U2

While Bono agrees with George Michael that pop music is dominated by "bubblegum bands" and "pretty young things", Mick Jagger might not be the answer either.

"People are sick to the teeth of processed and hyped pop bands," Bono told England's Sun. "It's crap.

"They want something real again," U2's front man continued. "The state of music in Britain and Ireland hasn't been very healthy recently."

As Bob Dylan can attest, the times, they are a-changin'.

According to Reuters, British music pulled in 32 percent of U.S. record sales in 1986. That share has dwindled down to an anemic 0.2 percent.

Additionally, for the first time since Prodigy reached the summit in 1997, a British band, Radiohead, has reached number one on U.S. album charts with their latest release, Kid A.

George Michael recently slammed the British music industry and its preoccupation with `pretty young things'' as the cause of Britain's downfall and the subsequent poor quality of British music.

``The corporate guys have spent the past 15 years doing their best to relieve artists of their art and now they have pretty much succeeded,'' Michael wrote in London's Sunday Times.

The former Wham member recently purchased (for a mere $2.1 million) the Steinway piano used by John Lennon while he wrote Imagine.

Back in Lennon's day, Michael noted, ''People expressed a naive but genuine belief that they could change the world with music and conviction. These people wrote their own songs, sang them with a variety of untrained voices, drank, took drugs, drowned, marched, looked ridiculous, and made amazing, beautiful music.''

Yet, at the same time, another player in that era, Mick Jagger, has received a pink slip of sorts from U2.

A recording of Stuck in a Moment featuring the backing vocals of Mick Jagger and Elizabeth, his 16-year-old daughter, ultimately got nixed from U2's upcoming album, All That You Can't Leave Behind.

U2's guitarist, The Edge, explained to Reuters that the song "took a different direction" and U2 ultimately decided on a different mix for the final track.

However, in acknowledgement of their efforts, Father and Daughter Jagger will receive a thank you in the album's liner notes and The Edge said he would send a copy of the original Jaggers-backed mix to Mick.

"They came in, we played them some stuff," The Edge said. "It was nice to hear it through their ears. So we just wanted to say thanks to them for their generosity, really, just coming in and giving us their opinion about how they thought it was going."

All That You Can't Leave Behind has been receiving extremely positive reviews and will be released in Europe on October 30, with a North American release one day later.

The band's tour in support of the new album is rumored to kick off in Miami on March 23, 2001.