Most Underrated Album?

[Desert_Sky]

Joshua Tree....obviously!

 

[Veranda]

I knew which ones were going to be winning as soon as I saw this. I picked UF because it doesn't get as much accolades as it deserves for its greatness.

 

[Jody]

. October.
That album completely grew on me and I now love it so much. There has been quite a bit of criticism of "October" because of the frantic atmosphere it was recorded in (I think even some members of the band have said it was their weakest effort) but I don't hear that at all.

Amen

 

[womanfish]

i voted but....

I voted for POP because this album really got put through the wringer critically (for the most part) and definitely publicly.

It is an incredible album with a couple of weak songs that i would have preferred not to see on there. But the lyrics, my god the lyrics are so incredible on POP, and it is just dismissed by the public and most critics. BLAH!

BUT... I am kind of surprised that AB doesn't have any votes. AB in my opinion is not just U2's best album, but the best album ever made in the history of rock. Now it is praised both critically and for the most part publicly as well. But it seems Joshua Tree always wins out in the top 50 or 100 album polls. Achtung usually doesn't even make the top 50 and JT is usually in the top 10 or so. To me this makes it a grossly underrated album in the large scheme of things.

 

[scatteroflight]

I just wanted to say that I have long felt that October is a big improvement over Boy. People who say it's a feeble follow-up to Boy are speaking a foreign language to me. I was very impressed with Boy when I first bought it, and I do still like it. I love some of the songs. But when I rank 80's U2 albums, or even all their albums, I put it at the low end. Bono's voice has tons of character but he's just not a very good singer and can be a bit irritating. Overall they sound great but the sound has a bit of a sameness. I find that Bono's singing is much improved on October. I love the extensive use of piano, especially on songs like I Fall Down and October. Gloria is one of their greatest songs ever. THe band themselves obviously disagree with me on that, but I don't care. And the sound is gorgeous. I love the production on October, for some reason. I like this album more than War in many ways. It's got a more mellow sound, somehow. Not that the album is mellow, just the quality of the sound. I really love October, though I don't listen to it a lot these days (but that goes for a lot of U2 for me right now, I'm in a bit of a down time U2 wise) but I have loved it for many years now and it makes me think of the hot summer at the end of grade 11 when I listened to it constantly. It's ok to not like it--I'm certainly not a person who likes everything U2 has done!--but it bugs me when people say "well, I heard it was crap" or "I've only listened to it once" or whatever. The band's total lack of interest in that album doesn't help. And considering the number of religious references that Bono made on the last tour, the fact that Gloria is openly religious shouldn't make much difference. Many people don't even rate this album and that makes me sad.

As for Pop, to be sure it's not one of the most highly rated albums in the general public, but on this forum it often seems like it's rated more highly than any other album, except for people like me who don't like it very much. It probably isn't the most highly rated here, Achtung Baby might be, but it might be the second highest rated, I think.

Oh goodness, that was way too long.