An Open Letter to Bongo, The Sister Sledge, and those other two guys in U2

I'm a big U2 fan. When they were at Abbey Road Studios a few weeks ago, I waited three nights so I could meet them and get their autographs. Yes, the song "With or Without You" is shit, but they were one of the best bands of the 80s and 90s.

So, as someone who loves U2, I'd like to ask them here and now: please stop.

They have plenty of other career opportunities- Larry and Adam could do another version of the Mission: Impossible theme song for the next M:I movie (as they did for the first), Edge can keep pursuing his Music Rising foundation in New Orleans (and I think he'd be wise to go the way of Ocasek and Jerry Harrison and start producing other bands), and Bono can keep on being Jesus. If he ran for President of the World, I think he'd do OK.

U2's putting out (yet another) best-of disc soon with songs spanning their entire career plus two of the songs they recorded at Abbey Road, which is good cos the last good new album they put out was 1993's "Zooropa." Why not have a last hurrah a la the Rolling Stones' "Forty Licks" tour? I fear that if they don't, they'll become the next Stones (if they haven't already), a near-parody cover band of themselves. They can carry on their self-fashioned Most Important Band of All Time Ever image, which is becoming as easy to take as sandpaper rubbed on the genitals, or go out as they should: the band that wrote "New Year's Day," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "Mysterious Ways," and a bunch of other really good songs. Consider it, fellas; let it go, and so to fade away.