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Should young people have heard of U2?

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Talk on the Liam Payne post comparing One Direction’s fame to that of The Beatles got me thinking of a recent incident which I’d like the Afterword hive mind to consider. It was our anniversary and my wife and I were off to see a show at the Lyceum in the centre of Sheffield.

We stopped at a pub/restaurant en route for a meal and got talking to the waitress – a young lass of 18 or 19 – who wanted to know how long we’d been married, what we were doing for our anniversary etc. When she heard we were going to the Lyceum, she said that she’d been there once to see Peter Pan or some such. I replied, “Well, I’m so old, the last time I was at the Lyceum was to see U2 in 1980. Can you imagine U2 playing the Lyceum?”

For those unfamiliar with the venue, the Lyceum is a typical provincial theatre in terms of its size, seating around a couple of thousand I suppose, so whilst it was suitable for U2 at the time of the release of their second album, they quickly outgrew such venues and migrated to the enormodome circuit instead.

Anyway, a swift dig in the ribs from my wife told me that the waitress was staring at me in non-comprehension, unsure how to respond to what I’d said. Then it dawned on me – she’d never heard of U2 and hadn’t the faintest idea what I was talking about. I was gobsmacked. Ok, the Where the Streets Have No Name hitmakers may not be the biggest thing in pop these days, but surely ver kids should have heard of Bono and chums – shouldn’t they? After all, I’d heard of Al Jolson and Vera Lynn, even though I’d never owned any of their music. What do you think? Was our waitress the type of teenager uninterested in anything that happened before yesterday and is that typical of today’s yoof? Or was I being unreasonable in expecting her to be familiar with a band who were performing and recording before her parents had even met?

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Comments

  1. A grumpy old git responds – ‘It was before my time’ is the yoof response to general ignorance about even the most basic facts these days. Hitler, Mussolini, the moon landings, 9/11 – “sorry mate, before my time”.

  2. Similarly, as it was inclement last Friday night, Mrs F and I popped into the tail end of the under-18s dance class, before our ballroom class began, to avoid standing in the rain. One of the 17-year-old dancers said “Gotta go, I’m off to Waterbeach to collect my broken down car”.

    “My first job was in Waterbeach.” I muttered. “In 1985. You weren’t been born then.”

    “Neither was I” replied our teacher.

  4. A group conversation at work involving a bright young colleague moved towards films and the name Warren Beatty came up. BYC said, quite reasonably, “who’s Warren Beatty?”. I explained the best I could, naming some of his films and his blank look continued. I then told him that he had dated Madonna for a while. “Who’s Madonna?” he said. I was aghast.

    A few seconds later, he smiled and said he was pulling my leg.

  5. That’s a good question (and I’m speaking as one of the site’s small handful of unapologetic U2 fans).

    Many older acts have remained on the cultural radar with the young – Fleetwood Mac, Oasis, The Fabs – via the socials and key product placements and canny reissue campaigns, and musical quality has to be part of it. But I think their cultural branding is also important. There’s a sense that these acts still embody the Sixties, 70s L.A., 90s Britpop etc. Perhaps last 80s and 90s tropes are ‘owned’ more recognisably and immediately by other acts?

    Also, too, with hindsight, U2’s career has two distinct acts: The first, a questing yearning open heartedness and a need to connect (Red Rocks, Live Aid, Rattle and Hum), mainly through hard graft on the album/touring cycle. A few shining gems aside, the second act has been, essentially, maintenance, with increasingly overt bids for cultural relevance – the iPod ‘moment’, the Vegas ‘moment’, basically, everything since Beautiful Day, many of which now appear ephemeral in hindsight. Many old school fans such as myself would love to see them just put on black t shirts, pay smaller venues and sing songs about their lives as they live them now.

    There probably is a tiktok space for cultural symbols that represent that need to connect and engage through musical and spiritual communion, (Live Aid maybe? Springsteen?) but it’s been a long time since that was their brand. (Furthermore, the young probably don’t really know the trope of the album/tour cycle, and breaking America through years of hard work in a van.)

    It is a shame though. In one of my first years of teaching I had a 16 year old student ask me if I’d heard “this amazing old album called The Joshua Tree”. For him, a similar find to me discovering The Beatles Blue album – this perfect otherworldly rich vein ripe for discovery.

