Rock Stars Have Feelings, Too

And apparently, Bono's were hurt by what Greg Kot of the Tribune has been writing. The result is a sprawling interview where the U2 frontman tries to set Kot straight on what the band is trying to accomplish, which was excerpted for a less sprawling but still weighty article in Sunday's paper.

The fascinating part of this is the always implicit assumption with a lot of rock critics that they have some kind of insight into the band's intentions and motivations. A good or a bad review follows from what the writer thinks the band should be doing at any point in it's career, whether that's sounding like the last record, not sounding like the last record, or whatever. So seeing an artist feel like they have to set things straight because the writer is way off in those assumptions is instructive.

Plus, Bono takes a couple shots at indie rock ("Meanwhile a bunch of white middle-class kids...try to find some viruses, interesting neuroses, or bad habits, to make their round washed faces look grubby enough to be taken seriously by the indie press.") and new metal ("Rap-metal nearly put the white race in jeopardy [as a creative force]. It's a travesty. Those [rap-metal] people should just take suicide pills and go away."). Good stuff, regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with him, or even give a rat's ass about U2.