Often cited as ‘the best band in the world’, U2 have continued to stake their claim to that title since the release of their fifth studio album,
The Joshua Tree, in 1987. Since then, they have taken their mass audience on a thrill ride of differing styles and approaches, often bringing experimentalism, strong political views and a desire for pacifism right into the heart of popular music.
For a band to be together for over 30 years in mainstream music with an unchanged line-up and the same manager is unheard of, but then challenging convention is the essence of U2’s spirit. Committed to their music and each other, they have always followed their heart with their approach to making records and playing live.
U2 began in Dublin at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in September 1976 when 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Jr posted an advert for musicians to form a band on his school notice board. Singer Paul Hewson, guitarist Dave Evans, his older brother Dik, bassist Adam Clayton and two further friends of Mullen's, Ivan McCormick and Peter Martin, all applied. Originally called The Larry Mullen Band, their name changed to Feedback. McCormick and Martin left and the five-piece rehearsed after school, playing punk-influenced covers. By the following year they were known as The Hype. After Dik Evans left in early 1978, the remaining foursome selected the name 'U2' from suggestions made by Clayton's friend and Radiators member Steve Averill. Around this time, too, Hewson became 'Bono' and Evans became 'The Edge'. After entering a talent contest in Limerick, they won studio time to record a demo that would be heard by CBS in Ireland. The demo was passed from influential Irish magazine Hot Press to Paul McGuinness, who had worked as a film technician and was managing a band called Spud. Agreeing to look after U2, the band released their first record, an EP entitled Three, which gave them profile in their home country.
U2 crossed over to London in December of 1979, playing the pubs and clubs. As unbilled third support to Talking Heads at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, their blast of noise was greeted with general bemusement. A second single on CBS Ireland, 'Another Day', in early 1980, led to them being signed by Chris Blackwell's fabled Island Records, where they found a supportive and nurturing label, ready to take chances with them. One of their first live reviews appeared in NME, who spotted, even at this early stage, that "U2 are sharp and subtle and cynical, slyly seductive in an uncompromising way like the Pretenders or the Au Pairs." Their live work paid off on their debut album, Boy, released in October 1980, which was raw and exciting with intelligent lyrics. Their guitar-driven power and air of mystery seemed at once to fill the void left by Joy Division.
There was no such bemusement when they supported Talking Heads again at Hammersmith Odeon the following December. This time as billed support, the concert was part of U2's European and American tour. Even in these early days, there was something deeply charismatic about Bono. As a front man, although young, he seemed to distil elements of all the great showmen that had gone before.
Although their second album, October, from 1981, failed to maintain their initial momentum (yet still containing U2 classics such as 'Gloria' and 'Fire'), their third LP, War, released in March 1983, was a bold, bright and heartfelt statement, full of strident anthems and unmistakably commercial singles. The group's first UK No. 1 album, it opened with 'Sunday Bloody Sunday,' with its call for unity and peace in a divided Northern Ireland. Thirty years later in 2013, it was voted by the public as one of the Top 20 Songs that Changed the World in a BBC poll.
It was the resulting tour and televised concert at Red Rocks amphitheatre, Colorado, in June 1983, that propelled the band forward globally, making them a huge hit in America. As Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis states, when Red Rocks was shown in 1983, it "achieved what it set out to do - acquaint fans with the potent force of U2 on stage. It did prove to be a moment that changed rock and roll, and indeed, now every band follows the trail U2 blazed." The accompanying live album of the tour, Under A Blood Sky, underlined the success they had enjoyed with War.
The decision to enlist the production team of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois in 1984 can be seen as a turning point in the group's career. At one fell swoop, U2 gained a new credibility and experimental edge commensurate with their growing ability. The sessions for their next work, The Unforgettable Fire, were initially held at Slane Castle in Dublin, and its atmosphere courses through the album. 'Pride (In The Name Of Love)', a song written in memory of Martin Luther King, gave them one of their biggest hits to that point.
