Geldof to Bono: It's on Bitch!

The media would have you believe that Bono from U2 and Bob Geldof from that “I don’t like Mondays” song are best friends. But it’s actually a little known fact that if Bono and Bob Geldof really were best friends, the combined might of their self importance would actually tilt the Earth off its axis and plunge our little celestial globe into the sun.

No, the reality is that Bob Geldof and Bono are actually bitter arch rivals locked in an eternal epic battle for the title of “World’s smuggest Irish rock star turned shrill do-gooding prat”.

For a while now, it has been pretty obvious that Bono is kicking Bob Geldof’s arse. While Bob Geldof was re-releasing that preachy Chistmas song yet again, Bono has been flying around telling literally everyone in the whole world how shit Africa is. While Bob Geldof was off guest starring in Spiceworld: The Movie, Bono was winning every Q music award they could conceivably throw at him. And while Bob Geldof was reviving the careers of tired has-been rockstars with all those Live8 concerts, Bono was being compared to the greatest musician of all time.

But now, Bob Geldof is fighting back. According to Reuters, Geldof announced this week his intentions to catalogue all of human existence in partnership with the BBC: “The Dictionary of Man website will be a limitless repository of content, an immense digital catalogue of all current human existence and an enormous resource for the exchange of ideas and information.”

Admittedly, this idea actually sounds pretty cool…that is, it would sound cool if it was headed by, you know, an actual anthropologist or something rather than just some stylishly unkempt rock star who wrote one crappy hit song in the seventies then made a whole second career for himself by self-righteously telling people much less rich than him how they should be spending their money.

Allegedly, the idea for the project came to Geldof when he heard a Governor of North Niger tell of how 300 languages were wiped out during a two year famine.

"Even though I never heard those languages, I already miss them. In these ways the lights of human genius wink out,” Geldof said, determined to outdo Bono in the wanky, glib statement department.

"Ultimately, I suppose in some ways we're also building the world's family photo album," he continued, displaying his talent for summing up extraordinarily complex concepts and ideas with nice media friendly sound bites.

He then went on about “homogenization” and “globalization” and probably lots of other big words often used badly by boring self-important liberal celebrities.

But not to be outdone Bono will be counter-attacking Geldof by living up to his reputation as a “musician” and actually produce some music.

Early reports suggest that, headed by alleged lead single the feel good sing-along “Hey everyone! Africa is shit!” U2’s awkwardly titled twelfth studio album “Making Money is Easy (just write easy listening pap then promote it for free by causing a political stir wherever you go)” will be out later this year.

Top Ten Bands that should have all Died when they were 27, Part 2

As Winston Churchill probably once said, "To die young is to die with dignity." Here's some more bands that selfishly refused to take advice from a former Prime Minister, Pulitzer Prize winner and best Briton ever according to the BBC.

5. U2
This band never really had a creative peak because they have always sucked. But just think of all the tired, middle of the road, easy listening tripe we could have avoided if Bono, the Edge and the gang had decided to all die en mass at 27!

4. Pink Floyd
I've written about some of the crappier aspects of Pink Floyd before. Needless to say, these guys desperately should have taken a leaf out of Lynyrd Skynyrd's book and all died a little bit in a 1979 plane crash. In the 70's they made their reputation on being avant garde and eccentric and refusing to compromise their band or their music for the sake of convention and the demands of the music industry. Of course, after 1979 they embraced every cliche and stereotype of a band that has run its creative course but refuses to let it go: they released a bunch of pretentious wank masquerading as innovation (the Final Cut), the main songwriter quit, the remaining members hobbled together a bunch of awful albums solely intended to further fund their millionaire rock star lifestyle (The Division Bell) and dozens of similarly awful live albums and nostalgia tours (Delicate Sound of Thunder).

3. Jethro Tull
Here's Jethro Tull in 1969. And here's Jethro Tull in 2006. Why do all these outdated nostalgia bands look like they stopped making conscious fashion decisions in 1991? I mean has anyone in the last twenty years, outside a reunion tour, ever worn a daggy black waistcoat?

2. The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys pretty much invented the concept of the "nostalgia band" when they discovered in the seventies that, regardless of whether or not they were releasing new albums, people still flocked to their concerts because they all remember listening to good vibrations a lot in 1967. And for that crime alone, they deserve to be number two on this list. The band still tours today despite the fact that only one original member still plays in the band.

1. INXS
God, where do I start with these losers. INXS were never really any good to start with and most of their appeal came from their charismatic lead singer Michael Hutchence. Fortunately, Michael Hutchence had the foresight to retire early, albeit in the most embarrassing way humanly possible: auto erotic asphyxiation. And everyone breathed a sigh of relief, assuming that the juggernaut of crap INXS represented was over. However, in a startling lapse of understanding of how their band actually worked, all the other loser members of the band decided that a version of INXS sans Micheal Hutchence would be a great idea and went about reviving their band in the most soulless, pathetic, sell-out-y way possible: via a reality TV show. God, where's Charles Manson when you need him?

