{"id":149575,"date":"2020-01-13T05:45:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T10:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=149575"},"modified":"2025-01-01T15:11:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T20:11:32","slug":"music-mondy-bono-beckons-by-brendan-omalley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=149575","title":{"rendered":"Music Monday: Bono Beckons, by Brendan O’Malley"},"content":{"rendered":"

My talented brother Brendan O’Malley is an amazing writer and actor. He’s wonderful in the recent You & Me<\/i>, directed by Alexander Baack. (I interviewed Baack about the film here<\/a>.) His most recent gig was story editor\/writer on the hit series Survivor’s Remorse<\/i>. Brendan hasn’t blogged in years, but the “content” (dreaded word) is so good I asked if I could import some of it to my blog. I just wrapped up posting his 50 Best Albums<\/a>. But I figured I’d keep “Music Monday” going with more of the stuff Bren wrote about music.<\/p>\n

His writing is part music-critique, part memoir, part cultural snapshot. A reminder that many of these pieces were written a decade ago, in some cases more. Melody is now my brother’s wife (and like a sister to me), and they have two sons, whom I love dearly. And Bren’s son Cashel is now a college student. WTF.<\/p>\n

I have always loved Bren’s writing, so I am happy to share it with you!<\/em><\/p>\n

Bono Beckons<\/strong><\/big><\/p>\n

I am an early adapter when it comes to music. I bought U2’s Unforgettable Fire<\/em> for my best friend when we were in 8th grade. No one had even heard of them yet and he seemed a little bummed about my gift. Two weeks later he had flipped out about them. By the time Joshua Tree<\/em> exploded, I’d already moved on. <\/p>\n

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Now, I am not knocking U2. I own several of their albums: Achtung, Baby<\/em>, Joshua Tree<\/em>, the underrated Pop<\/em>, and How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb<\/em>. They have gone beyond mere critical judgement into cultural landmark status. But do I sit down and CHOOSE to listen to them? No. If they come up on iTunes random I might let the song play out, but more often than not I’ll skip ’em.<\/p>\n

So here’s my U2 timeline. I bought Unforgettable<\/em> Fire because of “Pride”. They didn’t sound like anything else on the radio and that appealed to me. <\/p>\n

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