69. Mary J. Blige & U2 – One (2006)

Like every culture that offers a new way to deal with reality, rock started out as a mixture of high morality and immorality. Its rebelliousness was driven by insights that were more enlightened and progressive of those of the dominant culture, but also led to a collapse of values that bred bad deeds. In time, its internal discourse managed to resolve these problems, and establish itself on the basis of its original intuitions, as a style that brings enlightenment and morality to the world. This is one of the reasons why it is so boring today, but there's no need to mope – that's the nature of progress. The rockers had to adjust and find their place in the new order of things, and U2 took it upon themselves to be rock's ambassadors, those who take all the values and insights that rock brought to the world and spread them further, using their power as rock stars to make our world better. It is a little self-righteous and annoying, and I used not to like it, but in time I came to the realization that someone had to do it, and they are just the guys for the job. And now, when the pop world is ruled by other styles that are still torn with moral dilemmas, the can serve as guides to them. 'One', their ballad of human fraternity, was one of the strong anthems of the nineties, and when the need arose to update it for the young generation, there was none fitter than Mary J. Blige to do it. The un-disappointing summit between the biggest rock band in the world and the biggest r&b diva was born on stage, when U2 invited Blige to perform the song with them, and it felt so good that they decided to go into the studio and record it. The outcome, born out of the duet between the soulful voices of Mary and Bono, is better to my ears even than the classic original.