50 years of U2: timeless rock and social causes

How many famous bands can you think of that have never changed their line-up since day one? Some line-ups are deceptive: The Smiths began with a different configuration from the one that recorded their four landmark albums, and how could one forget the two original Beatles, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best? Others have changed their line-up so frequently that they have officially become ‘one-man bands’ (Nine Inch Nails) or the butt of jokes among musicians (Dave Mustaine of Megadeth). Finally, with others, it is still too early to say (Muse are well on their way). The quintessential answer to this question is right before everyone’s eyes and is today celebrating its golden anniversary: U2. Bono Vox’s band (along with The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr.) has blown out its first 50 candles, announcing for the occasion the title of their new album, Carnaval de Luz, due out by the end of the year.

The faces of the four very young musicians (when they met, Bono and Clayton were 16, The Edge 15 and Mullen 14) form a small picture on the back cover of their debut album, Boy. You only need to listen to the opening track, the instant classic I Will Follow with its iconic bell chimes, to realise that this marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of contemporary music. Within three years, U2 achieved international rock star status with War, the album featuring ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘New Year’s Day’, celebrated that same year on the electrifying live album Under a Blood Red Sky. Within these early works, one can already recognise the band’s hallmarks: Bono’s baritone voice (real name Paul David Hewson), the almost obsessive precision of The Edge’s (David Howell Evans) guitar playing and, above all, a profound spirituality. The religious element (which some music critics have described as ‘revolutionary Christianity’) has always characterised U2 – with the exception of Clayton – and made them a rare exception in a music scene dominated by sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

Over the course of their 50-year career, the Dublin-based band have witnessed historical events, changing trends and a wide range of personal and artistic phases – from their trip to the United States with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, which gave rise to the legendary The Joshua Tree, to the dance-pop shift of Zooropa and Pop, and the return to their roots first with All That You Can’t Leave Behind and then with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. U2 recorded in Berlin after the fall of the Wall, landing in the German capital on 3 October 1990 – the very day that marked Germany’s reunification. They unveiled an album in Cupertino alongside Apple’s highly anticipated new products, automatically releasing it to iTunes stores worldwide. They launched a tour featuring a futuristic stage at the centre of the arena (U2 360°), filling stadiums across the globe. At the AccorHotels Arena in Paris, they invited the Eagles of Death Metal – the band that was performing at the Bataclan during the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015 – onto the stage to perform Patti Smith’s ‘People Have the Power’ together. Since 2000, they have consistently sold out every concert on every tour.

Alongside their musical career, the band have frequently taken a stand on various social and political issues, from supporting the Good Friday Agreement which brought an end to the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, to defending Aung San Suu Kyi during her non-violent struggle against the Burmese military dictatorship in the 1990s. Bono and his bandmates have also been involved in numerous charitable initiatives, including fundraising for the reconstruction of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, for the fight against AIDS in post-apartheid South Africa, and for medical staff working to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Naturally, there is no shortage of criticism: U2 are often belittled by many musical purists, who criticise the evolution of their sound following their early albums and regard them as pop artists of little substance. Upon the release of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, some critics held the band to the words spoken by Bono during a period of creative crisis: ‘If we make a second bad album in a row, we’ll split up’.

The band’s social commitment has also been criticised on several occasions by those who regard it as nothing more than a façade: many branded U2 as hypocrites when, in 2006, they moved the headquarters of U2 Limited – a company that manages part of their fortune – to the Netherlands, following a change to Irish tax law. Others, however, simply find it irritating: Noel Gallagher told Rolling Stone that he couldn’t stand their concerts because “When you see U2 or Coldplay live, you already know you’re going to have to sit through a sermon about some bloody people starving to death”.

Opinions on U2 vary: some regard them as enlightened artists, while others see them as shrewd opportunists capitalising on their fame. But after a career spanning half a century and 170 million records sold worldwide, the four musicians are, first and foremost, a band capable of speaking to a wide audience. They have produced ‘One’, ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, ‘Beautiful Day’ and ‘City of Blinding Lights’, to name but a few, and inspired generations of musicians. They have been able to range across genres like few others, from new wave to dance, to pure and simple rock.

Of these 50 years of U2, what remains above all is the music, with The Edge’s guitar (who, not coincidentally, starred alongside Jimmy Page and Jack White in one of the most famous documentaries on the electric guitar, It Might Get Loud) and the timeless voice of Bono, whom Green Day’s frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, described as: “50 per cent Guinness and 10 per cent cigarettes – the rest is all religion!”.