U2's most successful album (their first No. 1 album and the 1987 Grammy award-winner for Album of the Year) is also their most dour. From the stark, black... read more

U2's most successful album (their first No. 1 album and the 1987 Grammy award-winner for Album of the Year) is also their most dour. From the stark, black and white cover photography, with U2 looking like missionaries (or at least M*A*S*H extras), to the existential angst at the heart of each track, The Joshua Tree is one long, atmospheric wail at the abyss. Producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois turn in an austere production that heightens the drama substantially. --Rob O'Connor (hide)

U2 weren't always over-the-top multimedia showmen. Early on, as on this third album, they were an impassioned young rock band from Ireland, a country trapped in an endless... read more

U2 weren't always over-the-top multimedia showmen. Early on, as on this third album, they were an impassioned young rock band from Ireland, a country trapped in an endless civil war--a war whose terrors find their way into nearly every song on the record and into Bono's tormented howl, even as military rhythms find their way into Larry Mullen Jr.'s rattling drumbeats. War doesn't quite capture U2's live fire, but its arty production does augment the songs with some extraordinary touches: the stately piano that offsets the Edge's stuttering, keening guitar on "New Year's Day," the electric violin that darkens "Sunday Bloody Sunday," the disco-fied thump behind the jittering riff of "Two Hearts Beat as One." --Douglas Wolk (hide)

Achtung, Baby is U2's christening voyage into the postmodern, a brave venture into unknown territory and a brilliant musical transformation for the band. The album is packed with... read more

Achtung, Baby is U2's christening voyage into the postmodern, a brave venture into unknown territory and a brilliant musical transformation for the band. The album is packed with just as much passion as previous albums, but the lyrics are much more emotionally poetic and far less political. Musically, the tracks are a metropolis of intoxicating dance beats and lush guitar riffs. "The Fly" opens with guitarist The Edge's trademark reverberations cutting through the opening verse like a speedboat slicing through choppy water; on "Mysterious Ways," Bono's one-man gospel choir belts out the praises of an adored woman. --Beth Bessmer (hide)

The ill will that initially greeted Rattle and Hum--the follow-up to the band's massively successful Joshua Tree album--was due in large part to the bloated and self-important feature... read more

The ill will that initially greeted Rattle and Hum--the follow-up to the band's massively successful Joshua Tree album--was due in large part to the bloated and self-important feature film that accompanied it, which showed the band as being simultaneously naive and pretentious as it "discovered" America. But as the film mercifully slips from memory, the music has remained, from the furious swirl of "Desire" and a clutch of live hits to insightful musical nods to heroes such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Billie Holiday. Songs like "When Love Comes to Town," a supercharged blues duet with B.B. King, suggests the quartet knew more about America from listening to its music than Phil Joanou's unintentional mockumentary suggested. --Daniel Durchholz (hide)

Long a favorite of U2's original core following, October not only avoids the sophomore slump, but adds an edgy, emotional resonance to the buoyant self-confidence they showed on... read more

Long a favorite of U2's original core following, October not only avoids the sophomore slump, but adds an edgy, emotional resonance to the buoyant self-confidence they showed on their debut, Boy. Though producer Steve Lillywhite deserves mention for helping effectively frame the material with production that manages to be both stark and atmospherically murky, this is the music where Bono, Edge, and company first show the potential that would make them superstars. Lacking the sometimes ham-fisted polemics that would mar War, The Joshua Tree, and later works, October has an oft-tortured sense of emotional and philosophical ambivalence that only underscores concerns that range from the crypto-spiritualist yearnings of "Gloria" and "Rejoice" to more anxious moments like "I Fall Down," "I Threw a Brick Through a Window," and "Fire." In retrospect, they may have peaked early. --Jerry McCulley (hide)

If U2 hadn't used the title already, "A Sort of Homecoming" might have suited this, their 10th studio album. All That You Can't Leave Behind sounds, at various... read more

If U2 hadn't used the title already, "A Sort of Homecoming" might have suited this, their 10th studio album. All That You Can't Leave Behind sounds, at various points, like any or all of U2's previous albums, as if the band is sending postcards back from a protracted ramble through previously conquered territories. The euphoric opening track, "Beautiful Day," reintroduces Edge's signature delay-laden guitar, which has been pretty much absent since The Unforgettable Fire. Elsewhere, the gospel stylings of Rattle and Hum resurface on "Stuck in a Moment," and the deranged, Prodigy-influenced dance textures that characterized 1997's Pop crop up on "Elevation." None of which suggest that this commendably restless bunch is running out of ideas. Having spent the '90s making three of the most bizarre and adventurous albums ever delivered by a stadium-rock band (the consecutive masterpieces Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and Pop), it's as if they're now trying to figure out what is the one particular thing they've always done best. Based on the evidence presented here, their forte remains a facility for making the epic statement alongside Bono's increasing lyrical intimacy: "Walk On" and "Peace on Earth" are two of the best things he's ever written or sung. All That You Can't Leave Behind confirms that U2's laurels are still making them itch. --Andrew Mueller (hide)

