The Official Needles and Grooves 1001 Album Generator Project

Joe Mac said:
Let’s be honest a lot of it, rightly or wrongly, is Bono.
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U2 is my favorite band and I recognize that Bono can be annoying/egotistical/embarrassing.

Also, The Joshua Tree probably isn't even a top 5 U2 album for me. For reasons you said earlier, it's very front loaded. The radio hits got way overplayed and the back end has some weaknesses.
 
dbarila said:
U2 is my favorite band and I recognize that Bono can be annoying/egotistical/embarrassing.

Also, The Joshua Tree probably isn't even a top 5 U2 album for me. For reasons you said earlier, it's very front loaded. The radio hits got way overplayed and the back end has some weaknesses.
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It’s funny because I actually think front loading with hits is an across the board U2 problem. The worst one is All You Can’t Leave Behind, the drop in quality on Side B is staggering.
 
dbarila said:
U2 is my favorite band and I recognize that Bono can be annoying/egotistical/embarrassing.

Also, The Joshua Tree probably isn't even a top 5 U2 album for me. For reasons you said earlier, it's very front loaded. The radio hits got way overplayed and the back end has some weaknesses.
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I’d like to know what your five are…
 
Lee Newman said:
I’d like to know what your five are…
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I'm more of the 90s experimental phase U2 guy so don't @ me!

1. Achtung Baby
2. War
3. Boy
4. Pop
5. The Unforgettable Fire

Joshua Tree is probably 6 or 7. Can't decide if I'd put Zooropa ahead of it or not.

I actually didn't feel the need to buy the expanded Joshua Tree Box set that came out a few years ago and I didn't go to any of the Joshua Tree tour dates.
 
Lee Newman said:
Besmirching such a great album!
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I like side A, I don’t know if I even bothered flipping to side B the last couple of times I spun it…

I’m very much more a fan of their earlier stuff. I streamed Joshua Tree and War on my way into work today and it just reemphasised how much I prefer War and that Sunday Bloody Sunday really is almost a perfect song, it’s quite a way clear of anything else they’ve done for me.
 
Joe Mac said:
It’s funny because I actually think front loading with hits is an across the board U2 problem. The worst one is All You Can’t Leave Behind, the drop in quality on Side B is staggering.
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JT and All That You Can't Leave Behind are definitely the worst offenders. I'd say most of their other albums have some of the bigger tracks buried a little further but these 2 albums definitely have an A Side and a B Side.
 
dbarila said:
I'm more of the 90s experimental phase U2 guy so don't @ me!

1. Achtung Baby
2. War
3. Boy
4. Pop
5. The Unforgettable Fire

Joshua Tree is probably 6 or 7. Can't decide if I'd put Zooropa ahead of it or not.
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See I’d be
  • War
  • Joshua Tree
  • Boy
For all that Joshua Tree is front loaded I still think the quality is the highest across the board, I’d just like them to have sequenced it better.
 
To be clear, I understand the appeal of The Joshua Tree and understand why people would rank it so high. For me it's more of a personal reference. I get that it's a good album. I'm just not a fan of their late 80's Americana type period. My first exposure to U2 was the "Even Better Than the Real Thing" music video so I was more drawn to their more gritty, 90's, futuristic persona.

JT is still a 4/5 for me.
 
dbarila said:
To be clear, I understand the appeal of The Joshua Tree and understand why people would rank it so high. For me it's more of a personal reference. I get that it's a good album. I'm just not a fan of their late 80's Americana type period. My first exposure to U2 was the "Even Better Than the Real Thing" music video so I was more drawn to their more gritty, 90's, futuristic persona.

JT is still a 4/5 for me.
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That’s fair.

Sonically I was always drawn to their earliest phase. You can’t quite call it post punk or that it sounds like Joy Division but you can really tell how much they were influenced by that and them at the same time. The influence is probably most notable in the production and the ques it takes from Martin Hannett. There’s a space in the mixes of the first three that absolutely wasn’t a trait of big time U2.

I’m with Lee that October and The Forgettable Bore were the weak points of the 80s.

Beyond Actung I actually don’t really like 90s U2, it does nothing for me. I’d put Zooropa above Pop but that’s as much because I really can’t get on board with Pop rather than I really like Zooropa. Actually, I would probably put Rattle and Hum above Actung as well if I think about it.

No Line on the Horizon is my least favourite of their career, it’s bad bad bad.
 
Joe Mac said:
That’s fair.

Sonically I was always drawn to their earliest phase. You can’t quite call it post punk or that it sounds like Joy Division but you can really tell how much they were influenced by that and them at the same time. The influence is probably most notable in the production and the ques it takes from Martin Hannett. There’s a space in the mixes of the first three that absolutely wasn’t a trait of big time U2.

I’m with Lee that October and The Forgettable Bore were the weak points of the 80s.

Beyond Actung I actually don’t really like 90s U2, it does nothing for me. I’d put Zooropa above Pop but that’s as much because I really can’t get on board with Pop rather than I really like Zooropa. Actually, I would probably put Rattle and Hum above Actung as well if I think about it.

