Cheers! To be honest there's loads I missed off like Electric Co. , Sometimes You Can't, City of Blinding Lights... The last 3 albums are conspicuous by their absence, not because they're awful just not as top notch as most of the others. Invisible though is a great song, I can't believe it got relegated to a secret track on the deluxe version of SOI. It's the best thing they've done for about 15 years...
I think either tonight or tomorrow on U2’s SiriusXM station the Edge will have a show discussing “Pop”. Woody Harrelson is going to be his guest. I guess Woody is a big “Pop” fan from the promo I’ve heard. Will we hear anything interesting from The Edge? I mean they completely glossed over it in the reissue/deluxe aspect.
I got a chance to listen to both segments on the Pop discussion that Edge and Woody Harrelson conducted. It was a good discussion. I just found it interesting that they devoted close to 2 hours of time on it (they played each track, too). I think they embrace it a bit more than we are made to believe, but it was basically skipped in the reissue campaign so it must be a sore spot, too (I’m thinking since it wasn’t received as well as they thought it would).
Nope, not that I know. It was originally aired on U2’s SiriusXM channel. However, it’s on demand on the app so i listened to it while I was working outside.
Yeah, it's too bad that it's not possible to listen to Sirius XM outside US/Canada. There are quite a few interesting shows on the U2 X Radio channel.
Sad to see that the @U2 fansite is calling it a day. After 25 Years, It's Time for @U2 to Say Goodbye
Man. I've been frequenting that site for years, though I probably have only been active over the last 10 or so, and I've stopped paying any attention to it over the past couple of years other than listening to an occasional podcast. It was a cool community, and I used to enjoy the forum there, but it eventually got overrun by all sorts of negativity. When Matt left it a year ago, that seemed to indicate something was in the air. It's hard not to see the ending of that site as indicative of the eventual ending of the band itself.
Any hope for a new record in the near quarantined future? I know with U2 not to expect anything anytime soon.. but..
Great evaluation... I would maybe bump down Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree a bit... (yeah, I know), but that's about it. Achtung Baby is a 10/10, their best album, while Zooropa is very close to it. I also love the youthful energy of Boy and War.
It's not related to any end of the band at all. Life got in the way of running the site, and sometimes things have to slide in those circumstances.
This is all very personal for a band that I've been listening to since about 11 years old so my experiences colour my "judgment". Though music is about emotion and not rankings, here's a ranking influenced by my subjectivity. Boy - 10/10, one of my favorite all-time albums. Listened to it in my walkman for about a year straight as a 12-year old, and still love it. It plays like one contiguous song to me...a concept album that isn't one. Love the backing vocals on Stories for Boys. October - 9/10, an excellent and underrated album that was hastily made when the group wasn't sure they'd be a going concern. It's not quite as fully realized as any other U2 album, featuring "songlets" that feel like they could've been developed into something awesome...and yet I really enjoy the raw unfinished approach. War 9/10, a far more polished album than October with some excellent top-level hit singles. The first U2 album of many where there is a notable difference between "singles" and "album tracks". The album tracks are still very good though. Unforgettable Fire 9/10, an album with completely different sound but similar structure to War: a few obvious singles and some album tracks. This remains IMHO their worst represented album live in most cases, since they almost never play anything other than Pride (a boring track to me) or Bad (an awesome track). A Sort of Homecoming deserves more respect - it's one of their best songs. The "Unforgettable Fire Mini Album" is excellent too...some cool songs on there. Joshua Tree 10/10, an all-time great album that like Boy lived in my walkman for a long time. I still remember the look of the see-through cassette that I picked up on a trip to visit family. Another album that has clear singles and album tracks, but like Boy it seems to play to me as one contiguous song, a concept album sonically if not lyrically. Rattle & Hum 7/10, Good album with good songs, but U2 are at their worst when they try to be something they're not resulting in them sounding MOR and full of themselves at the same time. This was the first time that I saw that. Mainly, though, the hybrid live/studio album is a stupid idea, even if it was trying to follow along with the movie. The live bits remove