First heard New Years Day in early-ish 83.
After Pride in 1984, finally went out and got the albums (income from a paper-round so they we're all second hand)
Have got each subsequent release on the day (or in the week) of its first release.
Favourite at the moment: Rattle & Hum
Favourite of all albums: How To Dismantle an Atom Bomb (Vertigo is a superb Rock song)

And yes, Bono is a bit of s twat, Edge produces all the sounds through effects, Adam looks like he wants to be somewhere else and Larry never says anything, but together ...
You can ignore the twatiness and the effects, because the sound is great

I'm afraid. Over-rated.

to wish you luck with this post, Wheaty.
It could get interesting.
Personally, I've liked U2's music to varying degrees over their career, I came in at 'October' [I may be the only person who actually likes that album] I think that 'The Unforgettable Fire' & 'The Joshua Tree' are great albums, they made a wonderful return to form with 'Actung Baby' and also 'All That You Can't Leave Behind' but have tailed off since then.
Separating the art from the artist is subject that deserves it's own post, and when it comes to Bono I feel is something that many people here have a problem with.
[To answer your question - yes I think they are a great band]

myself - i like some of their stuff despite it being by them if that makes sense - usually their less bombastic stuff. I guess I could put together a decent 12 track compilation of their songs.
ChaosandMorphine nailed it for me in his last para - I can happily listen to some Gary Glitter singles and Phil Spector productions but Bono and his messianic complex .... yuk. What that says about me I'd rather not think.

but they never really hit the spot for me

although I think Achtung Baby is their best album.

I'm trying to think what U2 have innovated...

Four blokes on a stage?
Guitar/bass/drums/vocal lineup?
Theatrical stage environments?
Effects and echo-laden guitar?
Brian Eno productions?
Dragging a girl out of the audience?
Silly hats and unnecessary sunglasses?
Suddenly discovering the blues?
Irritating frontman?

All done before 'The 2' came along. Some good songs, natch, but great innovators? I don't think so.

I really liked them. I Will Follow and Gloria were both great and I bought the War album after a particularly fruitful cleaning job in a hospital ward in Slough.

Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree are both great but my personal interest sort of waned from there. Don't hate them, just don't love them any more.

Bono's heart might be in the right place but his logic is flawed. There are far worse bands and I still think U2 are getting worse slower than most rock bands manage it (that includes you, Rolling Stones).

their last album do after all that saturation media coverage?

currently at the U2 gig in Spain. It's winner after winner by all accounts. Amazing*. Even the Michael Jackson covers are working....

http://twitter.com/neil_mccormick

* © Edith Bowman

Posted to NYC. Get tickets for U2 at Madison Square Gardens. Group of Irish girls next to us. They launch into Angel of Harlem - The place goes crazy, the girls go crazy, we all go crazy.

As a result always a soft spot for Rattle & Hum and to a degree Acthung Baby and Zooropa.I think they've made some good records from the outset right up to now and they clearly do occupy a place in the heart of many around the world but somehow - for me - not quite the real deal. They're good at the pop/rock anthemic stuff but ultimately no more "great" than Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

I must confess the Bono factor doesn't help. Neither is his voice a thing of beauty. Unlike those girls.

I quietly loved Boy, UF and TJT but kept schtum about it due to the idiotic fervour of many of those I grew up around in Ireland. But, as a fully flared-up Madchester twat, I saw them four times on Zoo TV in NYC and Philadelphia in 1991 (tagged along to remain on a four month drink binge while working in the States) and thought they were a revelation. It may have worn thin quickly, but it was tremendously exciting.
However, they do seem just to be remaking the same vacously optimistic album to be played to Spanish Tesol students in enormo stadia now.

I loved Boy and purchased it on one of those 1+1 cassettes that Island used to produce with one side left blank for your bootlegging pleasure. A Day Without Me was a particular favourite.

Went our separate ways when The Joshua Tree appeared as it all seemed... well, remote. Simple Minds had already crossed the line into bombast and TJT was the tipping point for me. The Unforgettable Fire still evokes very warm feelings for me, especially the memory of several people trying to light damp cardboard boxes in an attempt to stave off the evening chill at the Longest Day gig at Milton Keynes Bowl.

I think Zoo TV did genuinely innovate and change the 'stadium' experience - for better or worse. Multi-media, internet driven with flying Trabants - you might not like it, but it was entirely new.

I normally find myself nodding at your posts Uncle, but deary deary me.