No Line on the Horizon is my least favourite of their career, it’s bad bad bad.
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I'm a No Line On the Horizon defender It's got it's weak moments but I like the sound they were going for. It may just not have been executed correctly and they definitely picked the wrong lead single. I'll actually go out on a limb and say that the 360 Tour might be the best tour they've ever done. The production was a great, they mixed up the set list, they dusted off some deep cuts.
 
dbarila said:
I'm a No Line On the Horizon defender It's got it's weak moments but I like the sound they were going for. It may just not have been executed correctly and they definitely picked the wrong lead single. I'll actually go out on a limb and say that the 360 Tour might be the best tour they've ever done. The production was a great, they mixed up the set list, they dusted off some deep cuts.
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I only saw them once and that was the Joshua Tree 30th anniversary and was a completely unplanned event. My cousin was over from Scotland for the gig and I took him and his mate on a pub crawl beforehand and half cut decided to buy a ticket on the street…

It was a fantastic gig but that album and Dublin and particularly it being in Croke Park and the size and history of that stadium absolutely all added into that!
 
Joe Mac said:
That’s fair.

Sonically I was always drawn to their earliest phase. You can’t quite call it post punk or that it sounds like Joy Division but you can really tell how much they were influenced by that and them at the same time. The influence is probably most notable in the production and the ques it takes from Martin Hannett. There’s a space in the mixes of the first three that absolutely wasn’t a trait of big time U2.

I’m with Lee that October and The Forgettable Bore were the weak points of the 80s.

Beyond Actung I actually don’t really like 90s U2, it does nothing for me. I’d put Zooropa above Pop but that’s as much because I really can’t get on board with Pop rather than I really like Zooropa. Actually, I would probably put Rattle and Hum above Actung as well if I think about it.

No Line on the Horizon is my least favourite of their career, it’s bad bad bad.
Click to expand...
Rattle and Hum would be my number six. No Line is when I stopped caring, it was sleepy time music. Funnily enough, the 360 tour was when I finally got to see them after they cancelled the Raleigh show on the Popmart tour. Show was fine but that was one of my most miserable concert experiences. Stadium shows suck and it was also scheduled on a night when there was a hockey game next door and the State Fair. My twenty minute drive to the show became a three and a half hour nightmare where my brother and daughter got out and walked two miles to the show. I got there to hear Muse playing their last song as I walked from the car. There was also this great moment where I parked next to a tree thinking it would make it easier to find the car when we left. After the show I realized we were basically in the woods and it took an hour to find the car.
 
Joe Mac said:
That’s fair.

Sonically I was always drawn to their earliest phase. You can’t quite call it post punk or that it sounds like Joy Division but you can really tell how much they were influenced by that and them at the same time. The influence is probably most notable in the production and the ques it takes from Martin Hannett. There’s a space in the mixes of the first three that absolutely wasn’t a trait of big time U2.

I’m with Lee that October and The Forgettable Bore were the weak points of the 80s.

Beyond Actung I actually don’t really like 90s U2, it does nothing for me. I’d put Zooropa above Pop but that’s as much because I really can’t get on board with Pop rather than I really like Zooropa. Actually, I would probably put Rattle and Hum above Actung as well if I think about it.

No Line on the Horizon is my least favourite of their career, it’s bad bad bad.
Click to expand...
Always fascinating to think what Hannett would have done with Boy. I think Lillywhite and the band still tried for a bit of the Hannett sound on that album.
 
Lee Newman said:
Rattle and Hum would be my number six. No Line is when I stopped caring, it was sleepy time music. Funnily enough, the 360 tour was when I finally got to see them after they cancelled the Raleigh show on the Popmart tour. Show was fine but that was one of my most miserable concert experiences. Stadium shows suck and it was also scheduled on a night when there was a hockey game next door and the State Fair. My twenty minute drive to the show became a three and a half hour nightmare where my brother and daughter got out and walked two miles to the show. I got there to hear Muse playing their last song as I walked from the car. There was also this great moment where I parked next to a tree thinking it would make it easier to find the car when we left. After the show I realized we were basically in the woods and it took an hour to find the car.
Click to expand...
I saw the 360 tour twice. Once was the first leg in DC. I took the Metro and the Metro stop for Fed Ex field really means it's a Metro Stop about a mile and a half rom the stadium. So we gook the Metro, walked all the way to the stadium, stood on the floor for the 5 hours or so between arriving at he show, walked the mile and a half back to the metro station which there was a super long line to get in. Then once we were on the train it was so full there was nowhere to sit. I loved the concert but it was probably the longest time I've ever stood in my life.

The 2nd time I saw it was in Baltimore and we had floor tickets again. We were just kind of standing around and a security guard came up to us and asked if we wanted to stand inside the ring because there was plenty of extra room. So we got to watch that one from inside the stage and it was probably one of the best concerts I've ever seen. That was the leg where they opened with a bunch of AB tracks and revived "Zooropa" live.
 
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