  6. I’m in a pub quiz team and I am regularly amazed when people don’t know stuff about pop music. Yesterday a clip of Bowie doing Life on Mars was shown. It’s the famous clip, the one from the early 70s, where he is in full makeup, orange hair with a white background.

    A woman in our group, who is in her late 50s said “ah, I know that one! – it’s ELO!” and started to write it down on our sheet.

    I didn’t take the piss because there are plenty of basic things I don’t know…but FFS that clip couldn’t be more Bowie and couldn’t be any less ELO. She let me change it but only because one of the others said I was a music nerd.

    • I find I struggle with pub quizzes with music rounds. The nerd in me suddenly develops the urge to scream “Oh for Christ sake, of COURSE it’s not that! Idiot! Are you just being deliberately fucking stupid?” in the faces of my team mates. Which is never, ever, a cool thing to do.

  7. Naturally as people keep creating there is an expanding pool of ‘stuff’ and no one can keep up with it all. There is a passage in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity where the protagonist is appalled when he sees a poster for an act who are playing a medium sized venue in London (OK, he is a record shop ((remember them?)) owner). Which brings me to Catfish and the Bottlemen. You know. You must do. Catfish and the Bottlemen? Of course you do! No. Me neither. Next year they are playing a headline gig at … Spurs stadium.

    • A house-moving ex-neighbour gave me a box of CDs to sort through before taking to the charity shop for her. She had an offspring who had recently left home. Alongside many Coldplay albums (I could only name two or three) and Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac, there are numerous albums by 1D, The View and Catfish etc. I’m not sure even the Chazza would take them.

    • It was Two Door Cinema Club for me – headlining Latitude. Who?
      Catfish and the Bottlemen were mid afternoon at Bingley festival a few years back. So they’ve come up a few leagues since then. (I missed them)

  8. As Boneshaker says, “That’s before my time” does seem to be the catch-all excuse for lacking what I, in my Mr Dull way, think of as just basic general knowledge: major music acts, World War II, key cultural figures and events, etc.

    In my very limited dealings with The Youth, I get the impression that “now” is the only thing that matters to them, and anything that happened before now is automatically of less value and interest. So they’re red hot on the latest trend in TikTok, but know nothing about (or are uninterested in), say, events from five years ago. I’m the opposite: I couldn’t name a No 1 single from this year if you put a gun to my head, but I have a stupidly deep knowledge of 80s music.

    As a case in point, I’ve been reading a lot about sitcom Friends as it celebrates its 30th anniversary. In a Guardian article about its success – it was for many years the most popular sitcom in the world, its stars are among the highest paid TV performers of all time, etc. – somebody said that his kids think that it’s a brand new show that’s set in the 90s. Its history, Matthew Perry’s death, Jennifer Aniston (who has probably had the highest post-Friends profile), meant absolutely nothing to them.

    Maybe that’s not much of an example, but it seems sad that today’s young people seem to have so little interest in what came before them. My work occasionally touches on school curriculums, and there appears to be a lot of “How would you feel if you were a medieval peasant/Roman woman/African slave” rather than focusing on actual history and facts. Maybe that sort of approach makes children think that if they haven’t experienced something themselves, it’s not worth thinking about.

    • As a teen in the 80s I loved Little Richard and The Mamas and the Papas. Both were considered to be deeply eccentric enthusiasms by my peers rather than general knowledge.

  9. Excellent thread @Simpering wreck.

    As we’ve seen, this is allso much more than bands.

    Movies, plays, TV shows, novelists, news stories, computers games, LPs, etc etc.

    How much of it all should be categorisd as important general knowledge? And how much of it can be filed under Interesting, Amusing but Not Essential?

    In the pub last night we wee talking about Monty Python. Trail-blazing in its day but is it actually still funny or important in 2024?

    It will probably shrink and shrink in importance to end up as Wikipedia footnote.

