For all of the bile that has been thrown at U2 over the years, Bono doesn’t tend to get enough credit these days.
I know that he can come off as the single most pretentious person to ever exist when he gets a microphone in his hand, but there’s never a moment where he stands up onstage where he doesn’t sound like he at least wants to change the world for the better. He was always the one trying his hardest to make people see the compassion of humankind, but he admitted that there were a few times when he was absolutely crushed to see one of his friends slip away
After all, grief seemed to follow Bono around at the very beginning of his career. He often had a strained relationship with his father, and when his mother passed away at an early age, he channelled a lot of that pent-up energy into those first U2 songs. Life didn’t have to be about him moping, and through music, he found an outlet to communicate with people that he never had before.
In fact, U2’s first competitors seemed to be doing the same thing when they made their records. They had grown out of the remnants of post-punk that was coming out around that time, but it didn’t take long before other people started making anthemic rock music as well. But even though bands like The Alarm and Big Country had some decent tunes here and there, U2 had their eyes on something much bigger than their anthems.
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