U2 is easily one of the greatest bands of all-time, at the very least one of the best bands of the '80s, maybe the best. Their musical output in the '80s was staggering, by far their best decade. With that being said, they have written some equally interesting and great work following that era. Here is the ranking of their albums.
07. 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. This album is one of those attempts at that very thing.This album has something that so many other U2 albums lack: explosive rock energy. It's unfortunate the album doesn't keep that energy through out. The last half of the album is pops undoing. Things just crawl to a stand still. The songs get slow and uneventful. This could have been a top 5 album for the band.
06. All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
"All That You Can't Leave Behind" was hailed as a the bands return to their roots. There is not a single bad track on this album. The first six songs of this album will 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.
05. Boy (1980)
"Boy" is the debut album every rock band wish to record for the first
time. A precursor of the more mature albums to 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 shows it primitive in a compelling way that makes it a worthy listen in its own right. The Edge, arguably, did for guitar in the eighties what Jimi Hendrix did in the sixties.
04. 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, WAR 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 to date. 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 SBS, Like a Song, The Refugee, and New Years Day. There are no bad songs on War, and the album is worth buying just for the first 3 tracks.
03. Unforgettable Fire (1984)
Unlike U2's prior, more straightforward, work, The Unforgettable Fire had an atmospheric feel to it, undoubtedly as a result of Brian Eno's involvement. After the WAR album, U2 felt that 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 to risk alienating their growing fan base with an experimental album. If 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 Joshua Tree.
02. Achtung Baby (1991)
In a word: staggering. I don't know if I've ever heard an album which can even come 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 absolutely incredible, especially in the surreal crys 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'n'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 manages to combine wildly differing styles into one coherent work that ranks with the best albums ever recorded.
01. 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 make them rank among the best of all time. They had certainly had fine albums before: The excellent debut, Boy; the underappreciated October; the brilliant War; and the more experimental album, The Unforgettable Fire. But this is the one that launched them to the stratosphere, both artistically and commercially. Not only are the opening tracks incredible, and well-known to all, but the album continues with series of songs both hard-hitting, stunningly beautiful, totally heart-felt, 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 that accomplished so much merely on the power of a recording (as opposed to today's artists that are largely created by media and hype)