It was at Live Aid in July 1985 that the group truly came into their own. With one bound, playing two not-very-well-known-outside-the-hardcore album tracks, U2 cemented their position as global superstars. Starting off with 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', the band's command of the stage, honed for the best part of a decade, burst forth. "We're an Irish band," Bono said with his irresistible mixture of confidence and understatement.
Their 12-minute-plus version of The Unforgettable Fire album track, 'Bad', was the longest track played at Live Aid. It's a difficult song and certainly not what would conventionally be deemed a pop classic. The intensity of a tiptoeing Bono flanked by The Edge, Clayton and Mullen was unlike anything that had been seen before that day. And the sheer audacity of Bono to play with the format and go outside of the home and stadium audience's comfort zone was remarkable. Bono incorporated other artists' lyrics into 'Bad' ('Satellite Of Love', 'Ruby Tuesday', 'Sympathy For The Devil' and 'Walk On The Wild Side') and then left the stage altogether - without a microphone -to dance with the audience. By destroying the fourth wall and flirting with, though amazingly, never tumbling into self-indulgence and parody, he gave people something to talk about as opposed to simply filling 20 minutes with the band's biggest hits to that point. As Bono grabbed a towel as he left the stage, like a prize-fighter, all he could do was mop his brow to recover from this unmitigated success. The partially live mini-album, Wide Awake In America, followed this triumph.
And as the world was now fully engaged, U2 returned with an album in March 1987 that sealed their reputation. The Joshua Tree explored American mythology, mixing it with heartfelt love songs and lyrics that conflated the political and the personal. It contained two US No. 1 singles, 'With Or Without You' and 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'. The album sold over 25 million copies worldwide and won the coveted Album of the Year award at the Grammys in 1988. Their embracing of America was at its most explicit on Rattle And Hum, the soundtrack to their 1988 Phil Joanou-directed documentary film. Partially recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis, commonly seen as the birthplace of rock and roll, and cutting sides with venerated blues legend B B King, it was an enormous love letter to the country.
If The Joshua Tree made their reputation, Achtung Baby, recorded in Berlin and released in late 1991, was possibly the greatest example of a band thumbing their nose at themselves, changing direction, yet keeping all the hallmarks that had made them famous. This was no career suicide; in many eyes it was the making of them, including such career standards as 'One' and 'Even Better Than The Real Thing'.
Taking their experimentation one step further, Zooropa was an almost rushed album made in the white heat of their multi-media globetrotting phenomenon, the Zoo TV tour. The album reflected their then-current mores, dance music, David Bowie and electronica. In late 1995, they put out Original Soundtracks 1 under the name Passengers, which took their avant-garde dalliances to their outer limits.
For the first time in over a decade, their Pop album, released in 1997, didn't feel that groundbreaking or revolutionary. If any other group had released an album of such super-competent, hook-rich pop, it would have been lauded. The Pop Mart tour saw U2 going one better than the Zoo TV tour, emerging at one point during the performance out of a mirrorball shaped like a lemon. It was a long way from Bono, in 1981, telling the NME, "I distrust anything that's obvious, like someone saying, 'Let's be original'. So they hang bananas out of their ears or start using a xylophone. There are a million bands being original and playing concerts in caves. I think that's great, but change can come from something far more subtle." The Pop Mart tour was anything but subtle, but it demonstrated, apart from their showmanship and strong social conscience, that they still had the ability to laugh whole-heartedly at themselves. In response to huge public demand, U2 actually looked back for once with their first ever hits collection in 1998, The Best Of 1980-1990.
They quipped that they were "re-applying for the job of the best band in the world" with the release of their 2000 album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. The lead single, 'Beautiful Day' was quintessential U2. Simple and direct, all effects and conceits kept to a minimum. It reconnected them with their audience in an instant.
After another greatest hits collection, The Best Of 1990-2000, in 2002, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, released in November 2004, continued their renaissance. 'Vertigo' embraced every dirty o'clock reference from The Rolling Stones to the Clash to the Hives. Snarling, exciting and vital, it was a perfect return to form. After their enormous, worldwide Vertigo tour, they took more time to look back; their first cross-career hits collection, U2 18 Singles, was released in December 2006, and The Joshua Tree had an enormous 20th Anniversary celebration the following year. The unreleased live concert, Live From Paris – recorded on July 4 1987 was included in the box set.