flow from the album, and the album bits remove flow from the concert. Some great studio songs wasted on a poorly sequenced album. Achtung Baby 9/10, Probably their most balanced and uniform album since October, but with some top-end hit singles. I do not like the song One though, ballads are not U2's strong suit. This sounded nothing like old U2 at the time...I remember the complaints about the Zoo TV tour being that it was too heavy on Achtung tracks. People were put off by the "New U2". I liked all of it so it was no bother to me. There seemed to be 2 types of U2 fans: those who preferred Achtung, and those who preferred everything before. Funny how perspective changes things, Achtung is hardly divisive these days. Zooropa 10/10, The Last Great U2 album. When this one came out, I had gotten a summer job and saved to buy a discman in order to (among other things) buy Zooropa on CD rather than cassette when it was released. I remember release day, arriving at the record shop with my discman, buying the CD and listening for the first time on the bus ride home. A nice feeling of accomplishment combined with what sounded like a mix of classic U2 and Achtung stuff. The song Zooropa sounds like something off Unforgettable Fire; Lemon sounds like nothing else; Daddy's Gonna Pay is a more singer/songwriter version of the grandiose Achtung style. Just a great, underrated album. I even like the Johnny Cash song now. Passengers 6/10, Kind of a nothing album for me. Pavarotti is annoying. But I like the way they were thinking outside the box. Pop 7/10, If Zooropa is the last great U2 album, Pop is the last one where they tried to move forward. It's too long, has some unfinished songs (strangely given how long they worked on it), and seems a bit forced. There are some excellent songs as always - if they had just chosen the 10 best and left the others by the wayside, it could've been as good as one of their great albums. Still love Mofo, Discotheque and even like Miami. This is also probably the only U2 album where I like some of the slower songs like Velvet Dress, which are interesting and not just attempts at singles. ATYCLB 5/10, The first U2 album that sounded like they had given up trying to move forward and were just trying to write singles that sounded like "U2". This is a band that is bad when they're MOR, and they're MOR for at least half this album. Some good singles, a great tour, one nearly great song whose lyric didn't match the song (New York), but not a very good album. I do like Beautiful Day though - it's like a bland attempt to recreate the energy of I Will Follow - nowhere near as good, but good. HTDAAB 3/10, A rehashing of ATYCLB that wasn't as good. Even the tour was a rehash of the ATYCLB tour. Given the identical theatrics to the previous tour, it was Arcade Fire as openers that stole the show. Felt like the beginning of the end for U2, there was just nothing new in what I was hearing (can anyone truthfully tell the difference between Vertigo and Elevation?). No Line on the Horizon 7/10, a much better album than the last 2. Just the opening track is better than the last 2 albums, though the poorly selected Get On Your Boots single (Elevation v. 3.0) put people off the album. The tour was creative and brought back some long-lost songs, and is the only one I've been to that wasn't too heavily weighted to the new album. Unfortunately people are missing out on a good classic rock album that was released by U2 without anyone noticing. Note for the Hoffman-ites: The LP sounds far, far better than the excessively compressed CD. Songs of Innocence 3/10, A completely unnatural sounding album. Maybe there's auto-tune on Bono's voice or something, but the whole album sounds like it was made while their heads were squeezed in a vice. The tour was once again creative, though like most of their tours, the new album was far too prominent in the setlist. This wasn't a problem for strong albums like Achtung, it's a serious problem for SOI. As in, go for a beer and a piss now, they're gonna play stuff from the new album for half an hour! MOR U2 at its worst. Songs of Experience 2/10, See Songs of Innocence. A terrible album with one excellent song (Red Flag Day). If this is all the band has left, maybe it's time to reduce the release frequency and go to 1 album every 10 years so they have the time to get better ideas.
FWIW my ratings: Boy 7 October 5 War 7 TUF 8 Joshua 9 Achtung 10 Zooropa 7 Pop 6 All that... 7 How to Dismantle 5 No Line 5 SOI 6 SOE 5 I agree about how uninspired the Vertigo tour was. Pretty much the same layout but with a bead curtain instead of screens...
I feel like doing my own personal ratings now: Boy: 9/10 October 7/10 War 10/10 Unforgettable Fire 8/10 Joshua 10/10 Rattle 8/10 Achtung 10/10 Zooropa 10/10 Passengers 8/10 Pop 4/10 Behind 6/10 Bomb 6/10 Horizon 7/10 Songs of I 3/10 ..not heard the rest.
