Speaking of album rankings....doing LN7's survey shook a few things up for me, and now that I've refreshed my thoughts on SOE, I'm gonna do one for New Year's Eve. I'll make it a little more interesting by giving each album an award(or awards)...
14. No Line On The Horizon
Award: Most Compromised
Could've been brilliant, but instead is one of the great what-ifs in the U2 catalogue. Still, contains a handful of really great tracks.
13. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
Award: Most Safe, Most Unambitious
12. SOI/SOE(Tie)
Award: Most Unfairly Maligned, Most Poorly Promoted
Bad single choices all around in both cases, and the former was savaged for reasons having nothing to do with the music.
11. All That You Can't Leave Behind
Award: Most Soulful, Most Easy-Listening, Most Stripped-down
10. October
Award: Most Raw, Most Desperate
By desperate, I mean desperate for inner peace, desperate for understanding of themselves and the world, desperate for reconciliation between their spirituality/faith and being in a rock band.
9. Passengers
Award: Most Avant-garde, Most Out-There
8. Pop
Award: Most Hard, Most Dark, Most Dense, Most Misunderstood
Pop was once in my top 5. The fact that it's down here now doesn't at all mean that my positive opinion of it has changed, but rather that other albums have risen in my estimation. Pop is still awesome.
7. Rattle And Hum(studio stuff only)
Award: Most Bluesy, Most Reverent, Most Underappreciated(for its studio tracks)
I'll be honest, listening to Hawkmoon and Heartland and Van Diemen's Land for the survey allowed this one to move up a little, and it very nearly overtook War. Those tracks, God Part II, the singles...good shit.
6. War
Award: Most Energetic, Most Fiery
5. Boy
Award: Most Cohesive, Most Wide-eyed, Most Euphoric
I've gone back and forth a lot between this and War, but for me, the cohesiveness here wins. War is tremendous and exciting, it's more sophisticated and stylistically diverse, and it's got several tracks that are better than anything here - SBS, NYD, even Drowning Man - but this record has an incredible cohesiveness to it. I suppose it is easy to be cohesive when it's your first record and you really only have one musical color on your palette, but still, it results in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts are pretty damn good more often than not. It is a wide-eyed, innocent, euphoric record, and the Lord Of The Flies reference in Shadows fits well because the whole album seems to have an almost fairy-tale like quality to it, imo.
4. Zooropa
Award: Most Bold, Most Confident, Most "Fuck Up The Mainstream"
I used to have Pop higher, but it has fallen a bit whereas Zooropa has stayed high up. Pop is largely brilliant, but there is a sense that it sags a little under its own weight. Zooropa has a leanness, a buoyancy to it. It floats. They've never sounded more sure of themselves.
3. Joshua Tree
Award: Most Iconic, Most Cinematic, Most Anthemic
Absolutely iconic, beautiful, epic album. Just suffers a bit from being overplayed. Just a bit though.
2. Unforgettable Fire
Award: Most Atmospheric, Most Symphonic, Most Transportative, Most Inspired
Has steadily climbed my rankings over the years, has been top 5 for awhile, and has now risen all the way to #2. Probably will never overtake Achtung, but #2 isn't bad. Takes me to another place like few other records do.
1. Achtung Baby
Award: Most Everything
Still my #1 album of all time.