“20” – U2 TRACKS POLL (voting closes midday, Thursday 4 August)

uh oh

it took me almost exactly 20 min!

Heartland will totally be in my top 10 tbh

Still working on my ballot. This U2 poll is messing me up in all sorts of ways ~ in a forcing you to face your past way. No other band I have loved and loathed so completely in my life. First band I completely loved, visited fanclub meetings of, traded cassette boots etc ... around 'Pop' both U2 and I, in my life, went completely separate ways. Fortunately, in the end, the verdict meter didn't swing to just one side. I still hate all U2 from Pop on, but still love what I loved from before that.

I must have hated pop so much that I forgot that it existed. I'm in the same boat, just voted w/ my <3

^^ Only way to go! :)

I loved Zooropa from the start, but Pop felt like it was released too late, like, were they still doing the ironic thing four years later (& six years after Achtung Baby)? So I never bought it & only barely knew the singles even. I can listen to it now that the time has passed & hear it more clearly now: "Mofo" is a beast, for instance.

Hah! Zooropa is their best, most coherent, most exciting, on the edge album for me.

U2 and I just took separate turns after that. But boy do I love Zooropa.

^^^^ otm

Yeah, it's their best album.

I can't separate it from my discovering Low in the summer of '93.

If the band had followed the example of "Mofo" and "If You Feel Loved" (which is an unexpectedly sexy song), I'd have more appreciation for the results, not to mention intentions.

I can't separate it from my discovering Low in the summer of '93.

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 2, 2011 12:43 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

OMG!

Had the exact same! Same summer! (and what a summer it was) If you are referring to Bowie's Low that is. 'Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car' just seemed such a logical progression from Low and 'Always Crashing In The Same Car' to me. It was pure chance that this happened, yet made such huge sense to me at the time.

Of course!

I don't think they've ever attempted anything as playful-serious as "Babyface" and "Lemon." And "Stay (Faraway So Close!)" is their best "straight" ballad.

I know, I know... Zooropa remains the only album in U2's discography that was recorded in six weeks and of which they say it was just an "in between" thing. Yet look how brilliant that worked out. Without the great planning, years of recording in the Riviera or Morocco, no great marketing plan etc. They should try that more often.

Been thoroughly disappointed when after Zooropa, with every new album, Bono would pop up in the press and exclaim how he felt their album was going to be so cutting edge, "best album so far"-bollocks etc.

"love comes tumbling" is pretty great from that e.p. as well

Hell yeah it is. My favorite U2 mode is probably that sort of atmospheric "Edge doing most of the work while Bono behaves more workmanlike and less stridently"--they're so good at that. This song, "Heartland," lots of stuff on The Unforgettable Fire... Edge was the first guitarist I remember identifying as a kid as "a guitarist I like," and I still distinctly remember discovering things like the Comsat Angels, the Sound, Echo and the Bunnymen--you know, "atmospheric postpunk"--and being excited to hear things that reminded me of Edge! So in a very real way they were my gateway into postpunk and thus into a lot of my most cherished music.

"Love Comes Tumbling" is definitely gonna be on my ballot. The aspect of U2's work you're describing is one of my favorite things about them, and is well-represented on my ballot (lots of tracks from The Unforgettable Fire, e.g.). I'm also partial to their early 1990s work. I'm not sure how those two aspects are connected; I need to think more about that.

"Do You Feel Loved" and "Heartland" are a couple great Adam/Larry songs that I wish were better Bono/Edge songs. The bass line on "Do You Feel Loved" in particular is U2 minimalist perfection.

Zooropa made me fall in love with the band again after pretty much chucking Achtung Baby, but dismissing any of their albums now seems hasty--I disliked each of the last four at first and wound up changing my mind on all of them.

Zooropa remains the only album in U2's discography that was recorded in six weeks and of which they say it was just an "in between" thing. Yet look how brilliant that worked out. Without the great planning, years of recording in the Riviera or Morocco, no great marketing plan etc.

Yet the thing sounds like it cost $4.5 million and took months to record.

Imagine what all their albums afterwards that sound like it didn't cost as much yet actually cost them ten times as much!

I remember the story at the time being that it was just an EP.

what

xp

I think I rated Unforgettable Fire tracks too low on my ballot. I prefer Ironic Bono to Earnest Bono, but instrumentally, tUF is the band's high-water mark

The aspect of U2's work you're describing is one of my favorite things about them, and is well-represented on my ballot (lots of tracks from The Unforgettable Fire, e.g.). I'm also partial to their early 1990s work. I'm not sure how those two aspects are connected; I need to think more about that.

I'm with you there. I think the connection lies in the immersive qualities of both of those periods. Both are less alert, less sober, less chest-thumpingly self-actualizing versions of the band. The atmospheric stuff is blissed out, hazy, delicate, stately; the best stuff on Achtung Baby is maximalistic, layered, thick, intoxicating, humid. The key to the band's success in my mind is tempering Bono... He has an objectively fantastic voice that easily lends itself to becoming just too much, and in both of these versions of the band he's perfectly balanced with the rush and feel of the rest of the band.

I don't know if I said so upthread, but I adore the title track of "The Unforgettable Fire" despite the crap lyrics: those shifting synth textures. The 12" mix should have been a schlockier Trevor Horn-esque disco track.