Completely overrated. I can't understand why they get so much attention and Simple Minds get hammered. I dislike both and they are identical twins.

Bono's non band antics are always going to divide people, but these days I'm as likely to listen to Bon Jovi as I am U2.

I have tried, Achtung Bay was ok, but to these ears it's largely formulaic rubbish.

I bought TJT on vinyl and I don't dislike it but the music is too public for me to feel that I can personally connect with it. At times, I have felt that they over emote and hence I can feel myself being manipulated by a pushy salesman. But, I have thought that Achtung Baby was one of the great albums of the 90's and a remarkable effort at reinvention and that One is just a brilliant song in the same league as Hey Jude (somehow the songs seem connected in some weird way). I also like Zooropa though Bono sounds like he has a cold and his David Bowie impressions on Lemon always distract me. Pop was a bit dull but haven't listened to it for years so I might find that there is something there I missed. All That... I enjoyed ( I liked its range of material) but "How to Dismantle" has never found me - I just can't ever remember a tune off it apart from Vertigo which just sounded too made to order.

I think the band are just too big for too long for me to have ever felt that they were one of 'my bands'. I know that is somehow ridiculous but there you have it. I don't really understand the level of backlash hostility that they receive and I admire (from a healthy distance) their determination and willingness to embrace things that are uncool.

I would happily go and see them and probably have a great time.

They have never been particularly stylish though, and their lead singer is probably responsible for that. Stipe, Jarvis, Moz, Jagger, Bowie, McCulloch all inherently have "it" but Bono just doesn't. Any star quality he has got has been achieved through familiarity and years of on-the-job training. It is to his credit that he has never really chanced his arm at a solo career, so he must be relatively grounded.

But would I go to see the band without Bono? No. He needs to be there. I know that can be seen to contradict what I have written above, but so what? Nothing wrong with a bit of flaky thinking and inconsistent positions.

Yep. A good band, a great guitarist, good live shows and Bono, for all he's an egotistical arse, is a true frontman.

I respect U2. But I can't like 'em.

And I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For should have been called I Still Haven't Found That For Which I Have Been Looking. I can't like a band who use ungrammatical songtitles.

some good records, but with the last 2 I think they've steered into stones territory and produced awful records purely as a byproduct for a tour. The difference is the stones don't spend 4 years and millions of pounds with the most expensive producers to produce the turkey to take on tour, they just bash out some half-arsed licks in a couple of weeks and get it out.
I also think Bono makes it increasingly difficult, nearly impossible to like the band these days. The recent Sunday times cover piece was the most cringeworthy pr stunt I have ever read with no obvious point. Its also noticeable that he never actually talks about music, U2's or anyone elses - does he actually like music!? his appearance with killers and coldplay at shepherds bush post- brits for 'all things that i;ve done' suggests he had never heard the song in his life.
notice a few mentions of simple minds in this post - the best of the minds is far more innovative and I would say has stood the test of time better than anything by U2.

They're okay.

I also loved Boy when it came out, and as well as those Island 1+1 cassettes would like to throw int the 80s format memories the Fire single....which came with a limited edition free second single with other tracks! Fond memories of similar items from The Jam, Jesus and Mary Chain etc. All seems very quaint now. I bracket them with Simple Minds in making the journey pretty quickly from quirky post-punk to straightforward stadium rock. So respect, yes for trying something new on Achtung Baby, but no real love. Echo and the Bunnymen were always closer to my heart, had all the songs, and it's a bit of a shame we're not having this discussion about them.

Sorry

I have never heard anything by them that distinguishes them from the rest. First cam aware of them at Live Aid and found them meandering and dull that day and thought why does that idiot not stay on the stage.

Each album is usually cited as their best in years so I usually give it a go and still think there best song is The Wanderer sang by.....Johnny Cash

A lot better bands deserved the commercial success that they have had

I always thought the best thing they ever did was Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me. Perhaps they just bashed it out quickly, possibly whilst on tour, because the lyrics include the kind of sarky witticsims Bono was regularly trotting out in interviews at the time ("we don't know what we're doing. So it must be art"), and it's a fairly obvious mashup of Kashmir and Children of the Revolution. But it sounds exciting and dramatic, and it briefly made Batman Forever look like it was going to be awesome (it wasn't).

But then again I think their best album is Zooropa, so what do I know?

Don't think so!

