Does U2 pick certain songs for certain track numbers?

[AchtungJedi]

Does it seem like U2 picks certain types of songs for certain track numbers? To me, it seems like track 5 almost invariably gets an emotional/ballad-type song. Staring at the Sun is jarringly off-key in that arrangement, but going back through Joshua Tree, you have Running to Stand Still, Wild Horses, Stay and Kite. All of them are excellent songs (in my view, anyway), and they all have a similar kind of essence to them.

The closing track (whichever number it happens to be) would seem to be the most obvious number, getting Mothers of the Disappeared, Love is Blindness, Wake Up Dead Man and Grace. The Wanderer is a similarly off-key song amongst those, but that's okay.

Any thoughts on that?

 

[typhoon]

The track around five is usually something like that because it's often the end of the first side of the album on vinyl (and cassette, I guess). I know few people get their music on vinyl these days, but I think a lot of people--musicians especially--still think in that dynamic, where an album has two sides with two different musical climaxes.

 

[Reggie Thee Dog]

Pure coincidence in my opinion, but it makes for interesting thinking.

 

[Red Ships of Scalla-Festa]

definitely its put in consideration. in writing a book in chapters, would you just toss chapter 11 after chapter three for the heck of it? ofcourse not.

 

[Rafiennes]

I think U2 has always had the 'begining-middle-end' idea for all of their albums. Strong start, wile trip through the middle and the ending is usually something retrospective.

They're by far one of the best with the format

 

[celia]

The songs have to flow in my opinion...I like the beginning , middle and end comment