Recorded initially in sessions in Fez, Morocco, No Line On The Horizon was an ambitious melting pot of all the group's references to date. Working again with Eno and Lanois, it blasted out with the nod and wink of its lead single, 'Get On Your Boots', but the real meat of the matter was in the incredible 'Unknown Caller', which became the centrepiece of the tour to support the album. Although No Line On The Horizon went to No. 1 in a remarkable 30 countries, its success was somewhat overshadowed by the phenomenal accompanying concerts. The U2 360° tour ran from 2009 to 2011, grossing in the region of £473 million, which, according to some sources, was the highest grossing concert tour in history.
U2 are one of the greatest enigmas right there at the heart of pop music. Inspiring millions with their music, showmanship and strong social conscience, there are few bands who remain so exhilarating, vital and relevant as U2.
ESSENTIAL ALBUMS
Using the textured sonics of The Unforgettable Fire as a basis, U2 expanded those innovations by scaling back the songs to a personal setting and adding a grittier attack for its follow-up, The Joshua Tree. It's a move that returns them to the sweeping, anthemic rock of War, but if War was an exploding political bomb, The Joshua Tree is a journey through its aftermath, trying to find sense and hope in the desperation. That means that even the anthems -- the epic opener "Where the Streets Have No Name," the yearning "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- have seeds of doubt within their soaring choruses, and those fears take root throughout the album, whether it's in the mournful sliding acoustic guitars of "Running to Stand Still," the surging "One Tree Hill," or the hypnotic elegy "Mothers of the Disappeared." So it might seem a little ironic that U2 became superstars on the back of such a dark record, but their focus has never been clearer, nor has their music been catchier, than on The Joshua Tree. Unexpectedly, U2 have also tempered their textural post-punk with American influences. Not only are Bono's lyrics obsessed with America, but country and blues influences are heard throughout the record, and instead of using these as roots, they're used as ways to add texture to the music. With the uniformly excellent songs -- only the clumsy, heavy rock and portentous lyrics of "Bullet the Blue Sky" fall flat -- the result is a powerful, uncompromising record that became a hit due to its vision and its melody. Never before have U2's big messages sounded so direct and personal.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Reinventions rarely come as thorough and effective as Achtung Baby, an album that completely changed U2's sound and style. The crashing, unrecognizable distorted guitars that open "Zoo Station" are a clear signal that U2 have traded their Americana pretensions for postmodern, contemporary European music. Drawing equally from Bowie's electronic, avant-garde explorations of the late '70s and the neo-psychedelic sounds of the thriving rave and Madchester club scenes of early-'90s England, Achtung Baby sounds vibrant and endlessly inventive. Unlike their inspirations, U2 rarely experiment with song structures over the course of the album. Instead, they use the thick dance beats, swirling guitars, layers of effects, and found sounds to break traditional songs out of their constraints, revealing the tortured emotional core of their songs with the hyper-loaded arrangements. In such a dense musical setting, it isn't surprising that U2 have abandoned the political for the personal on Achtung Baby, since the music, even with its inviting rhythms, is more introspective than anthemic. Bono has never been as emotionally naked as he is on Achtung Baby, creating a feverish nightmare of broken hearts and desperate loneliness; unlike other U2 albums, it's filled with sexual imagery, much of it quite disturbing, and it ends on a disquieting note. Few bands as far into their career as U2 have recorded an album as adventurous or fulfilled their ambitions quite as successfully as they do on Achtung Baby, and the result is arguably their best album.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
