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Book: The Rosary and the Microphone

Chapter: U2 and the Blinding Lights of the City

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.31263

Blurb:

This chapter explores how U2’s music and stage presentation use the image of the contemporary city as a site for exploring the utopian and dystopian aspects of contemporary life. The ways that U2 approach the urban experience also point to the band’s complicity, as U2 expresses both a powerful utopian idea (social change and human progress) and dystopian problem (being complicit with market forces; being drenched in irony or postmodern flux).

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