U2 Albums: Ranked from Good to Best
The countdown continues with my top seven U2 albums.
7. Pop (1997)
This album was panned pretty harshly when it came out. But over time I think it has aged well. U2 has always tried to show incredible innovation in their music, and this album is one of those attempts. It has something that so many other U2 albums lack: explosive rock energy. It's unfortunate that the album doesn't keep that energy throughout. The last half is Pop's undoing. Things crawl to a standstill, and the songs get slow and uneventful. This could have been a top-five album for the band.
6. All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
All That You Can't Leave Behind was hailed as the band's return to their roots. There is not a single bad track on this album. The first six songs give you more than enough evidence that this is one of their best albums. While past albums, such as Pop and Zooropa (both good albums), contained some questionable songs, this one is consistently great.
5. Boy (1980)
Boy is the debut album every rock band wishes it could record. It is a precursor to the more mature albums that would come over the next couple of years, but it is a powerful work in its own right. U2 would reinvent their sound many times, but this recording captures it in a primitive, compelling form. The Edge, arguably, did for guitar in the eighties what Jimi Hendrix did in the sixties.
4. War (1983)
U2's third album was unleashed on an expectant world in 1983 and launched them as a genuine global phenomenon. War is the most overtly political album of U2's career. An indisputable rock classic, it was U2's first big album. It gave the band a huge international following and effectively cleared the field of any serious competition for the post-punk throne. As their third album, War remains one of U2's best works. The tracks, much like those on Boy, fit the title perfectly. Slow, moody pieces like "Drowning Man," "Surrender," and "40" set the table for the angry drums, blasting vocals, and lively guitar of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Like a Song," "The Refugee," and "New Year's Day." There are no bad songs on War, and the album is worth buying just for the first three tracks.
3. The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
Unlike U2's prior, more straightforward work, The Unforgettable Fire had an atmospheric feel, undoubtedly as a result of Brian Eno's involvement. After War, U2 felt they had reached the creative limit of their post-punk sound, so they decided to explore new musical territory. This was the riskiest move they had made in their career to that point. The safe move would have been to release War Part II rather than risk alienating their growing fan base with an experimental album. If The Unforgettable Fire is not a masterpiece in its own right (and I think it is), it certainly is by proxy because it was the necessary step before The Joshua Tree.
2. Achtung Baby (1991)
In a word: staggering. I don't know if I've ever heard an album that comes close to capturing the kaleidoscope of sheer emotion that floods from these twelve songs. The range of feeling captured in Bono's wailing vocals on "One" is incredible, especially in the surreal cries that end the song. If The Joshua Tree was U2's answer to American music, then Achtung Baby is their answer to their European cousins. Gone are the country-and-western influences of U2's previous two albums, replaced with the cool, sleek, danceable rhythms of the Berlin dance clubs. Emotional and hip, sincere and sarcastic, Achtung Baby combines wildly differing styles into one coherent work that ranks with the best albums ever recorded.
1. The Joshua Tree (1987)
The Joshua Tree is one of those rare albums that came at the perfect time in a band's career, when everything that made them an excellent band converged to place them among the best of all time. They had certainly made fine albums before: the excellent debut, Boy; the underappreciated October; the brilliant War; and the more experimental The Unforgettable Fire. But this is the one that launched them into the stratosphere, both artistically and commercially. Not only are the opening tracks incredible and well known to all, but the album continues with a series of songs that are hard-hitting, stunningly beautiful, heartfelt, and wonderfully pure, sometimes all at once. This is what catapulted U2 into being giants in their field. I cannot really think of any other artist who accomplished so much merely on the power of a recording, as opposed to artists largely created by media and hype.
