(Credits: Far Out / Spotify)
No artist can claim to be perfect. Even though it’s nice to be confident in your own work, there’s only so long that someone can be on a hot streak before the next project knocks them down a couple of pegs. While the lesson of fumbling songs is a reality Bono knows all too well, he admitted that he has yet to see any misstep regarding Billie Eilish’s discography.
Then again, U2 still have many more hits than misses in their catalogue. Everything from their debut to The Joshua Tree is nearly untouchable by rock standards, and up until they decided to cram as many electronic dance textures into their music on Pop, their turn as a post-ironic version of themselves still stands as one of the more brilliant career moves any 1980s artist made in the era of grunge.
But the one aspect of Bono that everyone loves can sometimes be what drives people up the wall: his sincerity. You aren’t going to find another rockstar willing to tell you how they feel whenever they get up onstage, but even if Bono keeps everything fairly close to the chest in his repertoire, the more cynical variety of fans take one look at him with his smug grin and expensive sunglasses and don’t give him a second glance.
The presentation might be completely different, but that kind of sincerity actually applies to Eilish just as much. Sure, she’s not getting up on a soapbox telling people that they need to help her raise money for starving children, but the intimate discussions of her own mental health in many of her songs have made every one of her songs feel like standalone stories that only her audience can relate to.
However, the one thing that Eilish has mastered is something that Bono couldn’t pull off nearly as well: subtlety. Even though songs like ‘Bad Guy’ rely on a playful backing track that switches multiple times, hearing a tune like ‘Your Power’ is so emotionally piercing despite her never raising her voice above the standard vocal affectations she was used to.
For Bono, that kind of subtlety was enough to leave him dumbfounded, telling the New York Times, “There’s a musical revolution in intimacy that started with Billie Eilish. For the generation that has listened to music only in earbuds, intimacy is the new punk rock. These songs from this young woman arrive, and they’re almost perfectly formed and it’s as if they come from another place.”
That’s not to say that U2 and Eilish can’t switch when they want to. Eilish has been involved in borderline rock tracks like ‘Happier Than Ever’ in the past, and there aren’t many songs that have the kind of lingering gut punch that Bono delivers on the song ‘One’.
Bono is still capable of having a firm grasp on what his audience is looking for, but Eilish’s audience is a much different breed of listeners. Whereas Bono was trying to cause real change and heal the world, Eilish brings a sense of community whenever she plays, almost assuring every member of her fanbase that it’s going to be fine.
