Originally posted by AllBecauseOfU2:Agree 100%.
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Definitely agree with you on the idea that there's no real objective way to judge "the best" musician. But though he can't effectively be judged against any other singer, I think it's still fair to judge him against himself. If we're looking at Bono and only Bono, the range and depth he had from '84-'93 - maybe with the exception of the occasional Kermit the Frog vocals on the Joshua Tree Tour - doesn't come close to what it is in 2009. I don't think that's subjective. I know there's different factors that come in obviously, age and smoking and whatnot, but I think he's hit his peak, left it, and will never get it back, unfortunately.
Not to say of course that he's currently completely unlistenable, but for the first time, for me at least, his vocals are actually beginning to be a distraction from the listening experience as a whole. I listened to a few of the Letterman performances earlier today and it was distracting to hear him struggle to hit the notes. Not like I'm going to hand in my tour tickets or anything, but it'll certainly be interesting to see how this tour will pan out.
I definitely think that if you're gonna judge Bono's voice, you should judge it against himself - his highest points were during TUF in my opinion, but I think Bono's voice was at its unequivocal best the early 90s. For all it's gone through, and the strain of 30 years' wailing, I think his voice is still pretty good these days - it's better than it was in any time after the early 90s (although I loved his voice for the most part during Elevation - there was something strangely incredible that seemed to take his voice somewhere else when it was lacking in some respects; every night he was pouring himself out like no other time, and that makes up a lot for me). I like the Kermit the Frog description re. the JT era lol - it always bugged me how he was trying to almost grunge his voice up during that time, because for me it was unnecessary. Anyway, like I said, for me he really hit upon his best voice during Achtung because the overall range was fantastic and there was a lot of depth to his singing. He can still hit those notes nowadays but the clarity is lacking and at times it lacks oopmh, but the tone of his voice has changed dramatically since then so it's to be expected.
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