How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: First U2 anything I heard while being conscious that it was U2. It was in my mom's CDs, and I was just looking for something new to listen to. She received it as a Christmas gift from a co-worker a few years ago. No expectations. I don't think I'd ever even noticed the iPod commercial. I liked Vertigo, except the verses. Bono's voice I didn't like much. Good rock song, pretty infectious, couldn't get it out of my head for a week. After a while I decided to give the other songs a chance, which I later regretted (no, not really). Miracle Drug and Sometimes were nice to have a good cry over. Love and Peace or Else was the second song I listened to regularly. The beginning just hooked me. Oh, I don't even want to talk about the rest. Sorry, but it's all just so loud and annoying and painful and shallow and painful and annoying. The other good song was A Man and a Woman. I'm surprised I own any other U2 albums after it. Aren't you?
All That You Can't Leave Behind: I was expecting so much from this album in terms of sound after hearing Bomb, and it didn't deliver. I guess I was expecting some of the same thing...only better. One of the few times when I just couldn't bear to sit through an album.
My family and I were eating lunch someplace and Beautiful Day was playing there, and one of my brothers pointed out that it was U2. I had no idea, but he told me he knew because of the voice. I didn't know the song that well, just that it was a pop song that was big a few years ago. That day I acquired the album, and it all went downhill from there. Of course I liked Beautiful Day, but it was exhausting and plain annoying after a few back to back listens like most pop music. Not much depth. I kept listening to the album, and Stuck was pretty cloying. The ending was nice in a sort of a sixties way, with the horns and the Stand by Me-like lyrics. Then came Elevation, which I liked until Bono started "singing" his "lyrics". Uh...next! And so on and so forth. It had to get better. It became clear the singles were piled at the front, because it got pretty desperate at the end. Huge disappointment.
Achtung Baby!: I'd heard claims that One was the best U2 song ever. Well, I downloaded it and simply on its merit I needed this album the next day. I didn't really know what I was getting into, besides reading that The Fly was the band's cult club classic (or something like that). On first listen, nothing stood out. It was all weird mostly, because I'd only heard Bomb, ATYCLB and the 80s Best of. The whole thing sounded, well, dirty to me. Not in the 'dirty magazine' sense, but in the grooves of the bass and drums that were so ambiguous, the processed vocals, the sound effects and the sort of suppressed-scream sound of the guitar. I remember one chord change in Until the End.. where I thought, "Wow, this is dark stuff". First fav song: The Fly. For that falsetto, that riff and those freaky phrases =D
Zooropa: Bought it, for what it's worth, on the merits of The First Time. Where to start? My favourite U2 album, but probably my worst initial reaction. I'd heard it described as sort of apocalyptic, cyber punk and whole lot of other things, but I think now I've realized it's pretty hard to describe. I'd read the lyrics and some reviews and was expecting some sort of journey through a futuristic wasteland with a Seven-Eleven in it. So. I hated it; I thought it was self-indulgent, experimentation for the sake of it music. Which it probably is on some levels. I liked the part when 'Zooropa' picked up, talk about a sense of release. Babyface: it was okay, Numb: good, but not as good as Babyface, Lemon: embarassing, but I knew right off the bat "okay, this is complex stuff" and I knew I didn't get it, etc, etc. I liked the opening drums and guitar on Daddy's Gonna Pay. Groovy. The lyrics to The Wanderer awesome, the music? Eh... The First Time I had already heard of course. I whined about it to everyone, I even thought of giving it a bad review on Amazon. It took a while. And then it happened. The miracle. Don't have time for that though.
The Joshua Tree: I expected great things from the rest of the record after hearing the first three songs, and well, I was mildly disappointed. Bullet was surprisingly gritty; I had only heard Best of 80-90 when it came to that decade and didn't think they had it in them back then. I liked Running to Stand Still a lot, but from there it just seemed to get worse as the album went, just like it was put together by the lady that chose the sequence. I guess our opinions were of the same slant. I was greatly disappointed by In God's Country and Trip; I mean, if this was one of the best records U2 ever released... I loved Exit, it was just so funky, the guitar and the lyrics were so dark. It was musically like so many emotional bouts I'd felt. The lyric presents a simple idea but an important one. After a first listen, my favourite song not counting the first three.
The Unforgettable Fire: Well, come to think of it, I expected something a lot less structured and the songs to run together. I think it was from Bono's comments concerning landscapes and being out of focus. When I got it, it seemed like quite a small collection of songs, as I'd already heard Pride, Bad and TUF. The last two hardly qualify as songs. Everytime I listen to this album it puts me to sleep. I think it's that sound. The first time I listened I fell asleep in the middle of Bad. Wire was a good rock song and Indian Summer Sky I got immediately. Sounded kinda eighties-ish to my ears, and the lyrics I could relate to. ASOH and Promenade love came later.
Pop: I expected a disaster because of all the bad hype the album gets, but on the whole it seemed to be a more solid set of songs than the last two records. (And they were supposed to be a shot at an album's worth of single material?) I listened to it in chunks on YouTube, because I was scared it would be a waste of money. Instead of just testing the waters, I began to frequent Discotheque and Last Night on Earth on the youtube. Good start. Thoughts on song titles: If God Will Send His Angels I loved and still do (the song doesn't live up); I thought The Playboy Mansion was going to be a whole lot darker. I don't know, but I think it had something to do with Batman. Anyway, I heard about half the album before getting it so I felt safe. There was no one song I particularly disliked, but if I had to pick, my least favourite was Wake Up Dead Man. Probably still is. Also, I didn't get Please at all; by that point in the album I was tired emotionally and was expecting a lot from that song based on what had been said on this board about it. It didn't deliver in the typical U2 way, but there were things below the surface.
Boy: I had a notion that it would be more punkish than anything before I got it, and cleaner sounding. It was a little too eighties-sounding for me. I Will Follow was the only song I'd heard off it besides An Cat Dubh/Into the Heart live. Hated the production on An Cat Dubh, didn't get the hoopla over The Electric Co (what's Bono saying?) and didn't get the hate for Shadows and Tall Trees. Nice and catchy, not too deep but sonically pleasing. Awesome guitar in Out of Control and Twilight =D
Rattle and Hum: I heard this album in bits, the last being Heartland, but I have heard it all. Just not as a proper album. No real first impressions, but When Love Comes to Town and Angel of Harlem were two of the first songs I got into on the 80s Best of. I do believe it deserves the bashing it got; nobody needed those live versions of old U2 songs and covers. But everything new from that time period I really enjoy. But suppose U2 had cut the live material and the film and just released a studio album - those things definitely helped garner a negative response. ZooTV ensued, and I am willing to sacrifice whatever could've been for that.
Note: One of my favourite album covers and titles.