1) What is the best A-side single in this period?
1.New Year's Day
2.Sunday Bloody Sunday
3.11 O'Clock Tick Tock
4.Gloria/I Will Follow
2) What is the best B-side?
Party Girl
3) What is best album-track from this period?
Tie: Like A Song/Drowning Man
4) What is the best overall album (from 3 studio LPs and 1live) and why?
This was a little tougher than I thought it would be. I love Boy. It's still one of the most cohesive and energetic records they've ever released, and there isn't really a weak track there - it's all very good, from tracks such as Twilight, Stories For Boys, The Ocean, A Day Without Me, Another Time Another Place, Shadows And Tall Trees(one of my favorite U2 closers), to tracks like I Will Follow, An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart, Out Of Control, and The Electric Co. that have still owned live in recent years - I honestly think Boy is one of the better debut rock albums ever released. You can really tell that they could be something special. I do still wish 11 O'Clock Tick Tock had made it onto the album.
War is a stone cold classic, it's when the world started taking notice of them, it's when U2 "found their voice", so-to-speak. Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year's Day are legitimately all-time great rock songs. People start singing "40" at the end of concerts to this day, whether U2 have actually played it or not. Like someone else said, Two Hearts Beat As One is an important song in U2's history. I dig Seconds, The Refugee, and Surrender, too, they all have this weird aggressive-yet-chill-at-the-same-time vibe to them. Drowning Man is, imo, one of the best ballads they wrote in the 80s - not quite up there with With Or Without You or All I Want Is You, but still great; it's gorgeous, musically, lyrically, production-wise(and for me to say that anything Lillywhite produced has gorgeous production is an accomplishment, since he is associated more with U2's more bombastic side), it's a beautiful, brilliant song, and, in hindsight, is a glaring indicator of the left turn that U2 was about to take, and of the incredible growth as musicians and as people that they were about to experience. And Like A Song fucking rocks. People in the music industry often mention War in the same sentence with Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire as "classic 80s U2", but not as much Boy(but I think "Boy" isn't that far off).
So, it's hard, but at the end of the day, I think I take War. If 11 O'Clock Tick Tock was on Boy, this would be even harder. I love October too, but it's not in the league of Boy and War.
5) What is the best bootleg available from this period?
I don't know that much about boots from this time period, but Red Rocks is legendary, what I've heard of that Boston show is really great, the shows the tracks from the UABRS record were taken from(not all were Red Rocks) were probably good too, as those selected tracks are all great(except for maybe NYD, it's not one of my favorite NYD recordings, despite my absolute love for the song). Hell, those recordings of 11 O'Clock Tick Tock and Party Girl might be the definitive recordings of those songs.
6) Overall thoughts and impressions of this early period? -- How does it compare to other periods? -- How well/badly has this material aged?
I really love a lot of it. I wouldn't say it's my favorite period - the 90s take that honor - but I still really love most of it. U2 still makes passionate music now, but not in the same way as they did then - now their passion is more purposefully held back for art's sake(on ATYCLB on NLOTH at least), more restrained(sometimes more tense, too), and more educated, there's more life, more weariness, more caution, less wide-eyed-ness in it. In those early days, every song sounded like they were absolutely putting everything they had into it, 110%, wearing their hearts on their sleeves, not afraid to be angry in their music, not worrying about their image so much. Not that they weren't thinking about what they were doing back then, but I think they probably think about the songs they make a lot more now, I think they probably treat it more as a craft now. I'll leave it to you to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing, because I honestly don't have an answer. That's not to say I don't know whether I love their more recent music; I love ATYCLB, NLOTH, the MDH songs, and I'm getting over my anti-Bomb phase, although it will likely always me their weakest overall LP for me.
Musically, the music of this period is more in-your-face then in subsequent periods, when much of the music became, in some cases more nuanced, in some cases more cinematic, in some cases more sophisticated, and overall, more diverse, and with more layers. Lyrically, a lot of Bono's work in this period pales in comparison to his later work, but there are lyrical gems here; A Day Without Me is pretty profound for being as young as they were, and I've always loved 11 O'Clock Tick Tock, An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart, Out Of Control(although I think it's a little overrated here, I think I take 11OTT over it), Another Time Another Place, Shadows And Tall Trees(I think it's simple but effective), Gloria, October("October/and the trees are stripped bare/of all they wear/what do I care/October/and kingdoms rise/and kingdoms fall/but you go on/and on", one of my favorite U2 lyrics from any period), and all of War(I think War was a big step forward lyrically for Bono), particularly SBS, Seconds("it's the puppets, the puppets who pull the strings"), NYD, Like A Song, Drowning Man, and Surrender("she tried to be good girl/and a good wife/raise a good family/lead a good life/it's not good enough/got herself up/on the 48th floor/got to find out/find out she's living for").
I don't think a lot of it has dated badly at all - I mean, there are a handful of bands from the last few years that are making music in the same vein, which I suppose isn't surprising given the sort of post-punk renaissance we're in the middle of. If I had to pick one song from that period that I don't think sounds dated at all, it would be New Year's Day, easily. I honestly think, if you took the vocals out, that mix of that keyboard melody and bassline sounds very modern.
7) Which member had the worst hair in this period?
I may go with Bono for this. Adam easily has the best. Love the fro.
Except for Shadows And Tall Trees I like every song on Boy and there are too much songs I don't like on War and October, though the highlights on War are better than those on Boy.
anyway...
