Which of the "3 masterpieces" is the best

[ImOuttaControl]

They all just sound to much the same. Of the 4 you listed only In a little while is still listenable 6 years after I got it.

How do the songs I listed sound too much the same?

In A Little While: Bluesy, a hungover Bono has a very rhaspy voice.

Wild Honey: Sounds very 60'sish--very Beatles or Van Morrison sounding.

When I Look At The World: More rockin. That bouncy guitary riff and the solo are incredible. Truely one of U2's most under-rated songs IMO. I wish this would have been placed earlier on the record to give it a little more of the spotlight.

New York: Has a totally different vibe from the other songs on the album, but the theme is still consistent.

ATYCLB is a lot more top heavy than JT ever was. I have been listening to In God's Country alot recently and I would say that it is the 4th best song on the album. It keeps the album from being top heavy

Of the three U2 "masterpieces," I would honestly say that in my opinion, The Joshua Tree is the most top heavy. Three of the most powerful and most classic U2 songs are 1-2-3 on the album. This wasn't done by accident. It was a great commercial move because who would not buy an album with an opening trio like that? The only problem with TJT is that it gets weaker and weaker the further you move along into the album. I'm not saying TJT is weak by any means--it is a masterpiece-- but it certainly cannot maintain the strength of the opening songs IMO.

Achtung Baby is the true U2 masterpiece and is their least top heavy album IMO. The Fly, Mysterious Ways, Ultraviolet, Acrobat and Love is Blindness on the second half.

I personally thing ATYCLB is aging very well and is deserving of being called a masterpiece. It reinvented U2. Don't believe me? Look at all of the bitter 90's fans running around(I am a bitter 90's fan from time to time). It brought in tons of new fans. It re-affirmed U2's position as the best band in the world. It is a wonderful, uplifiting, healing album for those times you feel down. I could go on and on. As all U2 albums, I put some of them on the shelf and come back to them after some time off. About 2 months ago I "rediscovered" ATYCLB and remembered what is so amazing about the album.

My only true gripe is that Edge should not have changed the tracklisting at the last minute and ATYCLB should have been released with it's original tracklisting.

 

[TheQuiet1]

I personally thing ATYCLB is aging very well and is deserving of being called a masterpiece. It reinvented U2. Don't believe me? Look at all of the bitter 90's fans running around(I am a bitter 90's fan from time to time). It brought in tons of new fans.

True. As I've gone on to discover more of U2's back catalogue I find ATYCLB slipping further and further down my list of loved albums but it doesn't deter from the fact that it was ATYCLB that first introduced me to the music of that strange foreign band U2 ( ). It may not have been ATYCLB that sparked off instant U2 love but it did encourage me to check out their other work so I owe it that much at least.

 

[goincommando]

War
Achtung Baby
Joshua Tree

 

[mediaman44]

True. As I've gone on to discover more of U2's back catalogue I find ATYCLB slipping further and further down my list of loved albums but it doesn't deter from the fact that it was ATYCLB that first introduced me to the music of that strange foreign band U2 ( ). It may not have been ATYCLB that sparked off instant U2 love but it did encourage me to check out their other work so I owe it that much at least.

It was around the time when I discoverd U2 as well. I don't hate those songs they just don't have the same listening ability as say In God's Country

 

[Ifeelnumb84]

1. Achtung Baby
2. The Unforgettable Fire
3. The Joshua Tree

All amazing, the order changes all the time
Zooropa comes close, but isn't quite a masterpiece

 

[redhill]

1. AB
2. UF
3. JT
4. ZOOROPA

Best vocals on any album - Zooropa
UF is my fav but AB has to be 1st

 

[last unicorn]

I would never consider calling an album a "masterpiece" or the opposite of it only because a magazine - and Rolling Stone of all magazines - is saying so.

Many hardcore fans are stuck in the past, I think it's sad.
Every U2 album has something great about it, whether you are willing to call it a "masterpiece" or not - I don't know if I could really define what a "masterpiece" is or is supposed to be, maybe because I am lacking real musical knowledge, but in the end we are all giving subjecive judgement and opinion.

To be honest, sometimes I get tired of all the hype the "classic" 80s albums are receiving. Not only with U2 but also with other artists who have been around for so long. Sometimes I feel that it's unfair to deny their recent work.

For my part, I love All that you can leave behind, mostly because I somehow consider it to be U2's comeback album and the album where they were going back to their roots after all the experimental stuff they did in the 90s. It's also the album that gained them a very large new fanbase and that brought them really back into a wider public. For me it's clear that U2 were trying to appeal to a larger audience again by making this album, and it worked.

I also like POP, I can say it now, even though I had problems with this album first and I still don't like the whole look and image that went with it.

Achtung Baby is surely a masterpiece when it comes to lyrics and voice, and it was really innovative and something nobody expected back then.

JT was their breakthrough, the album that really really made them very famous. I love all the songs on it, it's very coherent in terms of atmosphere, maybe not lyrically, but a very strong album.
I just think it's sad that people are always focussing on JT instead of U2's more recent work.

JT did not make me a fan, because I was too young back than and did not understand this kind of music.

Achtung Baby really got me interested in this band. But during the 90s, I really wasn't digging their other, more experimental work. I just got into that much later when I started to learn about the band's history.

Their previous and first albums like UF are very great, too, but widely underrated. I believe they carry an atmosphere that will always be very closely attached to the early 80s, that's what makes them special to me now.

U2 has never really made a bad album. Surely, there are weak points on almost every one, but I think the majority of songs is strong enough to compensate for that.