So, in the era Love in the Time of Coronavirus ® I thought I'd do a little exercise on U2. While not my favorite band in the world, I do like a lot of their catalog and thought it would be fun to do an album by album thread for their releases. I will include Three the EP as it has unreleased material on it, but, beyond that, I intend to cover only their studio, live albums, and some singles. We can probably look at some of the remixes from various albums, but I am not interested in any of the "Subscriber-Exclusive albums" or anything like that (that's too many damn albums). But, yeah, we'll get started on Three the EP shortly. I hope everybody is totally jazzed for this. *For those of you that have participated in my album by album threads before, you know how they work. I post about the album and then we look at it in depth. The only thing I ask is please do jump ahead of me on albums (but, of course, you're free to reference anything else pertaining to another album). Any gripes, omissions, or any other comments can be left in the suggestion box which is right over there -->
I hear ya. With all this working from home now I've started to go through U2's discography, in descending chronological order. I have all those subscriber-exclusive albums, plus the deluxe editions, etc. Limiting myself to one disc per day. Tomorrow it'll be How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb for me and then I'll still have some 33 days to go.
Oh man, another thread I will be all-in on! Between the Rush thread, the new Porcupine Tree thread, and now this one, this forum will have plenty of stuff to keep me busy during this nasty pandemic.
I'm totally down for this. Arguably my favorite band ever and one that, despite their ups and down, I always return to. Count me in!
I'll certainly try and participate. Great band and the first three albums were huge in my world. Then the Under a Blood Red Sky home VHS, then the Aus tour. Great great band.
I started being fan early on when a friend saw them the first time they came to the U.S. and told me how great the show was. He saw them play in a hotel in San Jose California- obviously WAY before the arena days. I loved the first one, Boy, when it came out, but I don't know about Three so I'll look forward to hearing about it.
I started when I first read about the forthcoming album in Rolling Stone and the comment that they were the most Importent band island had signed since King crimson. I bought the first album, drove down to L.A. to see them during their show there (and they played I Will follow as their encore song because they didn’t have enough material that folks would know).
Well now, this is a bit embarrassing. I just said I didn't know about Three, went to Discogs to see what it looks like and thought, "Hey, that looks familiar." I went to my 7" vinyl collection and found this: which originally came with this (I still have the hanging plastic holder too): Very cool set, great stuff. I guess I need to spin these soon- it's been a while!
Finally got to see them for the first time with my wife in 2018 in Boston. Great show. Mix could have been better but nitpicking...
I remember this one in retail. Wish I had sprung for it then, definitely a cool piece. Oh yeah, I'm in for this thread!
I first heard of U2 when Rolling Stone reviewed "Boy." I might have heard "I Will Follow" somewhere, I'm not sure. I vaguely remember seeing "October," when it came out but it made absolutely no impression on me. My gateway to U2 was definitely seeing the "New Year's Day" video when it came out on MTV. That video (and song) made a huge impression. I remember walking from campus down to a "Peaches Records and Tapes" (still have a couple of their album crates) one spring Saturday afternoon and bought "War" (along with Roxy Music's "Avalon."). As far as "War" is concerned, it was definitely love at first listen. I was a believer from that point on. At the end of every semester I'd sell my textbooks and buy records. I think I picked up "Boy" at the end of that year and "October' some time later on. But yeah, definitely looking forward to keeping up with this thread.
Hope you strapped on your seatbelt as we’ll have an album’s worth of single/EP sides to discuss before we even get to Boy...