tommycharles said:
JT is obviously classic... with the exception of Mothers of the Disappeared, they're all great tracks.
Exception of MOTD? I think it is a hauntingly beautiful, eerie song, a wonderful closer, and an essential part of the closing trilogy, the Suite Of Death. The only song on JT that should go is TTYW, for Spanish Eyes
But....
Pop
Achtung Baby
Zooropa
Bomb
....are all worse than War?
Surely not.
T
Yes, though I'll qualify that by saying I feel War and Zooropa are very close. While War has classic songs such as New Year's Day and overlooked gems like Drowning Man, Zooropa has artistic brilliance such as the title track and Lemon; it's just that War's only dud track is Red Light, while Zooropa has Babyface, and then the rather unexciting First Time/Dirty Day combo (Dirty Day, however, is excellent live and I'd love to hear The First Time live for myself, I just don't think it's all that exciting in studio).
Here, I'll explain my choices. And I've put my undecided "9-11. Pop/AB/RAH" in a tentative order.
1. The Unforgettable Fire: the perfect album, with stunning atmosphere, cohesion and flow, and not a bad track. A masterpiece.
2. The Joshua Tree: see UF.
3. Passengers: great experimentation and very artistic and creative. I love this album and it has some classic songs such as Slug, Your Blue Room, and One Minute Warning. Shame about Elvis Ate America, a steaming sack of crap; ever since I deleted it off iTunes, Passengers has sounded better and had more flow.
4. Boy: an excellent debut, very rocking and full of energy and enthusiasm.
5. War: like I said above, some brilliant songs and some overlooked gems, lots of fiery attitude and aggression here. U2 put their heart and soul into this one, for sure.
6. Zooropa: again, as I said above, artistic and creative, though not on the level of Passengers. Some amazing work here, and it's hard to believe it was made so quickly, in the midst of a tour.
7. October: grossly under-rated. There are some truly fantastic songs here, and despite the difficulties that surrounded the album, you can really feel U2's enthusiasm, personality, and desire to make honest music shine through.
8. HTDAAB: I used to rate this much higher but it has lacked staying power. It has some very good songs and some total clunkers. Inconsistency is its demise - and so is its dreadful "louder is better" mixing. Some of U2's other work isn't mixed so well either, but not as badly as "louder is better".
9. Pop: half of this album is great, amazingly great - songs such as Gone and Wake Up Dead Man could push this up to fourth. And then other parts just completely drop the ball, such as Discotheque (great live, but a bland album opener), IGWSHA (feels too incomplete, despite some great lyrics, the "Jesus never let me down [...] now it's hard to get in the door" verse), the say-no-more Miami, and the dead boring Playboy Mansion.
10. Achtung Baby: the definition of "over-rated". Clunkers here (Ultra Violet), clunkers there (One), clunkers everywhere (So Cruel [despite some good lyrics], TTTYAATW). Absolutely no cohesion or flow. Zoo Station is a good opener, though, and there are some amazing songs - UTEOTW, The Fly, Acrobat, and LIB.
11. Rattle And Hum: sure, it has two of my favourite songs, Heartland and God Part II, but such a disjointed album simply can't fare well on my rankings. Besides disrupting any flow and atmosphere the album may have had, some of the live selections are just incomprehensible. Why not great performances of WOWY or SBS instead of that bland Pride?
12. ATYCLB: this album stinks. WILATW is a great song, Kite and Grace are good, I have sentimental attachment to Walk On, but some of the other tracks are just dreadful, especially Stuck In A Moment and In A Little While. The Ground Beneath Her Feet should have been on every edition.
And it gets better with each listen too)
