Bono turned 66 on May 10, a birthday that lands with the kind of résumé few rock singers can match. Born Paul David Hewson in Dublin, Ireland, on May 10, 1960, he is best known as the lead singer and primary lyricist for U2, the band that helped define his five-decade career.

The milestone arrives after a long run of honors that have tracked both his voice and his writing. Bono and U2 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, the same year he was named one of Time's Persons of the Year. In January 2025, President Joe Biden awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Glamour named him Man of the Year in 2016, and U2 has won 22 Grammy Awards with him at the center.

That recognition has not come only from awards bodies. Billboard placed Bono No. 9 on its 2023 list of The 50 Greatest Rock Lead Singers of All Time, while Rolling Stone has included him on its Greatest Singers of All Time lists. Consequence of Sound ranked him No. 32 out of 100, and Uproxx put him at No. 16 on its 2022 list of The Best Lead Singers, Ranked. Rolling Stone also ranked Bono and The Edge at No. 35 on its 2015 list of The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.

The birthday is less a stop along the way than another marker in a career that has stayed in public view for decades. Bono has been recognized as much for the reach of his three-octave vocal range as for the songs he wrote with U2, and the latest round of honors shows how widely that work has been judged across music and beyond it. What happens next is not a mystery: the record is already written, and the numbers keep pointing to the same conclusion.