we can't think of any.

The Band of a Lifetime--A Loooooooong Post

People of the Solipsist's generation have grown up with U2.   Their first album, Boy, was released in 1980, when the Solipsist himself was on the cusp of adolescence.  They've been a part of the landscape ever since.

War (1983): U2 Is Gay!

We don't express it like that.  That's what we think, though.  U2 is for girls.  Little sisters try to convince us U2 is important: "Did you know that 'New Year's Day' is about Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and blah blah blah."  We know what's really going on.  What they really mean is that Bono is sooooooooo cute!  "New Year's Day" is kind of catchy, though.   And the drums at the opening of "Sunday Bloody Sunday."  "Men at Work," now, THAT's a cool band.

The Unforgettable Fire (1984): The World's Biggest Underground Band

"And did you know," the little sisters go on, "that 'In the Name Love' is about Martin Luther King!"  Yeah, yeah.  They're still just drooling over Bono.  Still, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" does have one of the great intros of any rock song ever.  It never sounds quite right live, though.  And then there's "Bad," Bono staking his claim to "rock's greatest screamer."  (He's no Daltrey, but he has his moments.)  In the meantime, we toil through adolescence, the radio always on in the background.  The soundtrack of our lives takes shape.

The Joshua Tree (1987): World Domination

"With or Without You" is one of those songs that you know that, years later, you'll remember where you were when you first heard it.  The Solipsist is a freshman at Syracuse University.  Just returning to the dorm room and flipping on the radio.  The song is actually ending.  Still, the pulsing, yearning bass line, Edge's playful guitar weaving in and out.  Hooked.

U2 is coming to town!  No point even trying to tickets, right?  Still, what the hell, the Carrier Dome's on the way.  Might as well just check out the box office.  No line!  Are there still tickets?  There are!

You take your best friend to the show, and she manages to lose her ticket in the bathroom (thankfully, after you've passed through the gate, so no harm done).  Everyone slightly buzzed.  Once the show starts, no one sits down for the next two hours--except, strangely, for the people behind US.  They sit like they're at the philharmonic.  They don't complain about us standing and blocking their view, so, no biggie.  Still, it's odd.

Achtung Baby (1991): Reinvention

For months, ahead of the album's release, the rumors buzz:  U2 has gone disco!  They're making a dance album!  In fact, Achtung Baby is nothing so much as a middle finger to the critics who mock U2 for their earnestness.  "Fine," the album seems to say, "You think we're fake?  You think we're nothing but a social-protest group whose act has gotten stale?  You think we've gone commercial?  Well, here you go.  We're U2.  We can do anything we want.  And when we sell out, it's gonna be the greatest fuckin' sell-out in the history of rock and roll!"

You either love it or you hate it.  The first release from the album, "The Fly," strikes some as "overproduced."  If this is the new direction--this techno-pop electronica--we're not sure how we feel about it.  Soon enough, though, we hear the rest of the album.  As "One" comes to an end, the DJ rhapsodizes, "Well, there's a song you could listen to about 900,000 times!"  He's right.

The soundtrack of our lives gains a new depth.

Pop (1997): Well, It Was Fun while It Lasted

After tolerating Zooropa (1993), which at least has its moments, you pick up what seems to be U2's swan song.  Pop is. . . well, it's pretty awful.  While U2 can probably WRITE pop songs, one wonders why they would want to.  Are they being ironic?  At a music awards show, U2 performs.  Bono comes out in some kind of hooded sweatshirt and rasps his way through "If God Will Send His Angels."

It's time to put away childish things:  comic books, living at home, and, apparently, U2.  You are a grown up.  You're married.  Musically, you've embraced the sublimity of Elvis Costello, and you've wrapped yourself in the smug superiority that comes with being able to throw out casual references to Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen.  U2--you can be nostalgic about them.  "Boy, I remember seeing them at Syracuse back when they were good!"  You hope they'll just pack it in and wait for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000): Resurrection

So U2's coming out with a new album?  Why?

You resolve not to buy it.  Why bother?  Still, from the first shimmery chords of "Beautiful Day," you sense there's something different about this one.  It's not until you first hear "Walk On," though, that you give in and decide to buy it.  They're back.

The album is both a return to their roots and a creative leap forward.  "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of"--what a horrible, unwieldy title.  Still, it's not quite like any other rock song you've ever heard: The melody--between "You've got to get yourself together/You've got" and "stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it"--does something strange and inexplicable, going down when it SHOULD go up--or something (you wish you had the musical vocabulary to explain this better).  But it works!

And then 9/11, and music seems briefly more relevant---everything is briefly more relevant after 9/11.  And you put your finger on it: The songs are sad; they're dark; yet they all seem to contain a glimmer of hope--a little bit of joy beneath the minor keys.  Things are bad, but your band is still there.  Life goes on, and the soundtrack of your life goes on, too.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004): Deification

Bush somehow wins a second term.  U2 seems more relevant, more necessary, than it has in a long time.  "With a mouth full of teeth / You ate all your friends / And you broke every heart thinking every heart mends," Bono sings, a suitable indictment of the current American regime.  He continues, "Where you live should not decide / Whether you live or whether you die."  So, "St. Bono," as he's called by the snarky media, continues his quest to cure the world's ills.  Now, however, he's more than a protest singer: He's meeting with presidents and popes; he's traveling the world with Jeffrey Sachs to discuss ways to cure world poverty; he's guest editing magazines and writing op-eds to highlight the needs of those whom society overlooks.  (A satirical headline in "The Onion": "Rest of U2 Perfectly Fine with Africans Starving.")  Bono is rumored to be in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize (as Bob Dylan is rumored to be up for the Nobel in Literature.  It will be interesting to see who wins one first).

No Line on the Horizon (2009): Where to?

Following their strategy from Achtung Baby U2 releases "Get on Your Boots"--a decidedly mediocre song as the first single from the latest album.  Also like Achtung Baby, though, the album has plenty of goodies tucked into it.  But it hardly matters at this point.

Who is the greatest band in the history of rock and roll?  Of course, the Beatles are sui generis, but after that, the picture gets a little cloudy.  Most would say there is a fairly fixed pantheon of bands that deserve to be in the conversation.  Beyond the Beatles, you usually have Led Zeppelin (obviously), The Who (well, OK), and the Rolling Stones.

(Digression: Personally, the Solipsist thinks the Stones are a overrated.  They've undoubtedly had some great songs, but they haven't done anything really important since the early 80's--if then.  End of digression.)

But what about U2?  They've been at it for thirty years, now, and show no signs of letting up.  They've stuck together.  If they do engage in ego-related spats, they keep it all under the radar, the Edge, Adam, and Larry apparently perfectly fine with deferring to Bono as their face and voice.  And most importantly, they are still creating, still evolving, still looking for something new to say musically.

The Solipsist takes comfort in this.  For our generation, for better or for worse--for better AND for worse--U2 has provided and continues to provide the soundtrack of our lives.  It's good to think that the soundtrack will continue to be composed as we travel at least a little further down the road.