reading review - u2 by u2

This 2005 release was pulled together by Neil McCormack from hours of interviews with the band and their longtime manager, Paul McGuinness, into an oral history of the band's origins and first forty or so years (may there be forty more). As it always goes with these music (auto)biographies, it's highly recommended to hardcore fans and an easy skip for everyone else. Those caught in the middle should note that there is a coffee table original release and the standard paperback follow up; the pictures come out much better in the former, if you are that sort of "reader". I suppose you can also have a peek at my book notes to get a sense of the material, which reads as a bizarre cross of a personal to-do list (songs for me to listen to) and a collection of the assorted bits of wisdom the band included in this work. 

U2 by U2 by U2 with Neil McCormack (December 2019)

The most rewarding aspect of the book was the endless anecdotes detailing the origins of their records. One example is about Achtung Baby B-side 'Lady With The Spinning Head', a song that the band struggled with which eventually formed the foundations for three others - ‘The Fly’, ‘Zoo Station’, and ‘Ultraviolet’; the story about The Edge, fearing he might forget the riff for 'Desire' until he could find a tape recorder in his house, was another such story (he had to open the door for the mailman while playing). Those who've followed the band's recent progress might have noticed some interesting hints about "upcoming" work, which (perhaps appropriately) seemed to come almost exclusively from Bono. In one passage, he describes a famous group they played with in the 1980s as, and I paraphrase - having played with the fire until the fire played with them; this expression is familiar to anyone who's heard 'Moment of Surrender' (which is my choice for their best song released after this book's publication). The shame of U2 by U2 is that the equivalent doesn't exist for every one of my favorite bands.

The only obvious issue with U2 by U2 is the lack of a true outside perspective on the band - we don't get a sense of why the band has such a huge fanbase, or a seemingly equal number of detractors. The best anyone can do, I suppose, is look through this book for hints. One possibility is in the note that when people struggle so much with grief that they choose to bottle it up, art gives them an opening to have conversations and explore ideas that they find impossible with other people. It ties nicely to the thought that an artist's job is to not only point out problems, but to also leverage creativity to find opportunities and solutions in otherwise devoid places. These are ideas I can relate to in the context of why I like the band and I suspect it would be a common feeling among my fellow fans. The flip side of these ideas is that not everyone, and possibly not most people, care at all about this when they listen to music. As the book notes, people will pick music simply because it sounds good through their speakers or headphones, and in that respect I think U2 is doing just as well as any other famous group, but no better - great art isn't always what you want to hear.

TOA Rating: Three out of forty.