Bono interviews George Clooney

Here’s the full 38 minute interview that Bono did with George Clooney for the Time 100/AC360 Special: The World’s Most Influential People. In between some frankly eye-roll-worthy bits of mutual [ comedy pause ] admiration, there’s good stuff about Clooney’s work in Darfur and Bono’s lasting influence on celebrity do-good-ery in the 00′s.

Time Magazine has also published a piece on Clooney written by Bono in which he states:

“George Clooney is a dangerous man. He needs to be watched… to be monitored… He’s a new kind of American radical… a post-’60s, post-obvious, post-postmodern radical, not the left-leaning Hollywood bleeding-heart do-gooder that many think. Oh, no…”

He had nipples on his batsuit, but.

New U2 video for next single ‘Magnificent’

Vote for this video by watching it at least 50% and clicking on thumbs up (mouseover the video)

The second single from No Line On The Horizon, Magnificent, will be released on May 4th. There will be a promo video for it, shot in Morocco. This is a live version, filmed at The Somerville Theatre in Boston.

You know, it would be nice if U2.com allowed embedding of their videos. This is the ’00′s, maaaan. Also, for the suits: embedding is a powerful branding tool. And we didn’t have to show this blurry rip.

The Edge receives honorary degree from Boston’s Berklee College

The Edge received an honorary doctor of music degree from Berklee College of Music at their 2007 Commencement in Boston on Saturday.

The Edge told Berklee’s graduating class:

“The thing I want to say is collaborate. Collaborating with talented people is not easy, but it’s the way to really shine – you shine brighter if you are working with really great people. The important thing in the end is not that you are proved right every time, the important thing is that the music is the best that it can be. I want to wish you all that you would find your own voice. But if you are so disposed that you would find collaborators to work with, that you would shine as you could never shine on your own.”

Berklee also awarded honorary degrees to Gloria and Emilio Estefan and the late Andrew Hill or their achievements in contemporary music, their enduring contributions to popular culture and for the influence their careers and music have had over Berklee’s student body. In previous years recipients included Duke Ellington, David Bowie, Count Basie, Billie Joel and Quincy Jones.

• Photo on Berklee.edu
• Photos at Yahoo

U2 still hot with Cloggies

U2′s The Joshua tree is number 1 in Dutch broadcaster Veronica’s Album Top 1000. The band retained last year’s number 1 spot way ahead of the numbers 2 and 3 in the chart, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts ClubBand. Chosen by the station’s listeners, the chart will be broadcast between May 7 and 18.

Fifteen of U2′s albums made it to the list, seven of which are in the top 100. The Unforgettable Fire ended up in 13th place, while All That You Can’t Leave Behind sits at 24. U2′s acclaimed master piece Achtung Baby slipped from last year’s 21st place to a sad 41. Poor misunderstood ‘Pop’ got stuck at 351. The lowest charting U2 album is ’18 singles’, a new entry at number 848.

Holey moley, U2 in ‘worst lyrics ever’ chart

U2′s ‘mole’ has made it into the BBC 6 worst lyrics chart after a public vote. Sitting uncomfortably at #10 in this dubious list, among clunkers by Snap, Black Sabbath and Toto, are the following lines from Elevation:

“I’ve got no self control, Been living like a mole now, Going down, excavation, High and high in the sky, You make me feel like I can fly, So high, Elevation”

I can’t say I object. What are your worst-U2-lyrics-ever picks?

Sanjaya vs Bono

Time magazine have listed 200 candidates for their ‘Most Influential People of the Year’ award and you, the slightly less influential masses, have been voting for your favourites. So far, so good. To our great distress, we see that Idol reject/teen sensation Sanjaya Malakar (at #6) is beating Bono (#9) by more than 100,000 votes. This simply won’t do. So if y’all could just go over to Bono’s profile, drag the slide all the way to the right until it says ’100′ and click submit, please? Looks like voting’s been stopped.

Rise, Sir Bono

Oh, he already has.

All kidding aside, we have it on good authority the former Bono Vox of O’Connell Street will be receiving his knighthood in a private ceremony in Dublin this morning.

• … and RTE are on it too.

• BBC coverage with pictures
• IHT: ‘He thought I was becoming a Jedi’
• U2.com: ‘A knighthood for Bono’

Honorary Knighthood for Bono

Bono will receive an honorary knighthood. The British Ambassador to Ireland, Mr David Reddaway, announced the news on Saturday.

He will receive the honour, Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order, for “his services to the music industry and for his humanitarian work.” The ceremony will take place in Dublin shortly after New Year’s Day. Bono will not be adding his name to the long list of people who have declined a British honour, like David Bowie, Francis Bacon and John Lennon, who eventually returned his MBE.

Knights and Dames Grand Cross and Knights and Dames Commander who are not not citizens of the United Kingdom or another country ruled by the Queen are not entitled to the prefix “Sir” or “Dame”, but may still use the post-nominal abbreviations: Paul Hewson, KBE.

A statement on U2.com reads:

We understand that Bono is ‘very flattered’ to be honoured, particularly if the honour – like its French counterpart – opens doors for his long standing campaigning work against extreme poverty in Africa.

The sainthood can’t be far off. Though maybe The Mrs has dibs.

• The Independent: Arise, Sir Bono!
• NME: U2 star to be knighted

U2 video receives MTV Video Awards nominations

The “Original of the Species” video has received two MTV Video Award nominations in the categories of Special Effects and Editing. The awards ceremony, which will air live on MTV, takes place on August 31 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Bono on Nobel Peace Prize shortlist

Bono is said to have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to relieve world poverty. He has a fair bit of competition: there are 191 nominees on the (secret) list, including his partner in profanity Bob Geldof, as well as Colin Powell, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Indian scholar Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Thousands of people have nomination rights: former recipients, members of national assemblies and congresses, university professors, international judges, and special advisors to the prize committee. This makes it rather ‘easy’ to get nominated. The winner is picked from the list by a five-member Norwegian awards committee.

The award will be presented on December 10.

• Scotsman: Sir Bob and Bono on Nobel shortlist
• Wikipedia: Nobel Peace Prize
• Speculation on last year’s nominees