Indoors, the Vertigo staging was very similar the Elevation stage, with the circular runway on the floor. Outdoors, the Vertigo staging was two individual arms with a stage at either end, so different. The two felt quite similar to me though.
My personal ratings: Boy 6 (Lots of energy but you can tell they have no idea what they are doing.) October 6 (A bit of an improvement over Boy but still pretty lacking.) War 9 (Massive improvement. The Edge really started getting good by this stage. The way the guitars were recorded is very evocative, especially the acoustic stuff with the violins. I don’t think they ever made an album like this again that was as good.) Unforgettable Fire 9 (Eno enters... end of story.) Joshua 8 (I can see why it’s so popular but I don’t dig it as much as most. Shockingly overplayed and I’m sick of all the songs, except for the live version of Bullet from the Pop tour.) Rattle and Hum 5 (Should have left the live songs off altogether and did something else with the new ones as they were some of their best, Heartland is bloody amazing.) Achtung 10 (Magic.) Zooropa 8 (Underrated but it does feel like a mixed bag. The live versions were great.) Pop 10 (My personal favourite. It’s so different for them and I can listen to it constantly. It’s imperfections make it interesting and they were making cool b-sides and remixes too. Holy Joe is such a weird but cool song) All that... 3 (The production on this is just shocking. Bono’s raspy voice is just way too in your face, or ears. I was so disappointed when I first heard it. I still can’t believe Elevation is an actual song they released. There are a few others nearly as bad on there as well.) How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb 6 (I find I like most songs and the general vibe on this for some reason. Mainly because of The Edge, Bono had had it by this stage.) No Line 1 (Their most boring album, but it’s not as embarrassing as the one after it). SOI 0 (This is a laughably bad album. I absolutely hate every song on this POS album. They shoulda left it in the studio, or one of their multi-million dollar mansions). SOE 6 (I’m probably in the minority but I feel like they did a lot of soul searching for this album and made something pretty honest. I could be wrong but that’s just my impression. I really like Landlady, it reminds of when they didn’t give a **** about being the biggest rock band in the world or whatever and were making weird little songs on some obscure soundtrack like MDH. For me, The Ground Beneath Her Feet was probably the last truly great song they wrote).
If we're ranking the albums, I'm happy to throw my view in : Boy - this is a solid 7/10 - the songwriting is maturing, but carries itself with enthusiasm and energy. I'd rank this around 10th October - 4/10 - incomplete songwriting, rushed lyrics, the arrangements aren't strong, and their worst LP so far. 15th War - solid 7/10 - very competent songwriting, but nothing exceptional apart from the singles. 11th The Unforgettable Fire - 9/10 - strong, heavy on texture and sound, and creates an energy that is unique - 6th place The Joshua Tree - 8/10 - very well loved album, but has a real clunker in "Trip Through Your Wires", inconsistent sequencing, and is massively overrated. It's really good but not perfect. 9 Rattle & Hum - studio album is 8/10, but released version with live stuff thrown into random positions is unlistenable so 5/10 - 14 Achtung Baby - 9/10 - great album, great sequence, perfect for the times - 3th place Zooropa - 10/10 - full on weird and brave - 1st Passengers - 8/10 - effectively a B-sides album between Pop/Zooropa and full on bonkers - I love it, but its hard work 8 Pop - 9/10 - weird and unusual with the band fully committing to the strange - 7 ATYCLB - 7/10 - solid, great songwriting, but the band have shaved off all the weird edges and personality, it's so bland. It's a very competent beige. 13 Dismantle - 7/10 - better, stronger songwriting with higher highs and lower lows than ATYCLB 12 No Line - 9/10 - I love it, it's half weird and strange and half very safe. 2 SOI - 9/10 - quite bold and inventive, strong songwriting, and sees the band really stepping into the 'growing old' role in a way that many bands can't - 4th SOE - 9/10 - really difficult to differentiate both of this albums, but it's a little stronger than SOI but also has some clunkers - 5th Yeah, I prefer Passengers to The Joshua Tree (Genuinely!)
I'm shocked by these rankings after following your posts in these threads. Based on this you rank the last 3 >> first 3. I suspect very few U2 fans would concur.
I suspect very few fans would agree with me ; and for me at least, my memories of the period are all wrapped up with the tours and live shows which I've always found very very rewarding. I think I've said before, the albums often feel like really expensive demos.
