One of the biggest bands of all time has just celebrated their 50th birthday - and along with it, the news that their first studio album in nine years will be released in November.
Ahead of Carnaval de Luz’s release, we’re looking back on U2’s back catalogue and figuring out the albums that deserve a place in the top 10.
Here are U2’s ten best albums, ranked...
10. Passengers - Original Soundtracks 1
An often-overlooked gem in the band’s canon, this record saw the Dublin foursome team up with Brian Eno - with whom they had first worked on 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire - for this 1995 side project under the name Passengers. As its title suggests, Original Soundtracks 1 was a collection of songs written for both real and imaginary films, and allowed Bono and co. to experiment with an electronic palette with often surprising and occasionally spectacular results. The album also spawned the unexpected hit Miss Sarajevo featuring Luciano Pavarotti, and a collaboration with Howie B (on Elvis Ate America) which later led to the Scottish trip-hop musician co-producing their next album Pop.
9. The Unforgettable Fire
Eno took the production reins on this 1984 album, alongside Daniel Lanois - the first of the duo’s spectacularly successful team-ups - but really, this was the sound of a band taking a forthright step into stardom. Their fourth album was a sure-footed affair that held onto their rock roots but simultaneously prised open the door to possibility - and with huge songs like Pride (In the Name of Love), Bad, A Sort of Homecoming and the glimmering beauty of the title track, it set the tone for the stadium rock era that was yet to come.
8. How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
If All That You Can’t Leave Behind was the sound of U2 reclaiming their Rock Gods throne, their eleventh studio album was the sound of them refusing to get comfortable on it. Under the watchful gaze of Steve Lillywhite, who had produced their first three albums, songs like
Vertigo and City of Blinding Lights became immediate staples in their live setlist - but the explosive anthems were counterbalanced by poignant ballads like Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own, written by Bono in the wake of his father’s death. Even aside from the singles, it’s a very strong album.
7. War
Any album that opens with a song as powerful as Sunday Bloody Sunday and ends with the hymnal 40 is worth a listen - and sure enough, War became U2’s first real commercially successful record, landing the #1 spot in the UK charts and earning gold status in the States upon its release in 1983. Those two contrasting songs bookended a superb tracklist infused with gems - from the impassioned, string-laden Drowning Man, to the atmospheric Surrender, and of course, the seminal New Year’s Day.
6. Pop
Just when you thought you had U2 figured out, along comes an album like Pop. Their restless, incessant desire for reinvention led the band to make a record that nobody was expecting. Pop is an album that is often overlooked or dismissed - even by the band themselves, in the past - because of its difficult, rushed genesis. Perhaps it’s simply misunderstood? Almost thirty years after its release, songs like the techno-influenced Discotheque, the spacey jitter of Mofo, the soaring Last Night on Earth and the brilliant Staring at the Sun still sound like a band admirably pushing the boundaries of what a 'rock band’ should sound like.
5. Zooropa
How do you follow up an album as groundbreaking as Achtung Baby? 1993’s Zooropa captures some of the ‘mad genius’ energy that powered Zoo TV - it was recorded during a six-month break on that pioneering tour - but has its own distinct, disorienting aura that proved completely immersive and unlike anything the band had done before. Songs like the mechanical, abrasive Numb (written and performed by The Edge), the flamboyant falsetto of Lemon, and one of the finest songs in their entire catalogue - the magnificent Stay (Faraway, So Close!) are the linchpins of a record that thrives on experimentation. And there’s even a song (The Wanderer) with Johnny Cash on vocals - what’s not to like?
4. Boy
U2’s first album still comes out swinging, 46 years after its release. There is a lot to be said for the rawness of these atmospheric post-punk songs, as well as the unpolished, vibrant exuberance of a band still on the precipice of greatness. Even in their youthfulness, songs like Out of Control, A Day Without Me and An Cat Dubh hinted at the greatness U2 would one day come to embody and the sounds and subjects they would return to throughout their career. The world-beating confidence was not yet instilled in them, but their ideas were plentiful and the atmosphere conjured up in Windmill Lane by the foursome and Steve Lillywhite was potent. The imperfections and rough edges of this album are all part of its charm.
3. All That You Can’t Leave Behind
Pop had divided critics as much as fans, but three years later U2 dispensed with the experimentation on All That You Can’t Leave Behind and returned to what they arguably do best: anthemic rock songs with mass appeal. With Eno and Lanois once again behind the desk, there were plenty of those on this album - not least the enduring Beautiful Day and the effervescent Elevation, while Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, In a Little While and Walk On delivered the emotionally-charged rock ballads with aplomb. What’s more, the songs in between the big moments - like the seriously underrated Wild Honey, and the beautiful Kite - could never be dismissed as filler. It’s simply a great album, from start to finish.
2. The Joshua Tree
The Joshua Tree is a great album not only because of its songs - and some of the band’s best and most enduring anthems are on its tracklisting - but because of its ambience and sense of scale. The album that made them superstars on a global level, it was heavily influenced by their time in America, absorbing its culture and politics during their extensive periods of touring. The Edge has also said that the band wanted this album to be less about creating an atmosphere and more about getting to the core of the song: "To make it more straightforward, focused and concise." Songs like Mothers of the Disappeared, Bullet the Blue Sky and Red Hill Mining Town delve into social and political consciousness; One Tree Hill is a haunting reflection on the loss of a dear friend, while the fiery surge of Where the Streets Have No Name and the gospel/blues inflections of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For are tunes big enough to fill any stadium in the world (which they did). When you have a song as monumental as With or Without You in your back pocket after all of that, you know it’s a special album.
1. Achtung Baby
U2’s best album? Without a doubt. The fact that Achtung Baby was wrestled out of a fraught period for the band, during which they were divided on which direction to take after the colossal success of The Joshua Tree. Yet this does not sound like a band in creative peril; once the song One had brought them back to the same page, it was full steam ahead. Some of U2’s best songs are on this album, from the spacey rock thrust of The Fly, to the seductive, swampy funk of Mysterious Ways, to Even Better Than the Real Thing as they plundered from a darker, more pensive well. But really, the simple beauty of Achtung Baby is that it works from start to finish as a triumphant piece of art; there is not a single track worth skipping here.
