10 Bands That Have Musical Alter Egos

For most of the alternative scene, the concept of being a rock star was looked at as practically taboo. In the post Nirvana world, there was no chance that anyone was going to break through to the mainstream looking like a big brash rock star, let alone one that had made a name for themselves. U2 seemed like they were destined for the bargain bins, but Bono gave his career a second life by leaning into the rock star lifestyle.

Across Achtung Baby, Bono’s run as the Fly is the kind of thing that felt too shallow to even take seriously, playing up the rock star behavior behind those gigantic sunglasses and getting more and more jaded about how he feels being a rock star. This is practically the rulebook of how not to be a proper rock star, and Bono got away with it without even trying.

Since this was so over the top, most people understood that Bono was practically doing a parody of what the shallow rock star had become, cashing in on the postmodern irony that was about to become the new normal amongst the youth. It got even scarier when you actually saw them live, turning the concept of a larger than life stage show to Orwellian levels, as Bono started to look like something ripped straight out of a dystopian novel. The rock world was definitely changing, and all other rock stars had to bow down to the aura of the Fly.