After JT and AB/Zoo TV, U2's third career defining moment ?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

U2girl

Blue Crack Addict
Joined
Sep 28, 2000
Messages
21,111
Location
slovenija
JT made them famous. AB had the reinvention and Zoo TV was a groundbreaking tour.

Does U2 have a third defining moment in their history (the War album and the image of guys on stage with the white flag or the resurrection of their popularity with ATYCLB and Elevation tour), is it yet to happen (Songs of ascent or U2360), or do you think that they won't have a third great moment that defines their career ?
 
I would say ATYCLB/Elevation tour. I know it's not popular around here, but it really was a different direction for them after the 90s, and pretty well received amongst more "mainstream" types.

War to me wasn't really a new direction for them, I don't see much of a change there from what they were doing. Definitely a breakthrough album, but not really a new direction musically.
 
I would say ATYCLB/Elevation tour. I know it's not popular around here, but it really was a different direction for them after the 90s, and pretty well received amongst more "mainstream" types.

i would agree.

i would almost go as far as saying that 9/11 was a big career moment for U2. a lot of people turned to their music combined with the 3rd leg of the Elevation Tour and their SuperBowl performance. the band was literally everywhere.
 
I knew what I was already thinking before reading this thread... glad to know you guys agree with me ;)

Their 3rd career defining moment was definitely ATYCLB, specifically Beautiful Day. For the first time in a while (and perhaps their last), they really broke into the mainstream and the public, even the younger portion of it, actually knew their names. I say that as if they were some small band, but they really do seem irrelevant at times now (that would be for another thread).
 
Gotta be the Elevation tour and, more specifically, the Super Bowl performance. Technically poor, but highly memorable. More broadly, the entire ATYCLB era qualifies, even though I don't personally consider that album anywhere near their best.
 
ATYCLB + Super Bowl + Beautiful Day. I'd say it's just as important as the other two career shaping albums as far as U2 in the public consciousness. Beautiful Day is one the timeliest and greatest songs of all time as well.
 
Elevation tour, and as others have said, Beautiful Day specifically and the Super Bowl performance. That's the image people will currently have of U2 in the 2000's. Though the iPod ad and uno, dos, tres, catorce! as well as running the show at the Grammy's w/ Atomic bomb will be remembered by a lot of casual folks as well.

And 360 still has a chance to do something really special for their legacy if it's as cool as I anticipate, but presently, it's Beautiful Day/ Super Bowl Half time show. Not sure how that can be argued.
 
The Unforgettable Fire single and video is more of a career defining moment to me than anything so far mentioned.

How can an entire era be classed a career defining moment?:huh:
 
Aren't you forgetting about the most ground-breaking Tour in U2's history (even Bono has said this many times).............POPMART!!!! Willie Williams said Popmart was the project he was most proud to be a part of. The whole Andy Warhol POP-ART theme meets mass consumerism/greed concept, opening press conference @ K-Mart in NYC, the stage design....creating the technology to build the world's largest TV screen.....

U2's most daring and defining moment = POPMART. :D
 
i would agree.

i would almost go as far as saying that 9/11 was a big career moment for U2. a lot of people turned to their music combined with the 3rd leg of the Elevation Tour and their SuperBowl performance. the band was literally everywhere.

:yes: It really increased their relevance and the impact of ATYCLB when they were unoficially healing the nation on the third leg of Elevation.
 
PopMart is clearly not a "career-defining" moment since most casual U2 fans (ie., about 500 million people) have already forgotten it and were barely interested when it was ongoing. (Though I suppose this depends on whether you mean U2's self-defined moments or moments as 'defined' by the public at large.)

Hmm...yeah, besides the obvious early things like meeting McGuinness and signing a record deal (duh!), I would actually agree that the release of The Joshua Tree and its immediate chart success, followed 4 years and eight months later by the release of Achtung Baby, are indeed career-defining moments. Since then, U2 haven't been part of contemporary music culture (they actually weren't in 1991 either) and have inevitably become a part of the establishment and a corporate symbol as much as a musical entity (not that they mind this -- but sometimes I wish they did). So I don't think anything since the early 90s has had much cultural influence. Still, you would have to point to "Beautiful Day" and the 2000-2001 "comeback" campaign as the "moment" which started the third major era of their incredibly successful career.
 
The ATYCLB/Elevation tour after 911, culminating with the Superbowl performance.

In a year of crisis, U2 shows became like a postmodern version of going to church.

It's what people needed desperately at the time.
 
A defining moment is a MOMENT in time. Not an entire era.

As far as I'm concerned, I see a thread title like this, I think one thing: Live Aid
 
PopMart is clearly not a "career-defining" moment since most casual U2 fans (ie., about 500 million people) have already forgotten it and were barely interested when it was ongoing. (Though I suppose this depends on whether you mean U2's self-defined moments or moments as 'defined' by the public at large.)

I completely disagree with this statement, like it or not, POPmart changed U2 forever.....as a result of the poor reception/record sales etc. and alienated fans, U2 got scared and released the very tame/safe album ATYCLB....and the lame HTDAAB.....POPmart was the end of the great 90's experimentation and the daring/ironic U2.....


(360 Tour looks like they're getting back on track)
 
The Super Bowl?

Thats the only one that comes to mind...and maybe those iPod commercials (JK)
 
i would agree.

i would almost go as far as saying that 9/11 was a big career moment for U2. a lot of people turned to their music combined with the 3rd leg of the Elevation Tour and their SuperBowl performance. the band was literally everywhere.

Maybe thats true for US, but i dont recall it being the case here in Europe. So i would have to disagree.
 
... and you can't say the mullet, because it was grown out.

Hmm... Pop had Bono sporting short hair, NLOTH has the same.

Pop had a gargantuan stage setup and played to stadiums, so does NLOTH.

Pop had trouble getting singles on the radio, so does NLOTH..

There's definitely a pattern emerging behind Bono's haircuts, and it's not just a receding one. ;)
 
3rd defining moment would be Beautiful Day or Red Rocks
probably Red Rocks as the image of Bono waving the white flag is still associated with the band even more than ZOO TV I think
 
the firefighters on stage at msg after 9/11. thier really isn't discussion as far as i can see . in fact its really more important then any past moment. and i love zoo tv and everything it stood for. however, if i was to pick a song, that was to played to a backdrop of u2 tours and moments so far. like a video package. to capture the 2000;'s u2. It would be vertigo. even through NLOTH hasn't been as successful as the past 2 albums, its still a success. i mean if you told the band in 1999 you can sign up for this success or take a chance with some other approach, you take this without question. 2 big albums, a few non album minor hits, and a 3rd album thats a decent hit, thats good.
 
Back
Top Bottom