Admission of Lameness

I hate nostalgia, for the most part. While looking back on the past with a hint of fondness can be enjoyable, it can ultimately poison the future, since it will never be as good as the memories you are looking back at through red lenses. Ultimately, I try to avoid nostalgia whenever possible. I really don't care how much I liked Bean as a child, because I saw it a month ago and thought it wasn't funny at all. If it can't stand the test of time, it has no value to me, regardless of the value it had to me in my younger years. The past is past, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Easier said than done, though.

This week, I've been watching U2's week-long stint on Letterman in support of their latest record, No Line on the Horizon. Now, I've heard the record, and it's a big, steaming heap of shit. (I mean, really? How good can an album be if the first single is one of the worst songs in existence?) Either way, it's safe to say that the record won't be turning many heads and that it only extends the rut that this 30 year-old band has been in since 2001. It's one shitty album from a group that has ceased to be relevant for a decade. Why, then, do I care?

Because I love U2.

There, I said it. And I am not afraid to admit it.

It started when I was 13 and about to go into counseling for writing a note to a girl that some people interpreted as a suicide letter. Having to hear teachers, nuns, and counselors make assumptions about your impending, self-inflicted death at the age of 16 can get to an impressionable kid who only cares about when he can get home to watch Batman Beyond and play N64. Just when I felt that life couldn't get more complicated, All That You Can
't Leave Behind came along. At this point in time, I hated all rock music made after 1980, so the fact that any new rock song could be this good was important to me. And I guess it just happened to appear in the right place at the right time. Every discussion of that record centers around how uplifting it was in the post-9/11 world, which could be valid, but I remember walking on Park Lane South listening to "In A Little While" and thinking that everything was going to be okay.

This was also the first time my dad took an interest in what I was listening to. My father liked U2, but he cared mostly about their early work that he heard on college radio stations, before they put out The Joshua Tree and became the biggest band in existence. (He likes to point out that he heard "New Year's Day" on New Year's Day for three years in a row.) He hadn't the nerve to talk about music with me because most of the music I liked was stuff he had gotten sick of a long time ago, after it had been played a billion times on AOR radio stations for 15 years. U2 was something he understood, something he could be nostalgic about. A reason to pull out his vinyl copy of Boy and his old, beaten Joshua Tree cassette tape. It was more of that deadly nostalgia for him, but it helped him relate to his son, which has its benefits, I think.

Ultimately, I don't know what to think of U2 on an objective level. I know their 80s work is almost impeccable (There are some exceptions). I know Achtung Baby is a masterpiece and one of the greatest rock albums ever. I also think Zooropa is an under-rated gem that will never get the credit it deserves because it doesn't sound like U2. And, I know that their new records are all shit save for a handful of songs. Oh, and Bono is a huge prick. And The Edge will never be taken seriously because he has such a dumb name.

Whatever. I still love 'em to death.