U2's frontman is both loved and despised

One singer, one soapbox

Few figures in pop culture are more divisive than Bono.

The U2 frontman is revered, of course. His band has sold millions of albums in the past 25 years and played sold-out crowds on every date so far on this year's tour.

Yet Bono is reviled by a fair number of people, too - even the most beloved rock star takes plenty of knocks from the inevitable ranks of detractors. But Bono is more than just a rock star. He has put himself forward as a humanitarian, a statesman even, according to the headline of a September cover story in The New York Times Magazine. He's the most visible component of a wildly successful multinational business conglomerate (U2, that is), and he has been known to come off as, well, a bit self-righteous from time to time. (See: Rattle and Hum, the band's 1988 documentary.)

All of those things are fodder for people who think rock stars ought to keep quiet when they're not on stage singing, or who can't abide the outsized personalities that mega-stars seem to develop when they have access to world leaders, wear a perpetual layer of scruff and never appear without their annoying tinted sunglasses.

Bono gives the impression of not worrying about any of that, and it makes him more effective in his various roles.

As for the omnipresent sunglasses, Bono told Rolling Stonehe's "very sensitive to light. If somebody takes my photograph, I will see the flash for the rest of the day. My right eye swells up. I've a blockage there, so that my eyes go red a lot. So it's part vanity, it's part privacy and part sensitivity."

Star power

There's no question Bono is among the biggest stars to rise from the 1980s. Aside from Madonna, no one else even comes close. Like Madge, Bono and his mates -the Edge on guitar, Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen Jr. on drums - worked ceaselessly to build their career, and U2 has established a strong record of consistent quality over the years.

Bono recently told Rolling Stone that U2's mission as a band is to "Not be crap." He continued: "Going to a very dark place inside yourself - it's expensive. A lot of bands understandably get to a level of comfort and don't want to go there. U2's still ready to go there, and we feel there's a lot to prove."

Aside from the occasional misfire, like 1997's Pop, U2 continues to prove itself on albums full of songs that must earn their way into the band's live set. Shows on the current tour have included four tunes from last year's How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which stands alongside classics from The Joshua Tree and War.

Noble causes

Bono has used his fame to raise awareness of issues including Third World debt forgiveness and AIDS in Africa, which has earned him a fair bit of scorn. Not for his choice of issues, one presumes, but for the hectoring tone his advocacy sometimes takes.

Yet even Jesse Helms, the super-conservative retired Republican senator from North Carolina, came away from a 2000 meeting with Bono pledging to help the singer and his cause after Bono appealed to him with scripture and called AIDS the leprosy of the modern age.

"He's a religious man, so I told him that 2,103 verses of Scripture pertain to the poor, and Jesus speaks of judgment only once, and it's not about being gay or sexual morality but about poverty," Bono told the Guardian newspaper in England in 2002. The observation reduced Helms to tears during their meeting, Bono said. "He was really moved."

Despite his obvious abilities as a political coalition-builder, Bono has come under fire for hypocrisy from Elizabeth Pendleton, a little-known Celtic musician possibly gunning for free publicity. In an e-mail sent to reporters last month, Pendleton harangued Bono and U2 for exploiting an Irish tax loophole, for allowing their products to be sold in Wal-Mart after Amnesty International criticized the company, and for investing in a private-equity company that bought a pair of gaming corporations instead of giving his money to charity. (next page »)