That sounds right to me. I don't favor anthemic U2 anymore, though I can remember its appeal. "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "New Year's Day", the whole of Under A Blood Red Sky, those are good songs! But Bono is too self-aware, too keen a historian of rock, to ~really feel it~ every time, & I think this is the band's secret weapon over its more resolutely strident peers (yes, even Echo). This is why they were able to pull off their big switch at the turn of the 1990s.

xp to Clarke

yes! "The Unforgettable Fire" is high on my ballot.

certainly fascinated by 70s Bowie / 90s U2 connections but I also suspect that it may be a bit played up by the 'crashed car' title echo -- and the two crashed car songs don't even sound similar. but certainly U2's title must be a nod to Bowie's

also Bowie did a 70s 'stay', not sure on what LP

maybe arguable that general Eno textures provide a link.

thinking about 'zoo station' a great deal over the last couple of months, playing many different versions - after actually going there

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5779818835_b33cd0a8a6.jpg

i ended up going pretty light on the early albums -- nothing from the first two, 1 from War and 2 from The Unforgettable Fire

- 'versions' ie: LP version on vinyl, and otherwise live ones on old tapes, and youtube

still compelled by this song, still feel it represents heart of the Achtung turn, as it was meant to

but also struck by how un-experimental all this really is, by Enoish standards: if this was really like LOW, then 'zoo station' itself would go on for 12-15 minutes, hypnotizing you - instead it's compact, 4 minutes and out and on to 45 'real thing' - sense of this being really a streamlined rock LP

maybe that's obvious.

other thing about it:

'zoo station' is example of a category of KEY / ICONIC ALBUM TRACKS that are not 45s but still have a special status

maybe this applies to lots of bands, but re U2 I think the list stretches to

October
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bad
Bullet the Blue Sky
Until The End of the World

I think that's it, actually, can't really see any more from the last 20 years.

'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is a real contender for my least favourite U2 song, now I think about it, esp all the live versions I've endured on tape, video etc - I wish they'd retired it as it seemed might happen after Rattle & Hum film.

'until the end of the world' is another song I now find I can be endlessly interested in - again the slight paradox of a track with such a big live history that was never a 45. I think the Edge likes playing the guitar parts inc solo: he does it all on one of the deleted scenes on the dvd IT MIGHT GET LOUD.

"Until the End of the World" may be one of my very favorite U2 songs, absolutely. The live versions of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" really do kill it, don't they? It gets painful to see Bono in that state. I've never liked "Bullet the Blue Sky"... "Ultraviolet" has always slayed me.

All your other true statements notwithstanding, 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' was definitely a single. Well, here in Europe it was.

xp

i don't think i can justify sending in a ballot for this when i forgot to vote in the prince poll but i kinda want to anyway

do it! no research or anything. just pull the first 20 songs you can think of (that you like) from the air around you and make an email out of it.

'Sunday Bloody Sunday' is a real contender for my least favourite U2 song, now I think about it, esp all the live versions I've endured on tape, video etc - I wish they'd retired it as it seemed might happen after Rattle & Hum film.

when i saw them a few weeks ago and they were doing the "how long must we sing this song" part, i turned to my wife and said "it's been, what, 29 years and counting?"

so far my ballot is like two unforgettable fire tracks up front, the pre-uf hits minus sbs, a couple josh tree songs, one tune from achtung, and nothing since then.

i kinda want to stick the mary j. blige "one" at the top just for shits and giggles.

negative points tune is gonna be harder to figure than the whole positive list.

What do tickets to see U2 cost these days?

Well, having seen the band too many times, beginning in 87, I recently got refunds for four tickets a few weeks ago - thanks to the show's postponement, Ticketmaster let us do this the week before the show, literally a year and a half after we bought them! Total cost: $278 for four GA tix. I'm glad to have the cash back, since I've more or less had my fill of U2. BTW, the band's live peak to me came after 9/11 - I saw them perhaps the year before and they were great. Then I saw them when they came back, after, and they were on fire, truly powerful, moving stuff. I've seen few shows from bands of any and every bent that rose to that level.

Then I saw them the tour after that, and they sort of dragged. And that's the end.

i got to see them for free to review the show -- basically tickets fell in my lap 5 hours before the show, which was pretty great to be able to surprise my wife with since U2 is one of her favorite bands

U2 opened its 2001 tour in Miami -- still one of the best shows I've ever seen. That's the one where Bono tumbled off the stage.

They also closed the world tour in Miami -- a less exciting performance; they sounded exhausted.

There seems to be a general consensus here that U2's output from 2000 forward is not on the same level as their early records. For those who subscribe to that theory, I urge you to take 4:19 out of your day to listen to Window In The Skies. This could be their best song ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-NskE3M2A&ob=av2e

i managed four songs from the 21st century on my ballot

^^^^ title of their next comp

kornrulez, thanks for posting that -- it might make my ballot

more taken aback by the video than the song

Yeah, great video concept/execution. The song is like an 8th generation xerox of good Joshua Tree/Rattle & Hum/Achtung-era U2.

booooo

Got my first cut down to 33, but there are three or four songs I might put back before the real bone-cutting begins.