...it is easy to slate U2.

Apart from the odd single, they never really made an impression on me. I am not sure why. Therefore I listened to The Unforgettable Fire on Spotify recently and thought it was magnificent. Must have had cotton wool in my ears.

I think I started a thread on this once, called something like 'albums you love by bands you hate'. Achtung Baby was my personal example.

The reason I do like it, is that it's probably their least pompous and portentous effort. The exception is probably One. In fact One reminds me of one of my favourite Beavis & Butthead moments, where Beavis throws a sarcastic comment in the song's direction, to which Butthead replies along the lines of: "Shut up Beavis – this means something."

Ahhh, memories,

It was the first time I ever went in at midnight to get a record as soon as it came out, not that I was a big U2 fan at the time, I was more of a fan of being in a record shop at midnight. As a gift I got a 12 inch print of one of the cover images (three down, three across) and took the album home to listen to it. Having already heard Ian Dempsey debuting The Fly one morning going to school to a communal "what the hell was that?" in the car, I didn't like the album at all on first listen, except for One, but after a few weeks it sunk in. The album has that great start: The riff, the broken speaker noise, the melodious Edge guitar coming through...

What's more interesting was the subsequent ZooTV tour which at the time I thought was really amazing, man, which I feel really tried to do something with the form. Looking at YouTube clips 18(!) years later it was a pretty kick ass set-up for the pre-internet age. As it went on and grew from areans to stadium, it figured out its artiface and message and became a great show. I went to both night s in Dublin in 1993 by which point it had morphed into Zooropa and it was great but had come a little bit too aware of itself.

90s U2 is 10 times better than 80s U2. That 12 inch print I got remains framed in my old room in my folks' house.

POPFACT! It's the only U2 album since 1983 not to get to number one thanks to Jacko moving up the release date of Dangerous. Boo.

Have a clip:

in that I believe ‘The Joshua Tree’ to be the most overblown pile of pretentious nonsense ever to be inflicted on the CD buying public, ‘Topographic Oceans’ notwithstanding, surfing a wave of egotism as their career-long delusions of stadium sadly became a reality.

Having said that, 'Achtung Baby', and its accompanying B-sides are collectively a thing of wonder. Add to that a few choice tracks from 'Zooropa' and you have a perfect box set, or indeed back in the day mix-tape. Everything else they did is of course rubbish.

(Exits stage right, through door marked 'Troll')

I was a moderate U2 fan, loved the singles & a bit non-plussed by the albums, but AB blew me away. A brilliant album with barely a dud song. The only thing that always amazed me was why One was so lauded while You're So Cruel was so overlooked. I adored that track.

is the only U2 album I bought and I'm glad I did I even like One and think it is one of their best songs all the other albums seems pretentious and overblown as Andy Partridge once said Horrendously Magnificent Seven

my favourite U2 album by a country mile. Hoping this one will be getting this re-release treatment soon.

I listened again to the album recently, and it falls into that rare category of albums without a single weak track, along with recent listens The Bends and Siouxsie and the Banshees debut The Scream.

is my favourite U2 track, dunno why really.

I'm not a fan of them but this album is great, just sounds more natural - not so earnest and bombastic as their usual stuff is to my ears. Mysterious Ways is an excellent song too.

I'm enjoying AB's reappraisal here, particularly as the massive have more often than not been, ahem, immune to the charms of the Ballymun Beatles..However, nobody seems to be mentioning the fact that it is one of the best breakup albums of all time.

It's a really good album - great music and, crucially, interesting too: a lot of shade in there - taht'll be that breakup stuff. It must be up there in my top 10 albums.

I really enjoy it when a Achtung Baby! track randomizes its way onto the iPod. I also own Zooropa - it's like throwaway second attempt: fun, but not in the same league.

That's all I got on U2.

I think it's Berlin that does it. Why don't more bands record there?

Is it 19 year old this year? Christ.

Personally I thought it was clearly over influenced by the Madchester type dance rock and came at least a year after that ship had sailed.

As mentioned above though, some of the B sides and Zooropa were probably U2 at the most experimental and produced some really interesting stuff.

U2 haven't made a consistently good album since Boy to these ears.