I reckon U2 could be the biggest selling band who have had approximately zero positive influence on others.
I mean, The edge's guitar work (esp in the 80's) was heavily influenced by David Gilmour, but no-one tries to sound like him!

Interesting that people once thought that Echo and the Bunnymen would be the globe-straddling band; I certainly preferred them. I saw U2 in concert once, and it became obvious that they're not many people's fave group, but they are the one group you and your girlfriend can just about agree on (she paid for the tickets, by the way).

The Joshua Tree was a magnificent album!

I agree with Lee's comment about U2 wanting it more and being prepared to work very hard to make it happen.

They also did two things at the beginning which helped make them successful and keep going. These are probably lessons for any young bands starting otu but ones they never seem to follow.

1. Get a manager who absolutely believes in you and is prepared to work as hard for you as you are, and not just take a percentage whilst spending us time on other acts/jobs.

2. Divide all royalties equally between the members, irrespective of who writes the lyrics/music. How many bands split after their initial success when half of them realise how much the others are earning? Then it becomes a competition to get your song on the album/released as the single, not because it is the best but because it gets you more money. When bands split becuase of 'musical differences' it often means 'money differences'.

mainstream. But U2 are one of the few big acts that remain
close to my heart. The reason for me is that they can genuinely write great songs. 'Who's gonna ride your wild horses' has one of the most heartbreaking lyrics around. Each album from 'Unforgetable Fire' onwards has at least one absolute corker. I sat on my mate John's shoulders at Wembley
stadium in 1987 and bellowed along with 'Where the streets have no name.' Can't hear that song without a tear coming to my eye... I f-ing love them!

but they haven't made a great album lately

it's the guitar and the drums
it's bono too obviously, his desire to reach the person standing at the back can be bewitching/annoying/mesmerising,

they were very spontaneous pre 92, anything could happen at the gig,(where's he gone now?), not spontaneous anymore in this click track stadium set-list-texted-around-the-world-before-it's-been-performed world of ours

The Unforgettable Fire is a psychedelic classic, a much more experimental, hypnotic noise than, say, Ocean Rain. (: - O

around about TJT, Rattle and Hum, Achtung Baby, Zooropa.

But they're well past their creative peak. Listening to the last two albums is a depressing experience becasue it shows how much they have been treading the same water now for the best part of a decade. And Bonio's disappeared up his own arse, of course.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, after all how many bands have sustained a creative rush for a career of this length? A decade or so is usually the best you can hope for. The Beatles managed about 7 years, Floyd about 8 (Meddle to The Wall), Zeppelin about 10 or 11. Radiohead probably don't have many more years at the top of their game left. Anything more I think becomes hard to sustain, partly because of intra-band issues, partly out of the motivation for and pressure of producing planet-shagging unit shifters.

What other long time 'heritage' act, with the exception Springsteen, is still bothering to try and present us with new music?
It may not be at the level of their previous efforts, but at least the 2 are still attempting to write something new, which in itself is laudable.
I know the last statement is open to utter derision from the massive, but at least the last album isn't Bridges To Babylon with added Dylan cover filler.

OF COURSE U2 are a good band - some of the 'too school for school' adolescent nonsense going on here reminds me of me when I was 15 and trying not to like disco because "it wasn't cool" (see thread about 15 year old girls I think) ... In the same way that MJ has been hugely influential (albeit, as per David Hepworth's observation, not necessarily in a good way), U2 are patently "a good band" ... you might not like that fact and live in a middle aged world where Echo & The Bunnymen enjoyed world shattering success (or indeed Ned's Atomic Dustbin headlined Glastonbury for three stirring years in the late 1990s) but the fact remains ... and if you want to pick a bunch of poppy-rock or rocky-pop songs from the last decade, the likes of Vertigo and Beautiful Day would be right up there ... afterthoughts in terms of the U2 catalogue

are they innovative? well they made the epithet 'greatest band in the world' a workable job title for quite some time ... surpassing the likes of REM ... which is an innovation in itself (when the Stones could lay claim to that in the late '60s and early '70s it always seemed like bombast rather than an empirical appraisal) ... anyway, ach, i'm off to bed

U2 are a good, maybe even a great (depending upon how you define "great") band based upon their career and the flashes of brilliance contained within but many find them impossible to love.

Came to this realisation during the recent "can Bono sing" blog. U2 have made some great songs and I really like Achtung Baby but mostly I prefer other people singing them, be it Johnny Cash, Elbow or Pavarotti. I draw the line though at the duet with Mary J Blige)