Entertainment For Lively Minds
U2's Best LP?
Posted by kidpresentable on 11 February 2009 - 9:01pm.
John Aizlewood's review of No Line On The Horizon in the new issue is a good read. I was particularly grabbed by the idea that everyone has a different favourite U2 album (if you like that sort of thing). So, what's the consensus here?
Incidentaly, I have to disagree with his dismissal of Pop, which for me is their best and their last great album. The two that followed were described as something of a return to their roots in some corners, but seemed a little like they were running out of ideas to me. There are some good songs there, but the records just didn't seem quite as interesting.
Here's Please from Pop, probably my favourite U2 song.
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Joshua, of course
Has to be The Joshua Tree. That trio of albums, Joshua, Rattle and Hum, and Achtung Baby was their peak,(and yes, i'm not joking about Rattle and Hum.) After Achtung I can't bare to listen to them and the new single is awful. Please stop Bono.
Under A Blood Red Sky is a great live album/DVD and the debut, Boy and War aren't too bad either. I avoid October and everything after 1992.
Not sure I could stomach a whole album
but some of Achtung Baby was quite good.
I concur
I liked Achtung Baby at the time, and still own it, but haven't listened to it for donkey's years, and to be honest, I don't know if I ever will again.
At least Rattle And Hum...
...has some laughs
The Unforgettable Fire
is my favourite; the opening track A Sort Of Homecoming is one of the most uplifting and evocative tracks they ever made. And it has Bad, which is probably the other most evocative track of theirs.
But it does have Pride. Which I hate for all the usual reasons people hate U2.
I really like the first side of Achtung Baby as well.
My favourite U2 track though is a b-side from the Achtung Baby era called Salome. Love it to bits, mostly because it has a glam rock chorus that reminds me of Adam And The Ants.
Pride...
I don't dislike Pride, but it suffers from being overplayed and so does stick out a bit. I'm with you on Bad.
I've got Salome somewhere, I'll have to dig it out...
Achtung Baby
is the only one I can still listen to the whole way through anymore.
Zooropa is an underrated "grower" though not to everybody's taste I'll admit. It does runout with The Wanderer with Johnny Cash on vocals which is one I've loved from day one.
Unforgettable Fire
This is one of the albums of the eighties and one of my favourite albums by anyone. "A Sort of Homecoming" has already got a mention above, I would also point you to "Promenade", "Wire", "Bad" and "Elvis Presley & America" as well as the two singles.
War
I was a very impressionable age and this made a big impression.
The Unforgettable Fire
shades it for me.
And I love October. Not a popular choice I know, but it has so many memories for me.
For me, U2 are almost unlistenable when they try sincerety
...which is why I can just about stand Achtung Baby, Zooropa and, yes, Pop. At least on those albums they were trying to break away from the stifling pomposity a bit (although Please, as linked to above, isn't the best example of that).
Like kidpresentable, I've found the "comeback" albums dull. Joyless and unremarkable - but undoubtedly more lucrative, so good luck to them I guess.
I don't have a favourite U2 album
I file U2 alongside Oasis in the 'all sound the same' category.
Achtung Baby
is the one for me. Anything before is just too righteous, and after doesn't match them giddy heights.
The 2 greatest hits compilations
(not the "singles" one produced later) hit the spot for me, but I will probably show my vapidity by my suggestion that, as far as real LPs go, I actually thoroughly enjoy "All that you can't leave behind". "In a little while" is a fabulous and moving song, all the more so having read it was in part a response to the death of Joey Ramone*, or so wiki has just told me.Otherwise can't stand 'em but that is mainly the Bonio image effect.
*And the live U2 version of da brudders "Don't Come Close" actually does come across as a genuine tribute, IMHO.
All that you can't leave behind
First three tracks (all singles I think) are great. The rest is awful.
Ahh, c'mon.....
So whats wrong with over-egged melodrama? When it works. Cut to 2.40 and the impassioned "slow down my beating heart". Ignore the sentimental video, but maybe you have to have a daughter to get this one? Dunno, but I include this in many a playlist of songs that get to me, and put dust in my eye.
I Invite You All To Go And Jump
The '2 are great.
Achtung Baby
Achtung Baby is their best album but in all honesty I think How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is the album I listen to the most. I like it, and I'm only 50% ashamed.
For the first time last night I saw the music video for the new U2 single. It's nothing great but it's okay. I've only heard it once so it might be a grower. Nothing much really happens in it though. And they should have kept the original title "Sexy Boots".
why
why would you be ashamed of liking a record? Apart from the Bono factor, how come U2 get so many people on here so angry?
psst
beardless, innit!
Doesn't Edge's goatie / Atomic Bomb
Doesn't The Edge's goatie count? He's been on the cover, too!
I do think there's a few good songs on ..Atomic Bomb, A Man And A Woman is a particular highlight. It's stuff like Crumbs For Your Table and All Because Of You that spoil it for me, they feel a bit underwritten, if that makes any sense. I also just found the return to having a delay peddle over practically everything was a bit of a step back, after the way their sound had developed and evolved through the proceeding years. It's not a bad album though, I had it on the other day. I suppose for me it just comes down to what I would want from a new U2 abum.
Boy
Purely for the incendiary versions of I Will Follow and Out of Control.
Should have stopped after War.
Achtung Baby
It's their only end-to-end top notcher. All the others are patchy, eg you only need side one of Joshua Tree and about 3 or 4 songs off every other album.
You Only Need Side One Of The Joshua Tree?
Madness
U2
I still have a general view that U2's descent into old age rock mediocrity is one of the slowest around. They are not as good as they used to be, but they're getting worse pretty slowly.
But they're starting...
...from a pretty low level
The case for U2 :
They've made 3 or 4 good tracks per album in the post-mullet years, an average hit rate of about one good song a year - not bad; Bono - annoying though he can undoubtedly be - walks it like he talks it, paying millions to charity (I know it's written off against tax, yadda, yadda, yadda) & running round the world publicising his various causes; they put the hours in on the live shows, trying to make them different and worth the money; Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own is one of the best songs of the Noughties - an anthem for all those turning into their dads ('It's you when I look in the mirror/And it's you when I don't pick up the phone'). Best album? Zooropa - as odd a record as a supergroup has ever made.