The album that carries U2 into its 25th year--and likely the mixed blessings of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--is one of its most frank and focused... read more

The album that carries U2 into its 25th year--and likely the mixed blessings of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--is one of its most frank and focused since the days of October and War. But its gestation was anything but simple, in part salvaged from '03 sessions the band deemed subpar. Enter Steve Lillywhite, the band's original producer and sometime collaborator in the decades since, who helped retool the track "Native Son" (originally an antigun screed) into the aggressive iPod anthem "Vertigo" and leaves his distinctive stamp on the muscular "All Because of You." Perhaps weary of ceaseless, fashion-driven reinvention in the wake of monumental success, U2 seem only too happy here to re-embrace their original sonic trademarks in service of more daring, pop-melodic hooks than they've collected in one place in decades. The Eno/Lanois produced "Love and Peace or Else" may shimmer with the duo's electro-production conceits, but it's Edge's lugubrious, postmodern John Lee Hooker guitar swagger that drives it. Elsewhere, Bono's trademark dramaturgy is spotlighted on "City of Blinding Lights," the unabashed romance of "A Man and a Woman," and the confessional "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own." It may come wrapped in a conundrum--is it nostalgic retrenchment or a sum of the band's endless musical catharsis?--It's also the album where, Fly and MacPhisto be damned, U2 boldly claims its arena titan mantle with apologies to no one. --Jerry McCulley

Recommended U2 Discography

War	The Joshua Tree	Achtung Baby
All That You Can't Leave Behind	The Best of 1990-2000	The Best of 1980-1990

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The Unforgettable Fire finds U2 caught between the taut angry rock of War and the kinetic, spiritual energy of The Joshua Tree. That's not a bad place to... read more

The Unforgettable Fire finds U2 caught between the taut angry rock of War and the kinetic, spiritual energy of The Joshua Tree. That's not a bad place to be, but like any crossroads it has its moments of indecision. "Pride (In the Name of Love)," "Wire", and the heroic "Bad" rank with their finest work. "4th of July" and "Elvis Presley and America" do not; hence this album's unstable foothold in their canon. Its strengths make it a must for fans, but its weaknesses make War, Joshua Tree, or Achtung Baby a better place to start. --Michael Ruby (hide)

Get one thing straight: Techno is merely the fairy dust sprinkled atop another massive, brilliantly conceived slab of dense, drug-like rock & roll from the only band this... read more

Get one thing straight: Techno is merely the fairy dust sprinkled atop another massive, brilliantly conceived slab of dense, drug-like rock & roll from the only band this side of the Smashing Pumpkins who could pull off such a feat. Mainstream audiences are desperate for something fresh yet familiar, and this Warholian treatise on the plasticity of pop culture expertly mixes new sonic colors with the band's signature art-rock genius. "Discotheque" is an exhilarating opener, "Staring at the Sun" is their answer to relative upstarts Oasis's hit "Wonderwall," and "If God Will Send His Angels" has the makings of a crossover anthem. This is U2 in peak unit-shifting form. --Jeff Bateman (hide)

There's little in U2's 1980 debut to suggest that this was a band bent on world domination. Indeed, there's a charming, if naive, coming-of-age urgency in songs such... read more

There's little in U2's 1980 debut to suggest that this was a band bent on world domination. Indeed, there's a charming, if naive, coming-of-age urgency in songs such as "I Will Follow," "Stories for Boys" and "Out of Control" that may startle listeners more familiar with U2's latter-day bombast and stadium-scale theatrics. Bono's viewpoint, still tantalizingly vague and wide-eyed, showed that his penchant for strident polemics hadn't yet gotten the best of him; his anthems are those of a yearning Dubliner barely out of his teens rather than those of a world-weary multimillionaire. The band's sometimes-ragged musical chops work in its favor here, gently burnished to then-fresh new-wave sheen by producer Steve Lillywhite. If the Edge's dense, effects-laden guitar work seems overly familiar, it's only because this album was such a key influence on the whole "rock of the '80s" sound. Though not quite as moody or musically accomplished as October, arguably the band's first masterpiece, Boy still ranks as one of U2's best albums. --Jerry McCulley (hide)

There seem to be two major camps of U2 fans now: Those who dig the early albums (good and sensible people), and those who only like the ones... read more

There seem to be two major camps of U2 fans now: Those who dig the early albums (good and sensible people), and those who only like the ones from the '90s, putting everything previous down as "classic rock." But U2 only became a classic rock sort of band in 1984, with The Unforgettable Fire. The real early stuff, from '80 to '83, still comes off as edgy--and it's comparatively ignored. Here's a sampler: Under a Blood Red Sky is from a U.S. tour (1983's) in which U2 still thought of itself as a hungry little band from Ireland--and draws (fairly wisely) from the band's first three albums. There's nary a misstep on the entire disc, although it could stand a few more tracks. --Gavin McNett (hide)