Bono: Officially Better Than You

According to wikipedia: "in the High and Late Middle Ages, the principal duty of a knight was to fight as, and lead, heavy cavalry". Oddly enough, the standards of knighthood have fallen somewhat; in fact, if someone with little to no knowledge of Britain stumbled onto our shores today, they would probably come to the conclusion that the principal duties of a knight involved prancing about on a stage in a Donald Duck outfit and disturbingly over sized sunglasses, stabbing one-legged porn stars a bit with a broken glass and rooting ninety percent of the world's female population.

That's because Elton John, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger have all been considered important enough to be bestowed with a state instituted title of honour. Don't you just love living in a country that has created a system in which certain people are officially declared to be much better than you by way of their ability to write songs about postboxes and kites and other twee nonsense?

Now, some people have argued that this whole knighthood rubbish is just the monarchy's way of saying, "Hey! We're not really an increasingly outdated and irrelevant anachronism in a world that has embraced Democracy! We like pop music too, you see!" but those people are probably just jealous haters. I mean, I personally see absolutely nothing wrong with deserving individuals getting bestowed with awards and titles for accomplishing something important by a woman whose greatest accomplishment is once making herself a cup of tea instead of asking her hordes of man servants, slaves and personal chefs to make one for her. But that's just me.

Anyway, just when you thought England couldn't slump lower than that time they let Paul McCartney join the hallowed ranks of Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad and that bloke that looks like a sheila, the Queen has decided to grant an honorary knighthood to the biggest knob sack in the entire world: Bono from U2. Yes, all you ordinary plebs are now officially shitter than a man who wears sunglasses at all times, even inside and at night. As justified by Tony Blair, who probably should be doing more important things than sucking up to self righteous rock stars: "You have tirelessly used your voice to speak up for Africa". Which I think is quite a polite way of saying "used your inexplicable popularity to fly around the globe harping on at world leaders about how shit Africa is and getting a bit of free publicity in the process" really.

Now, I'm pretty sure that Bono accepting an honorary knighthood from England is actually tantamount to some sort of vast betrayal if you consider that several of the Queen's direct ancestors have been responsible for the deaths of millions of Irishmen, the destruction of their native language, several centuries of economic subjugation etc. etc. etc. But then again, I'm sure the Irish already hate Bono after that time he decided not to pay millions of dollars worth of taxes back into the country of his birth.

Arguably, the right thing to do would have been to just refuse the bloody thing. It's been done before; the list of celebrities who have refused some sort of imperial honour includes David Bowie, John Cleese, Kenneth Branagh, Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, John le Carré, Robert Graves, Evelyn Waugh, Roald Dahl, J G Ballard, George Melly and even Nigella Lawson. Of course Bono did nothing of the sort even stating that he was "very flattered". Which means he now has less credibility than some snobby, posh bint with a cooking show.

I decided to do a bit of research by asking Colin the Irishman that works in my office how he feels about Bono's knighthood. He said, "I don't know about Bono, but that queen looks like she could do with a good knobbing." I think Colin is actually from New Zealand rather than Ireland but he does have a funny accent so close enough.

Beethoven Embarrassingly Compared to that U2 Prat Bono

It seems these days like U2's Bono is never not in the news: whether he's claiming that wearing trendy white wristbands will solve all the world's problems or telling politicians how to spend their country's money he seems to be eternally hedging the top spot of every media outlet's daily news roundup.

Typically, he was back in the papers yesterday; however, unusually, he was in the news for something other than being a self-righteous hypocrite or to shill yet another U2 best of CD. You see, as reported by several newspapers too lazy to find actual news stories to write about, this month's Gramophone magazine embarrasingly featured an article in which they declared Bono to be the modern equivalent of 19th century German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven.

Ignoring the fact that Bono isn't German, deaf, a piano virtuoso, a genius classical music composer or even, you know, talented and ignoring the fact that Beethoven isn't an overrated Irish git with a penchant for making ordinary non-rich people feel bad for not giving away money while wearing hundred thousand dollar sunglasses, the editor of music magazine Gramophone maintains the tenuous connection stating:

"Beethoven was a major cultural figure in his day, just as Bono is now. In the 18th century, composers were the pop stars of their day. Beethoven was also a regular guest at court and would have been a point of reference for the Austrian aristocracy. Bono has a comparable relationship with Tony Blair and George W Bush, and the dynamic is still the same. Beethoven believed the world should work to make itself a better place and that we should stand up against oppression."

Stand up against oppression eh? In my opinion, what we should stand up to is being told how we're supposed to live our lives and spend our money by someone who's job description is pretty much just singing glib songs about Beautiful Days and Sweetest Things and posing for wanky photos for Q music magazine. But I digress.

Beethoven wasn't available for comment because he's been dead for almost two hundred years and stuff but it has been speculated that had Bono and Beethoven been contemporaries Beethoven would have actually quite liked U2's music. Namely, the album "All that you can't leave behind" would have given Beethoven a brand new appreciation for his inability to hear anything.

