U2 - House Band for the Establishment!

Bono and U2 are the gift that keeps on giving. Probably not in the way they planned it. Bono actually kind of sort of "apologized" for "putting U2's album in everyone's iCloud library."

Bono: "I had this beautiful idea. Might have gotten carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing.  A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion, and a deep fear that these songs we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard."

This after he and band cashed in their chips and took their $100 million from Apple to the bank.  Ha! Bono wants his cake and to eat it too. Guess you can't blame him. Bono wants to be rich, famous, successful, popular, and cool! Sorry. Doesn't work that way.

As Josh Wimmer, another disgruntled U2 fan puts it: "The worst part of being a U2 fan is just how goddamned uncool U2 is."

Yes, exactly. And "coolness" is a super slippery and elusive thing. You can't manufacture it. You can't will it. You can't really do anything to earn it. It just descends or not. You wear it like aura or not. You carry it or not. 

Love this from Josh: "... it's hard not to describe their 21st century incarnation as the house band for the establishment." Perfect! He then goes to suggest ways U2 can do things to try to earn back their "coolness." Which is a fool's errand. There's nothing to do, or can be done, to earn it back.

Which is not to say that U2 can't be cool again. But events would need to conspire. And it's hard to see how it could happen. I'm not saying U2 is fated to be thought of in the same way as Vanilla Ice, or Milli Vanilli, or M.C. Hammer, or... fill in the blank. There is a price to be paid for being "house band for the establishment." You cash in your cool card and you may never get it back.