Reinventions rarely come as thorough and effective as Achtung Baby, an album that completely changed U2's sound and style. The crashing, unrecognizable distorted guitars that open "Zoo Station" are a clear signal that U2 have traded their Americana pretensions for postmodern, contemporary European music. Drawing equally from Bowie's electronic, avant-garde explorations of the late '70s and the neo-psychedelic sounds of the thriving rave and Madchester club scenes of early-'90s England, Achtung Baby sounds vibrant and endlessly inventive. Unlike their inspirations, U2 rarely experiment with song structures over the course of the album. Instead, they use the thick dance beats, swirling guitars, layers of effects, and found sounds to break traditional songs out of their constraints, revealing the tortured emotional core of their songs with the hyper-loaded arrangements. In such a dense musical setting, it isn't surprising that U2 have abandoned the political for the personal on Achtung Baby, since the music, even with its inviting rhythms, is more introspective than anthemic. Bono has never been as emotionally naked as he is on Achtung Baby, creating a feverish nightmare of broken hearts and desperate loneliness; unlike other U2 albums, it's filled with sexual imagery, much of it quite disturbing, and it ends on a disquieting note. Few bands as far into their career as U2 have recorded an album as adventurous or fulfilled their ambitions quite as successfully as they do on Achtung Baby, and the result is arguably their best album.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Opening with the ominous, fiery protest of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," War immediately announces itself as U2's most focused and hardest-rocking album to date. Blowing away the fuzzy, sonic indulgences of October with propulsive, martial rhythms and shards of guitar, War bristles with anger, despair, and above all, passion. Previously, Bono's attmpts at messages came across as grandstanding, but his vision becomes remarkably clear on this record, as his anthems ("New Year's Day," "40," "Seconds") are balanced by effective, surprisingly emotional love songs ("Two Hearts Beat as One"), which are just as desperate and pleading as his protests. He performs the difficult task of making the universal sound personal, and the band helps him out by bringing the songs crashing home with muscular, forceful performances that reveal their varied, expressive textures upon repeated listens. U2 always aimed at greatness, but War was the first time they achieved it.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The band’s debut album was released in October, 1980 and was produced by Steve Lillywhite. It includes the band's first UK hit single, "I Will Follow". And the album came out prior to U2's first tour of continental Europe and the United States. Some songs, including ‘An Cat Dubh’ and ‘The Ocean’, were written and recorded in the studio, while many of the songs were taken from the band's 40-song repertoire at the time, including ‘Stories for Boys’, ‘Out of Control’, and ‘Twilight’. The track, ‘Shadows and Tall Trees’ is the name of a chapter in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies. It made No.52 on the UK album chart and No.63 in America.
U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Ever since the beginning of their career, U2 had a sense of purpose and played on a larger scale than their peers, so when they stumbled with the knowing rocktronica fusion of 1997's Pop -- the lone critical and commercial flop in their catalog -- it was enough to shake the perception held among fans and critics, perhaps even among the group itself, that the band was predestined to always be the world's biggest and best rock & roll band. Following that brief, jarring stumble, U2 got back to where they once belonged with All That You Can't Leave Behind, returning to the big-hearted anthems of their '80s work. It was a confident, cinematic album that played to their strengths, winning back the allegiance of wary fans and critics, who were eager to once again bestow the title of the world's biggest and best band upon the band, but all that praise didn't acknowledge a strange fact about the album: it was a conservative affair. After grandly taking risks for the better part of a decade, U2 curbed their sense of adventure, consciously stripping away the irony that marked every one of their albums since 1991's Achtung Baby, and returning to the big, earnest sound and sensibility of their classic '80s work.
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, the long-awaited 2004 sequel to ATYCLB, proves that this retreat was no mere fling: the band is committed to turning back the clock and acting like the '90s never happened.
Essentially, U2 are trying to revirginize themselves, to erase their wild flirtation with dance clubs and postmodernism so they can return to the time they were the social conscience of rock music. Gone are the heavy dance beats, gone are the multiple synthesizers, gone are the dense soundscapes that marked their '90s albums, but U2 are so concerned with recreating their past that they don't know where to stop peeling away the layers.
