Bono! Do you ever take those wretched sunglasses off?
U2 and the performance of Irishness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v4i3.309Keywords:
authenticity, hybridity, identity, imperialism, inauthenticity, Irishness, performative, popular music, post-colonial, post-punk, rock cultureAbstract
This article argues that the band U2 and lead singer Bono have been largely neglected in popular music studies. It aims to address this through a detailed consideration of the band’s negotiation of Irish identity, examining music press discourse about the band and offering an analysis of the band in performance. The article focuses mainly on Bono and seeks to consider the performer’s overall star-text, his prominent role as a global celebrity activist and the specificities of his performing style. The analysis is centred largely on the band’s Zoo TV period and their apparent embrace of postmodern ideas and strategies. The essay argues against too simple a correspondence between the group and the postmodern and suggests that post-colonial critical approaches sensitive to the nuances of popular musical practices are more useful in understanding the types of identity the band has articulated.
References
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Ryder, Shaun. 2009. ‘Shaun Ryder: How the Hell are You?’ Mojo 187 (June).
Sabin, Roger, ed. 1999. Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. London: Routledge.
Sawyer, Miranda. 2009. ‘The Bono Broadcasting Corporation’. The Observer, 1 March.
Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. 1994. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London and New York: Routledge.
Smyth, Gerry. 2005. Noisy Island: A Short History of Irish Rock and Pop. Cork: Cork University Press.
—2009. Music and Irish Cultural History. London: Irish Academic Press.
Stokes, Niall. 2006. U2—Into the Heart: The Stories Behind every Song. London: Sevenoaks.
Theroux, Paul. 2005. ‘The Rock Star’s Burden’. The New York Times, 19 December.
Wall, Mick. 2005. Bono: In the Name of Love. London: Deutch.
Waters, John. 1994. A Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2. Belfast: Blackstaff Press.
—1995. ‘Interview by Noel McLaughlin’. Unpublished.
Zuberi, Nabeel. 2001. Sounds English: Transnational Popular Music. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Bennett, Andy, and Jon Stratton, eds. 2010. Britpop and the English Musical Tradition. Farnham: Ashgate.
Bhabha, Homi. 1994. ‘Of Mimicry and Man’. In idem, The Location of Culture, 121–31. London: Routledge.
Campbell, Sean. 2007. ‘Ethnicity and Cultural Criticism: Evocations and Elisions of Irishness in the British Music Press’. Celtic Cultural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Online Journal 1: 1–27. http://www.celtic-cultural-studies.com/papers/01/campbell-01.html
Chambers, Iain. 1985. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Clayton-Lea, Tony, and Richie Taylor. 1992. Irish Rock: Where it’s Come from, Where it’s at, Where it’s Going. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.
Cloonan, Martin. 1997. ‘State of the Nation: “Englishness”, Pop, and Politics in the mid1990s’. Popular Music and Society 21/2: 47–70.
—1999. ‘Pop and the Nation-State: Towards a Theorization’. Popular Music 18/2: 193–207. doi:10.1017/S0261143000009041
Cogan, Visnja. 2006. U2: An Irish Phenomenon. Cork: Collins Press.
Connolly, Paul, and Liz Hazelton. 2009. ‘ “From Bono Broadcasting Corp” to Five-night-run on David Letterman: How U2 Pulled off the Biggest Publicity Coup in Music History’. The Daily Mail, 9 March.
Dalton, Stephen. 1999. ‘In the Name of Love: U2–The Untold Story’. Uncut (December): 40–62.
Dunphy, Eamon. 1987. Unforgettable Fire: The Story of U2. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Dyer, Richard. 1993. ‘White’. In idem, The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation, 141–63. London: Routledge.
Eno, Brian. 1994. ‘Bringing Up Baby’. In The Rolling Stone Files, 165–70. New York: Hyperion.
Fast, Susan. 2001. In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
—2008. ‘Music, Contexts, and Meaning in U2’. In Expression in Pop-Rock: Critical and Analytical Essays, ed. Walter Everett, 175–98. New York: Routledge.