    • As a Python devotee, I will say it’s skewering a realigning of what is amusing still has relevance. The films I think still stand up, but admit the TV shows are not all 100% winners. Probably 50/50 enduring versus others fall in the category of “done that, let’s move on”.
      It may become a footnote, but not while old farts meet in pubs shoting “Albatross!” or “I want to be a lion tamer”

  10. Boomers joke about “hippity-hoppity” music and “being down with the kids” cos they know some beat-based drivel and they joke about not knowing half the celebs on I’m A Celeb, but these days I really do feel like that High Court judge (computer says: Sir Jeremiah Harman) who had never heard of Bruce Springsteen back whenever it was. I don’t know the names of any “influencers” or Tik-Tok stars, despite some of them having millions of fans. Occasionally one gets mentioned in the press for some scandal or other but the name never sticks in my memory. I feel I can’t be expected to keep track of everything and everyone, there’s way too much of it all and I’ve limited brain space, so I leave it to the youngsters to keep track of the “new media” stars. As such, it hardly surprises me that they can’t squeeze many of the old ones in their heads, alongside.

    • This points up what I have been thinking on the subject since I saw this thread.
      Popular Culture is a much, much wider subject now than it ever was when I was in my teens. Everything that’s ever been filmed or recorded or written about, since it was possible to do so, is available for perusal, and more and more new “stuff” is being produced on a daily basis.
      It’s no great surprise to me that there are gaps in people’s knowledge.

      In the grand scheme of things, does it matter that some teens are unaware of who U2 are? Of course not.

      • Excellent point @Mike_H.

        Thanks to the likes of Spotify, Wikipedia and YouTube, there’s a multitude of bands, artists, novelists, movies etc that I’ve never heard of are available to be explored.

        Our book circle just read a novel by a writer who I know nothing about: Beryl Bainbridge’s The Bottle Factory Outing (1974). And what a pleasure that was.

        There’s no point in losing sleep about all the things you or those you meet don’t know.

        But it’s wonderful to make a new discovery.

        Maybe, bý now, Simmering’s waitress has discovered Bono. Or maybe, she still hasn’t found what she’s looking for?

        • Something else that occurred to me:
          What with music being played almost everywhere, almost all of the time, they may well be familiar with some of U2’s songs, having heard them many times but, because they don’t much like them, they’ve never bothered to find out whose songs they are.

    • Ah – the judge fallacy again!

      Typically judges will always ask for any popular culture figure or event to be explained, so that the explanation goes down in the official court record, as the reference will probably be fogotten when the reports are being read many years in the future.

    • I saw the “reveal” of the lineup of Celeb Dancing On Ice last week. I did not recognise any of the slebs, but I did know that one of them was once a BBC radio DJ when I heard his name. I am nearly 55, but I might as well be 95.

      • You know, you really MUST improve your knowledge of modern popular culture or risk getting left behind; it’s well known that Celebrity Dancing On Ice has mid 50s middle class males as its prime target demographic. The rest of us on AW have a secret hidden thread specifically for it. It’s great, and if you can get yourself up to speed we might give you the special password.

  11. I was at lunch with a bunch of Gen X’rs the other day who had no idea who The Cars were. Quite took the wind out of the sails of my “learning the solo to Just What I Needed” rib-tickler, I can tell you.

  12. When I lived in London during the early/ mid 80s, I knew very many young people who, whilst they might possibly have heard of U2, wouldn’t know any of their songs. They weren’t interested in rock music or bands.

    Rock has declined in popularity since those days, even in places that once shunned the RnB, funk, jazz funk and early hip hop that was prevalent in London. So no, I am not surprised that someone who was born the same year as Back to Black or the Arctic Monkeys first album was released doesn’t register U2.

    And, yes, I also knew about Bing, Vera, Al Jolson etc when I was 18. But there were plenty of big stars from that era that I didn’t know about, either because they were dead, didn’t feature in old films,etc Perhaps if a U2 song had been featured prominently in a popular tv show ( a la Kate Bush) they might have a higher profile

  13. Talking with a 29 year old about films. For some reason we got round to actions films. They had never heard of Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris.

    Now I can understand never having seen any of their films but surely those two have left such a big mark on pop culture everyone should have at least heard of them.

    • I bow to nobody of my acquaintance in my love of films, but I’m sad to say I’ve never got round to seeing a Chuck Norris movie.

      I have though seen him in other people’s films (The Expendables 2, Dodgeball) and I’ve read enough about him and his work to think that he seems like a good sort. Check out Last Action Heroes by Nick de Semlyen – Norris comes across as a really decent guy.

      Despite having never seen his movies, I get the theme behind those Chuck Norris “facts” that pop up; e.g. “There was once a street named after Chuck Norris, but the name was changed as nobody crosses Chuck Norris and lives.”

      I cannot think of anybody in my limited circle who would have heard of him, although one or two might have heard of Bruce Lee (but none will have watched a Lee movie).