They've overcorrected for their perceived sins, scaling back their sound so far that they have shed the murky sense of mystery that gave The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree an otherworldly allure. That atmospheric cloud has been replaced with a clean, sharp production, gilded in guitars and anchored with straight-ahead, unhurried rhythms that never quite push the songs forward. This crisp production lacks the small sonic shadings that gave ATYCLB some depth, and leaves How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb showcasing U2 at their simplest, playing direct, straight-ahead rock with little subtlety and shading in the production, performance, or lyrics. Sometimes, this works to the band's detriment, since it can reveal how familiar the Edge's guitar has grown or how buffoonish Bono's affectations have become (worst offender: the overdubbed "hola!" that answers the "hello" in the chorus of "Vertigo").
But the stark production can also be an advantage, since the band still sounds large and powerful. U2 still are expert craftsmen, capable of creating records with huge melodic and sonic hooks, of which there are many on HTDAAB, including songs as reassuring as the slyly soulful "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own" and the soaring "City of Blinding Lights," or the pile-driving "All Because of You." Make no mistake, these are all the ingredients that make How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb a very good U2 record, but what keeps it from reaching the heights of greatness is that it feels too constrained and calculated, too concerned with finding purpose in the past instead of bravely heading into the future. It's a minor but important detail that may not matter to most listeners, since the record does sound good when it's playing, but this conservatism is what keeps HTDAAB earthbound and prevents it from standing alongside War, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby as one of the group's finest efforts.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Rattle and Hum is the sixth studio album by rock band U2, and a companion rockumentary film directed by Phil Joanou, both released in 1988. The film and the album feature live recordings, covers, and new songs. To a greater extent than on their previous album, The Joshua Tree, the band explores American roots music and incorporates elements of blues rock, folk rock, and gospel music in their sound.
October is the second album by Irish rock band U2, released in 1981. The album featured spiritual themes, inspired by Bono, The Edge, and Mullen’s memberships in a Christian group called the “Shalom Fellowship”, which led them to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle.
Quite boldly, the record placed an emphasis on religion and spirituality, particularly in the songs “Gloria” (featuring a Latin chorus of “Gloria, in te domine”), “With a Shout (Jerusalem)”, and “Tomorrow”. About the album, Bono declared in 2005: “Can you imagine your second album- the difficult second album- it’s about God?”
U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind
Nearly ten years after beginning U2 Mach II with their brilliant seventh album Achtung Baby, U2 ease into their third phase with 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind. The title signifies more than it seems, since the group sifts through its past, working with Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, all in an effort to construct a classicist U2 album. Thankfully, it's a rock record from a band that absorbed all the elastic experimentation, studio trickery, dance flirtations, and genre bending of Achtung, Zooropa, and Pop -- all they've shed is the irony. U2 choose not to delve as darkly personal as they did on Achtung or Zooropa, yet they also avoid the alienating archness of Pop, returning to the generous spirit that flowed through their best '80s records. On that level, All may be reminiscent of The Joshua Tree, but this is a clever and craftsmanlike record, filled with nifty twists in the arrangements, small sonic details, and colors. U2 take subtle risks, such as their best pure pop song ever with "Wild Honey"; they're so self-confident they effortlessly write their best anthem in years with "Beautiful Day"; they offer the gospel-influenced "Stuck in a Moment," never once lowering it to the shtick it would have been on Rattle and Hum. Like any work from craftsmen, All That You Can't Leave Behind winds up being a work of modest pleasures, where the way the verse eases into the chorus means more than the overall message, and this is truly the first U2 album where that sentiment applies -- but there is genuine pleasure in their craft, for the band and listener alike.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
U2 - Under A Blood Red Sky
War turned U2 into arena rock stars, and the EP Under a Blood Red Sky captures the band on its supporting tour as the bandmembers adjusted to their larger audiences. Unsurprisingly for a band that always favored the grand statement, the group flourished in such a setting, as this mini-EP attests. Comprised of material recorded in America and Germany, Under a Blood Red Sky draws equally from the band's first three albums, and these live versions, while less textured, are considerably tougher than their studio counterparts and illustrate quite effectively why U2 were considered one of the best, most exhilarating live bands of the '80s.
Words - Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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