I must take issue with one point: "Yes he had daft haircuts in the 80's but didn't we all?"

In the 80's, I had a perm ON TOP (straight and longer at the back), blue hair for a couple of months and a period of shaving one side of my head.

So, I don't think you can tar ALL of us with the 'bad hair' brush.

I enjoyed their Glasto set. Bono is ripe for a ribbing due to his ludicrous cartoonish rock star persona, but other than that they're ok.

It is clear that their appeal is becoming more selective, but their last 3 albums have been among their very best, certainly in the top 5 in their career.

If Bonio could just shut the hell up (from around 1987 onwards), they'd have the same sort of critical acceptance as the infinitely more whiny Radiohead currently have.

... to get to see U2 at Scott Stadium, Charlottesville on holiday in the good ol' U.S. Of A. in 2009. I'd lost interest in them after 'Pop'(track 4 to be precise) and was not overly excited about seeing them live - but as it was a past friend's Birthday, I decided I'd go along.

They were fantastic, and as you say, know how to put on a show - and that is what they are all about.

As for my favourite track - I'd go for Ultraviolet (Light My Way).

the tax thing annoys me, but if I was in the shoes of any member of the band, I can't honestly say I'd be any different.

They've written some fine songs and entertained millions...no more than Queen (tin hat ahoy!) what's not to, at least, admire? Look up the definition of pop-star and that's more or less what you're meant to do!

I do rate Achtung Baby though (the album that even the U2-haters like).

I think it's a good and interesting record. I can take the rest or leave it, but they're a live spectacle and no mistake. I bear them no ill will.

Fantastic at Glastonbury this year, when I finally got to see them live after all these years. Pop is probably my favourite too, particularly Please and Mofo. I don't understand why they get so much stick when the likes of Kasabian and Muse are out there polluting the airways!

In the latest edition of The Word, Mr Echo of the Bunnymen mentions Bono in connection with the singer of Glasvegas – and as usual he gets a bashing. This has been a constant with McCulloch and – to be fair he hasn’t exactly jumped on the bandwagon (in an 80’s interview he stated :
“Who buys U2 records anyway? It's just music for plumbers and bricklayers. Bono, what a slob. You'd think with all that climbing about he does, he'd look real fit and that. But he's real fat, y'know. Reminds me of a soddin' mountain goat. He needs a colostomy bag for his mouth”.)
However, it seems that EVERY time I read an interview with Ian McCulloch he brings up the name of U2’s lead singer. He seems obsessed with him. To his credit Bono never seems to have responded to these playground taunts.

Were far to cool for school to break mega.

Mac was so lost in his NME-fantasies and hip sneering he lost out to U2 (who, let us recall, went mega after their gig at Red Rocks in 1983). At the time he must have felt wonderfully superior to a band all those unhip Americans liked. Wonder if he feels so superior now? Personally, i prefer Echo& to U2, but there is nothing like a bit of karmic justice for all Mac's affectations over the years.

GAH! I just typed out a long spiel about how much I like U2's "middle period" records - Unforgettable Fire to Zooropa), and how mystefying I find the Bono bashing, and lost it when I accidentally went back to previous page. Can't be bothered to do it again, but here's a list of my favourite songs:

One
All I Want Is You
Van Diemen's Land
The Wanderer
One Tree Hill
Pride (his singing on this is IMMENSE!)
New Year's Day
Love Is Blindness (Cassandra Wilson's version shows what a great song it is)
Lemon
The Fly

All That You Can't Leave Behind is a great album.

as they were my special band when I was a young lass. They're understandably derided & mocked for the tax stuff & Bono being, well, Bono but I looooooved their early albums & still love to listen to them when the mood is right.

As I was stood on the train platform yesterday, feeling the autumnal breeze on my face, I looked up to see the first leaves turning golden red & the piano from 'October'tinkled into my mind.
Gorgeous, underrated (& admittedly patchy) album.

But reading this thread led me to Spotify and some selected tracks that I'm enjoying very much indeed.

but only to say that I'm staying well away from commenting on this in much the same way I stay well away from the U section in all good and indeed crap record emporiums.

Poor old Ultravox

I can often be found wading in on their behalf on here so i'm not going to add anymore....

My U2 gems for what it's worth are....

Wire
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Sweetest Thing
The Unforgettable Fire
Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
Walk To The Water
New Years Day
Bullet The Blue Sky
A Day Without Me
Acrobat

I can often be found wading in on their behalf on here so i'm not going to add anymore....

My U2 gems for what it's worth are....

Wire
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Sweetest Thing
The Unforgettable Fire
Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
Walk To The Water
New Years Day
Bullet The Blue Sky
A Day Without Me
Acrobat

I think my admiration for the music of Bono and the boys is fairly well documented on this here site. Achtung Baby / Zooropa got me through an otherwise appalling year, and I am forever just a little bit in their debt. Like R.E.M. they will always be 'mine' no matter what or who they do / say / release / re-release / marry / sleep with / meet with.

Am I buggin' you?