  14. @simpering-wreck I remember seeing The Clash at the same venue around 79 or 80 I think. The Lyceum was pretty run down in those years although as you’ll know it was given an extensive renovation in the late 80s before reopening in 1990. There’s not been too many concerts there since although I did see Richard Thompson there a few years ago now.

    • I absolutely loved The Lyceum’s ‘faded grandeur’ & saw tons of bands there, The Clash, The Only Ones, Kid Creole, The B-52s , The Undertones, Japan, LKJ, Magazine amongst others.
      Now it’s a fully restored glossy venue once more, it’s hard to believe the era of raucous gigs ever actually happened, but I’d say along with the Town & Country Club (AKA Forum) it was my favourite London venue.

      • Ooh, I was there for some of those. (I know @Simpering wreck was talking about the Sheffield Lyceum, but still…) I remember the Undertones didn’t play Teenage Kicks, which now I can kind of understand but which I found utterly baffling at the time. My favourite London venue. Was it only open on Sundays? I don’t recall ever going to a midweek gig there, just Sunday nights, which was always quite tense as the tube finished so early.

    • Saw my first gig at the Lyceum. Queen in 1979 on their Crazy tour of smaller venues. I only have a vague memory of the actual gig, but I do remember one of the bouncers lifting short-arsed 12 year old me up above his head and saying very loudly “blimey, we’ll have to put you on a box!”. My brothers did laugh.

  16. When did U2 last do anything newsworthy let alone have a hit that would be likely to reach the masses. If the waitress is 18 , what would she have been then. Most likely pretty damn young.

    • Excuse me, Miss, but that weird man in rose-tinted aviator shades on Table 5 clapping his hands and shouting about dead babies is starting to make me feel uncomfortable

      • “Excuse me, sir, but could you stop clapping?”
        “Do you know who I am?”
        “Erm, no.”
        “I’m Bono.”
        “Sorry, who?”
        “Bono. Y’know, Bono. Bo-no. B. O. N. O.”
        “Erm…”
        “Bono!”
        “Okaaay. And who’s the hat-wearing gentleman next to you?”
        “Hello, I’m The Edge.”
        “…”

  17. This has reminded me of back in about 2007 or 2008 when a colleague, who’d have been around 30 at the time, was telling me about her weekend. She’d gone to a fancy dress party as Boy George and then they’d all gone for a curry still in fancy dress. Naturally I said that I hoped she’d sang Korma Chameleon. She didn’t have a clue what I was talking about and had never heard of Culture Club. Presumably he must have been a judge on a talent show round about then, which I would have known nothing about.

  18. This is what I was trying to say on the Liam Payne thread. Fame is temporary and people of a certain age will be convinced that the famous bands of their youth are famous for everybody. This is clearly a fallacy. Ithangyew.

  20. One of my key realisations since retirement is the fact that I have become much less aware of what the hell is going on, particularly in the world of popular culture. I really miss all those conversations about stuff on TV and so on…as well as those about who the youngsters have never heard of.

  21. To a large extent its the lack of development of the pre-frontal cortex ( completes around 25). Until then, the limbic system – feelings, bonding, connection – is the dominant driver. So there is no big dopamine or oxytocin hit in knowing who U2 are/were. When nominating a year ( 1993), my students immediately say ‘wasn’t born’. Interestingly they don’t say it if you say 1935 or 1835 etc. But they are aware of me as this kind of (sometimes/ sometimes not) fascinating connection to a previous world to which they don’t belong.

    When I read Bob Stanley’s Yeah Yeah Yeah, there are some great reflections on why somebody’s ‘name’ has survived and others have not. I don’t really know Vera Lynn at all aside from Robyn Hitchcock. I have even looked her up but it doesn’t hold. I recall Bing dying around Christmas time -something about a golf course ( I’m not checking) – but I couldn’t really say what his songs were apart from White Christmas.

    I’m from Brisbane Australia so I sometimes play the David Bowie game with my colleagues – can you name me a Bowie song. 90% of my teaching colleagues at a secondary school cannot. I sing them a few and they go “oh yeah”. Usually Let’s Dance album hits. Ashes to Ashes. But he’s a figure of no great significance here.

    Pop Culture is not a sustaining phenomenon. But – this is why Taylor Swift is so remarkable. As big as Elvis and The Beatles.