As ill-conceived and probably sacriligious as this article is, it's also a bit of a refreshing change. I'm really not looking forward to next week when Bono will inevitably be back in the news for all the same old naive condescending "help all those plebs in shit countries" and "rock against poverty" stuff he's always banging on and on about ad nauseum, not unlike that fat man in Se7en who kept eating and eating cans of spaghetti until he exploded or something.

Bono from U2 is still shit

People seemed to respond well to me slagging off Bono from U2 the other day and since I'm an attention seeking populist sell-out here's more of the same thing.

Should I ever become President of the planet Earth or something the very first thing I would do is completely outlaw music magazines and the music section of the paper because it has come to my attention that these products exist purely as a platform for self indulgent rockstars to air every idiot thought in their stylishly messy head. People would probably complain; however I would justify this action by pointing out that music is meant to be listened to and not read about and probably the only reason why people read these magazines is to bone up on their musical knowledge so they can seamlessly name-drop Ian Curtis in conversation.

This would appear to be a rather extreme action to take but, you see, last monday I happened to read the most rubbishy, kiss-ass, self-indulgent celebrity interview in existence. How rubbishy, kiss-ass and self-indulgent? Well here's a quote from the interviewee Bono: "Intimacy is a great word. A lot of people are listening to music through earphones [these days] and you know, you're whispering into people's ears." GOD. What a knobsack.

Actually I can't decide who I hate more, Bono or Christine Sams the interviewer and the broad who wrote the following line: "It must be my feminine side," said Bono, with a sexy drawl.

Here's a few more embarrasing quotes (my comments are in red):

"The band are rehearsing now, I'm getting out of it by talking to you, which is great because I really can't stand rehearsal." Wow. Way to go not rehearsing for a concert that you shamelessly charged seventy-five pounds for.

"Our songs tend to be with people at either the best of times or worst of times...When we walk on stage, that's the reason why people's hair goes up, including mine by the way." What a conceited dickhead.

"[my] definition of art is breaking open the breastbone and pulling open the ribcage and, you know [he mimes his heart tumbling out], a blood transfusion" I'm pretty sure that that rubbish song Vertigo is proof against the post-modern view that anything can be art.

Of course, it's not all Bono's fault that he's such a twat. If you got told that you were a magnificent, brilliant, creative genius all day by soulless sycophants with bad tastes in music you'd probably think every little bit of crap that came out of your mouth was compelling and insightful as well.

And he isn't even the biggest twat on earth. That honour goes to Stephen Baldwin who embarrasingly once said to Bono: "You would do far more good if you just preached the gospel of Jesus rather than trying to get rid of Third World debt relief." Actually, that's quite funny Stephen Baldwin. Ammended: Bono is the biggest twat on earth.

U2 wins at Q magazine awards despite being boring nostalgia act

U2 are just a little bit overrated aren't they?

Despite mostly just being that band that wrote that "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" song that's played over the "protagonist loses job/girlfriend" scene in every second movie ever made u2 have done quite well for themselves: they're routinely labelled 'the best band eva' by rubbish music magazines, they've sold a zillion records and smug frontman Bono includes George W Bush, Tony Blair and the Pope as personal acquaintances.

And their inexplicable success continues: just last week they cleaned up at the Q awards which ignored the fact that U2 haven't released an album in almost two years in order to grant them the awkwardly titled "best of bands" award. Guitarist The Edge also won the "innovation in sound" award despite the fact that every U2 album has sounded the same since 1992.

Less reported on by the media was U2's triumphant blitz of the less well known but industry respected HELL FELL MUSIC AWARDS. Unsurprisingly, U2 took home the most overrated band of the millenium award and Bono snagged himself a least good self-righteous, ugly outdated sunglasses wearing do-gooding pop star award. However despite being nominated in the musician with the stupidest name category he disappointingly lost out to fellow bandmate The Edge. U2 also failed to snag the Pete Townshend just bloody give it up before you break a fucking hip you self congratulatory wankers award which instead went to senior citizens The Rolling Stones.

But it aint just me who thinks U2 have become a has been nostalgia act, the music industry appears to think so too. This can be seen in the fact that U2 have fallen into that rut popularized by other probably past their use by date acts as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Rolling Stones, namely every single time they release an album it's declared by Rolling Stone, NME and Q as their best since (insert their probably decades old last decent album here). If that's not a sign that U2 should stop making records and stick to selling concert t-shirts I don't know what is.

Of course, U2 appear to believe this themselves. Because it's been a whole eight minutes since they released their last greatest hits collection, U2 are releasing a brand new retrospective on the 21st of November embarrasingly titled U218.

In other embarrasing U2 news, it has been reported that their songs are starting to be used as hymns in episcopal churches across America, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" being a favourite with kids and teens forced to participate in their parents' tedious superstitions.