Flanagan, Bill. 1995. U2: At the End of the World. London: Bantam Press.
Foucault, Michel. 2002. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York and London: Routledge.
Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
—2004. ‘Does British Music Still Matter?: A Reflection on the Changing Status of British Popular Music in the Global mcusic Market’. European Journal of Cultural Studies 7: 43–58. doi:10.1177/1367549404039859
Graham, Bill. 1989. U2: The Early Years—Another Time, Another Place. London: Mandarin.
—1993. ‘Has Pop Eaten Itself?’ Hot Press 17/4.
—1995. ‘Interview with Noel McLaughlin’. Unpublished.
Hawkins, Stan. 2009. The British Pop Dandy: Masculinity, Popular Music and Culture. Farnham: Ashgate.
Hesmondhalgh, David. 2001. ‘British Popular Music and National Identity’. In British Cultural Studies, ed. David Morley and Kevin Robins, 273–86. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Inglis, Ian, ed. 2000. The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: A Thousand Voices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kundera, Milan. 1996. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. London: Faber and Faber.
McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Conquest. New York: Routledge.
McCormick, Neil. 2006. U2 By U2. London: HarperCollins.
—2009. ‘U2 Live at the (Bono Broadcasting Corporation) Radio Theatre’. The Daily Telegraph, 27 February.
McLaughlin, Noel. 2000. ‘Rock, Fashion and Performativity’. In Fashion Cultures: Theories, Explorations and Analysis, ed. Stella Bruzzi and Pamela Church Gibson, 264–85. London: Routledge.
McLaughlin, Noel, and Martin McLoone. 2000. ‘Hybridity and National Musics: The Case of Irish Rock’. Popular Music 19/2: 181–99. doi:10.1017/S0261143000000106
McLoone, Martin. 2004. ‘Punk Music in Northern Ireland: The Political Power of “What Might Have Been” ’. Irish Studies Review 12/1: 29–38. doi:10.1080/0967088042000192095
Morley, Paul. 2010. ‘On Gospel, Abba and the Death of the Record: An Audience with Brian Eno’. The Observer ‘Review’, 17 January.
O’Flynn, John. 2009. The Irishness of Irish Music. Farnham: Ashgate.
Ramert, Lynn. 2009. ‘A Century Apart: The Personality Performances of Oscar Wilde in the 1890s and U2’s Bono in the 1990s’. Popular Music and Society 32/4: 447–60. doi:10.1080/03007760802217584
Redhead, Steve. 1990. The End of the Century Party: Youth and Pop towards 2000. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Reynolds, Simon. 2005. Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. London: Faber and Faber.
Reynolds, Simon, and Joy Press. 1995. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock ’n’ Roll. London: Serpent’s Tail.
Ryder, Shaun. 2009. ‘Shaun Ryder: How the Hell are You?’ Mojo 187 (June).
Sabin, Roger, ed. 1999. Punk Rock: So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. London: Routledge.
Sawyer, Miranda. 2009. ‘The Bono Broadcasting Corporation’. The Observer, 1 March.
Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. 1994. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London and New York: Routledge.
Smyth, Gerry. 2005. Noisy Island: A Short History of Irish Rock and Pop. Cork: Cork University Press.
—2009. Music and Irish Cultural History. London: Irish Academic Press.
Stokes, Niall. 2006. U2—Into the Heart: The Stories Behind every Song. London: Sevenoaks.
Theroux, Paul. 2005. ‘The Rock Star’s Burden’. The New York Times, 19 December.
Wall, Mick. 2005. Bono: In the Name of Love. London: Deutch.
Waters, John. 1994. A Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2. Belfast: Blackstaff Press.
—1995. ‘Interview by Noel McLaughlin’. Unpublished.
Zuberi, Nabeel. 2001. Sounds English: Transnational Popular Music. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Published
2011-02-10
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
McLaughlin, N. (2011). Bono! Do you ever take those wretched sunglasses off? U2 and the performance of Irishness. Popular Music History, 4(3), 309–331. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v4i3.309