  23. I also think the American bias of online culture shapes the cultural capital. Whereas we had for a long time 3 or 4 tv channels, the music press, and what was on in the local Odeon. There are huge amounts of USA artists and content now over every medium, and as noted, ‘rock’ is dead. Even family conversation is reduced by the online social media. But it does mean my witticisms by Joe Orton and viv stanshall make me a true wit to youngsters in my local pub.

  24. ‘Pointless’ is the go-to place for all this. I’ve long since stopped watching it properly and simply skip straight to the pop music rounds.

    Anyway, I cut teenagers/those in their 20s (who I engage quite a lot through local football) a huge, almost 100%, amount of slack. It’s the 50-90 year-olds who haven’t got a clue who I rally against!

    My response is to become ‘more’ anoraky, even on here.
    Neil Young? Neil Schmung. Joni Mitchell? Joni Schmitchell. Sainted Dave? Sainted Schmave.

    If you haven’t got a passion for Rock ‘n’ Roll, the real stuff from the 50s, like the Beatles did as teenagers, yer nowhere baby. Pretty much everything else is superfluous.

  25. I filled in a YouGov poll this morning. They finish with a selection of names in various categories and you report whether you have a very negative to very positive opinion of them. As often in the pop musicians section I entered ‘never heard if’ against several whom I assume to be active in the C21. So far as I’m concerned this is how it should be for a 57 year old man, which isn’t to say it’s a worthwhile enthusiasm for others in the same demographic.

  26. I actually had the U2 conversation with my daughter (17) quite recently. She didn’t know who they were, and when prompted, came up with “oh yeah, that’s the guy from Inhaler’s dad”.

  27. Cross-thread issue, but when enthusing about the Jakko book, the present Mrs K only perked up when she realised he was the guitarist from Raw Sex and produced Stutter Rap.

  29. The whole point of being young is going out and discovering what you like for yourself. My dad was a big Glen Miller and Joe Loss fan. Safe to say I wasn’t although a fondness for Miller returned in my 30s.

    It’s comforting if those younger than us like what we like, but the only judgement I’d pass on those that don’t is that that’s exactly how it should be.

    • Exactly. This is why I was so shocked by the young lady’s ignorance. I’d have thought even the most civilian of households would have had a few U2 cds. Perhaps her parents only listened to Norwegian death metal or experimental jazz.

      • Don’t recall my late brother and his (also late) missus having any U2 records. My sister owns no records at all, though she did at one time have a few vinyl C&W albums from her first husband’s collection. But nothing to play them on.

  31. I was recently around a campfire with a bunch of 17 year olds and the talk turned to music. They all knew practically everything by Oasis, the Stone Roses and Radiohead. They’d gone surprisingly deep into the Cure. They were vaguely aware of Fleetwood Mac and even Dire Straits. Not one of them mentioned U2. It was like they never existed.

  32. The most music I hear without any control over it is on the rare occasions I go to an away match on the coach. It’s a factor which makes local matches infinitely more preferable.

    There are two categories – Players’ music; never heard any of it; shite – Supporters’ music (aged 35-70+) music; heard all of it a million times; always so conservative; shite.

    Mercifully, having lived through the dire, I can block all of it out, to the point where I can hardly hear anything. I learnt that skill on London buses.
    I don’t think U2 have been played once… age range: 15+

      • I’m imagining the conversation.

        SW: Well, I’m so old, the last time I was at the Lyceum was to see U2 in 1980. Can you imagine U2 playing the Lyceum?
        Waitress: Are you seeing double?
        SW: Sorry?
        Waitress: There’s only one of me and I’ve never been to the Lyceum. Or did you mean me and Willow on the other tables over there, cos I don’t think she’s ever been to the Lyceum either.
        SW: No, no, no, I meant the band. U2.
        Waitress: We’re not in a band.
        SW: No, no, U2 are the band.
        Waitress: Are we? Since when?

        Incidentally, in Italy U2 are only known by the Italian pronunciation of their name (sort of “oo doo-ay”).

  35. A couple of years (or so) ago, we went to an Elvis Costello gig at Edinburgh Playhouse. They have an admirable scheme whereby a waitress will bring a drink to your seat for you. Our young waitress said she had never heard of Elvis Costello and had been surprised by the turnout for what she had assumed was an Elvis Presley impersonator.

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