They're like The Beatles but without the songs, the wit or a fifth member

Using U2 as a convenient shorthand to describe a dreadful band is interesting and I think it owes a lit to the Internet. In the old days, when all we could see was the U2 were getting bigger and bigger and selling more and more records, I thought it was just me that thought they were awful - I even saw then live a couple of times which just confirmed their dreadfulness to me. Jump forward 15-20 years to the huge rise in Internet forum use and I find that I'm not alone and that its OK to dislike them. It's a lot like being an atheist, you think you're on your own because nobody really talks about it (I don't think there's much to say but it has, at times felt like I was swimming against the tide). No such problems with Coldplay though. The Internet was there to keep me company right from the start, I disliked them even before I had the chance to form any prejudices about the people involved (I'm not sure why the fact that the singer has a pretty wife should put me off anyway).

so i bought "Under A Blood Red Sky" and for a while thought yep, these are ok even though I was a bigger E&TB fan. I had no real opinion of them after that although I could always be relied upon to put "The Unforgettable Fire" on the pub jukebox, I still like the song now. But I cannot, will not, ever get past the caricature that Bono has become. It accentuates every bad lyric like "Vertigo", every self serving proclamation, every pompous, gut wrenching, embarrassing dad times a billion action and word of the most ridiculous man I can think of. U2 may well be a great band, I may well be missing out, I may even grow to love The Edge and his perma-hat but as long as Bono is breathing our oxygen I will only ever shudder and reach for the off button when they appear anywhere, except for this song

U2 "The Unforgettable Fire"

after "A Celebration" - yes, I was the kind of irritating teenage snob who "went off" bands the moment they had a sniff of success. But they're ok; not briliant, not terrible. I like the first two albums a lot, and the aforementioned single.

As for Bono, he can sing (unlike yer man from Coldplay). And does, with a lot of power and commitment. Can't fault him for that. And I find that kind of person rather endearing - over-enthusiastic, prone to grand gestures, occasionally falling on their faces, etc.

Better to be a bit puppyish than "too cool for school". At 16 I thought Mac MacCulloch was the coolest guy imaginable. Now, he just seems like an unlikeable, arrogant tosser.

Absolutely understand where the dislike comes from, but seriously, how many bands can pull off that sort of Glastonbury performance with that tight, and consistent, a set list? I always admired them for still showing up on BBC Saturday morning kids shows to promote their latest album, even when successful beyond belief. You do the show, you do the business.

And since you asked so nicely, the top ten tunes:
I Will Follow - my favourite debut record, side one, track one ever
Out of Control (ideally from the U2 Go Home Slane show - what a highlight)
Lemon - either the original, or admirably remixed
Spanish Eyes
Stay/Walk On/One - stadium anthem, take your pick
Bad, from Wide Awake in America
11 O'Clock Tick Tock
The Unforgettable Fire
The Wanderer
Beautiful Day - preferably in the rain at Landsdowne Road, just after beating Australia!

Musically, they're pretty damn good. Boy has to be one of the greatest debut albums ever.

It's Bono and his tax dodging (sorry...avoiding) ways whiilst constantly berating people who are a bloody sight poorer than him about 3rd work debt that I can't stand. Yes, I know he's right but in this case I'd love to shoot the messenger.

I became a huge fan after Pop came out in the late 1990s, and devoured everything I could get my hands on from there. The last two-and-a-half records though have left me a bit cold. (I say 2.5 because No Line On The Horizon, in spite of the critical derision from which it suffers, actually contains some of the best songs they've produced since the 90s - see 'Moment of Surrender' for evidence.) I've also seen them live five or six times, including at Slane in 2001 when they were just incredible. I'll even defend Bono's obvious by arguing that he is at least opening his mouth, something too many in his position don't do.

But I think this is another band at the crossroads. Bono said last week that they were as close to irrelevance as they've ever been (in their own eyes - stop sniggering at the back). And on the last tour they just looked a bit old for all the prancing about. With their good friends REM gone, there must be some conversation about what next? The answer probably is to get back to the risk taking that made eveything up to 1997 so good, and away from the contrived effort to be the biggest band in the world.

Anyway, here's my Top 10, for whatever it's worth:
Until the End of the World
The Unforgettable Fire
Stuck in a Moment that you Can't Get Out Of
Lemon
Bad
With or Without You
New Year's Day
Miss Sarajevo
Please
Moment of Surrender

...but I still really like U2. Bono is a prat - but he's at least always interesting.

you look at the opening track from each of their 12 studio albums (this includes Rattle & Hum), then you end up with a 12 track compilation that goes something like this.

U2 Openers

Side one 1980-1988
01 I Will Follow
02 Gloria
03 Sunday Bloody Sunday
04 A Sort Of Homecoming
05 Where The Streets Have No Name
06 Helter Skelter

Side two 1991-2009
07 Zoo Station
08 Zooropa
09 Discotheque
10 Beautiful Day
11 Vertigo
12 No Line On The Horizon

Worshipped them in my student days and listened to them a lot up until my late 20s. "Unforgettable Fire" and "Joshua Tree" are two of the best albums to come out of that dead old decade, the 1980s. Liked "Achtung Baby" because it was riskier, heavier than their previous stuff and captured the early 90s zeitgeist. After that they lost me as far as their records were concerned but were still a great live band. Saw them twice, once on the Pop Mart tour and again on the last one. I don't really mind Bono. They're not the only band with a lead vocalist who's a bit up his own arse (the history of rock'n roll is littered with them). The Edge, Adam and Larry Mullen are three of the coolest fuckers in the business and by Christ they can play.

I hate and love them at the same time. Bono is undoubtedly a steaming prepuce, and the Edge's moniker and selection of hats is unforgivable. But I find Unforgettable/Josh/'Tung to be genuinely magical records. And Adam & Larry have to go into the pantheon of Long Suffering But Dependable Rhythm Sections along with Charlie and Bill or Suede's Mat and Simon.

Even as I say, "Well stop clicking your fecking fingers!" I'm remembering that fantastic drum sound on Bullet the Blue Sky.

They've made schizophrenics of the best of us.

The video for Sweetest Thing always makes me smile.

they released seven albums in 11 years: Boy, October, War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, Rattle And Hum, and Achtung Baby

not a bad hit rate really

Everyone I know likes at least one U2 sing a lot. And yet you'll never meet anyone who says they're their favourite band. Persistently just fine. That's the measure of pop

I think even to say I have no opinion on U2, one way or the other, at all, is to exaggerate their impact on my life.