The music world may be becoming diversified with a vast array of acts and music styles, but there’s still space it seems for Spinal Tap-esque rock profanity on an unprecedented scale. Irish stadium rockers U2 are in the planning phases of building a skyscraper – yes, a skyscraper! – in the dock-lands of Dublin. Initial shock was soon replaced by bemused laughter when I read the proposed name, The U2 Tower (that’s a shame…) and i was further dumfounded to read that the main purpose of this venture will be 2-bedroom apartments for around £1.5m a pop. The worryingly astute business minds of this band however are not so Spinal Tap, with previous maneuvers like the sly movement of funds to Amsterdam for tax evasion purposes, following the end of a tax exemption on musicians’ royalties in Ireland. (It doesn’t take a global economist to realise that third world debt will cost the richer nations in the form of taxes, so when Bono decides to exempt the bands large fortune from taxation I’d like to think, should he get his way and these nations cancel the debts, U2 will soon reinstate their money). There has been an array of investments made by the band and a private equity fund investing more than £1billion in various profiting ventures, from computer games to magazine publications, and in 2005 the band made earnings of £141million – making them the worlds most profitable. Something tells me Bono is in it for more than the music, but maybe i just misinterpreted his want to make poverty history.

...amazingtunes