Bono has never been one to shy away from his views and especially not when it comes to music. Fans of the band might expect a track for their hit 1987 album The Joshua Tree but the frontman opted for a wildcard.
In a 2018 interview with the Irish Post, the musician recalled his favourite song of the band’s repertoire, 1993’s Stay (Faraway, So Close!) from their eighth album Zooropa.
He described the early-90s anthem as “perhaps the greatest U2 song,” adding that it had the “most extraordinary contour of a melody. It’s really quite sophisticated. The lyric never misses”.
His bandmate, The Edge was also taking part in the interview and agreed stating that Stay (Faraway, So Close!) was “the stand-out track” on their 1993 album.
Bono has also talked openly about some of his favourite artists, distinguishing that his views on music aligned similarly to those of Icelandic singer songwriter and composer Björk.
In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, he said: “She’s really one of my absolute favourite singers.
“She used to say: ‘In Iceland, you know, we see musicians, artists, like carpenters or plumbers.’ And I was like, that’s exactly how I see it. I see songs as kind of solutions to problems. I can’t explain that, but it means I cannot – as a lot of artists do – look down on business.”
However, during the interview, he had made some comments that could have been deemed as misogynistic.
He said music had “gotten very girly” and remained insistent that music should carry a level of aggression.
He added: “There are some good things about that, but hip-hop is the only place for young male anger at the moment – and that’s not good.
“When I was 16, I had a lot of anger in me. You need to find a place for it and for guitars.”
Despite preferring to hear music from the angry male youth, and being a leading force in the post-punk era, U2 evolved from their more aggressive, punk-adjacent routes through the mid-1980s and switched it out in favour of anthemic stadium fillers.