Each year, when Saint Patrick’s Day rolls around, there are a number of bands that experience the renewed interest of the public for the virtue of being Irish. At the top of that list is U2 (in addition to Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys, because apparently Ireland brings out all of its musicians’ polite rage). Formed in Dublin in 1976, the once post-punk vibes of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. gradually became stadium rock beloved by the middle-aged. Still considered Ireland’s most famous musical import (much to the dismay of Sinead O’Connor), the popularity of the band remains one of the shining examples of how longevity equates to talent in the public’s eye (unless, of course, you’re Madonna and instead maligned for being around for “too long”).
Despite the listenability of their early work, primarily the singles “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Mysterious Ways,” U2’s gradual evolution into the type of band that could easily allow Patrick Bateman to picture Bono as Satan while watching him onstage was perhaps most solidified with one of their most successful albums, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, featuring “Beautiful Day,” a song that rivals Coldplay’s “Clocks” in terms of vexing “upliftingness.”
It was approximately also around this time that Bono seemed to never be photographed or videoed without his “signature shades”–colored lenses, usually purple, serving to cement his iconography in the eyes of adoring fans (though it’s difficult to gauge if said fans have ever actually gone so far as to attempt dressing like their easily aesthetically imitable “rock god”). It was at this sort of peak of depicting themselves as Ireland’s–and the world’s–musical saviors that one could no longer even find merit in “With Or Without You” while retrospectively watching it played in Reality Bites (or even that episode of Friends where Ross tries to play it on the radio for Rachel). No, we had all become stuck in a moment we couldn’t get out of in terms of U2’s ego inflation and according point of no return stadium sound (and not the sort of stadium sound that Freddie Mercury carried off so well).
Following All That You Can’t Leave Behind with 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 secured a firm place in the hearts of the ilk that automatically associate shamrocks and Lucky Charms with Irish people. However, if one absolutely must show reverence for a bastardized holiday intended to be a feast honoring the death of Ireland’s foremost patron saint (though why doesn’t Brigid of Kildare get more respect?) turned binge drinking excuse by Amérique le Freak, then at least listen to My Bloody Valentine instead.
