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(Credits: Far Out / Spotify)
Bono always believed in the power behind rock and roll music. The mentality of a song being able to change the world wasn’t lost on him, and half of the reason why he has been so serious onstage revolved around trying to capture that magic for at least a few minutes whenever U2 played. While the power of music usually came from acts like The Clash or Ramones in rock and roll, Bono thought that one of the greatest songsmiths of his time was Nile Rodgers.
Then again, it’s not like Bono was exactly looking to make disco music when he got started. Chic was certainly great for their time, but the slinky groove of Rodgers’s guitar was a far cry from the kind of insane stuff that The Edge would be doing, who almost played as if he was trying to invent the sound of the future.
Although disco has been considered a product of its time, those songs still hold up. For every stick in the mud who is still clutching on to their ‘DISCO SUCKS’ T-shirts for dear life, the music still sounds amazing today, and that usually comes down to the way that Rodgers worked with a lot of those bands, including the amazing chorus on ‘Good Times’ and even co-writing tracks like ‘We Are Family’ for Sister Sledge.
Despite being known as one of the kings of disco, Rodgers’s various dips into pop music are still among the best music of the 1980s. His work with Duran Duran may be one of the best artistic turns they made during their career, and while David Bowie’s Let’s Dance period might be divisive for some people, everything was worth it if it meant that ‘Modern Love’ became a hit.
Whereas Bono was still interested in becoming one of the biggest voices for change in rock, he even had to admit that Rodgers was one of the best he ever heard, telling him in Rolling Stone, “You have been the holy host of some of my favourite songs ever… a prophetic figure. You didn’t have much of a family, so you wrote ‘We Are Family’. You weren’t having good times, so you wrote ‘Good Times’.”
And it’s not like that creative ingenuity ever stopped, either. His collaboration with Daft Punk on ‘Get Lucky’ is still one of the greatest songs the 2010s ever spat out, and his working with artists like Christina Aguilera and Daddy Yankee shows that he’s at least willing to fit his signature brand of funk into a different context.
It’s just a shame that U2 thought that they could play that kind of music as well. While Achtung Baby had its fair share of similarities to dance and electronic music, Bono suddenly getting the idea that he could be Rodgers on Pop is still one of the more ill-advised decisions they ever made, which is saying a lot coming from a group that force-fed an entire generation of iPhone users their own album.
Still, you can’t really blame them for at least trying to match what Rodgers could do with a groove. Because when you have songs that are that in the pocket and speak to millions of generations, everyone’s going to want to achieve that same kind of perfection.
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