The Worst of U2 1980-2015

[kabigon]

Edge is now a space cowboy

Some people call him the space cowboy
Some call him the gangster of love
Some people call him Maurice

 

[U2DMfan]

I love Shadows and Tall Trees and Another Time, Another Place. Boy is remarkably consistent.

To be fair, I'd wager I haven't heard either song in about 10 years. I could potentially be convinced on the merits of Another Time after all these years...But Shadows and Tall Trees has always been among their 3 or 4 worst songs, IMO.

Never been a huge fan of Boy. Never understood the 21st century resurgence in appreciation. With a few exceptions, it's pretty amateurish overall. If taken in context, I give it a lot of credit for a debut for a bunch of guys who didn't know what they were doing. If appraising it just as a piece of music like any other...I'd only rank October and Bomb below it.

 

[LemonMelon]

Couldn't disagree more, but that's ok. Being released in the heyday of post-punk, I hear more ambition, energy and finesse in those recordings than many of their peers and even compared to some canonical works it holds up by virtue of its wide-eyed lyricism and youthful passion. That traumatic era brought a lot of good writing out of Bono.

Time has treated Boy very well and it has seen a resurgence in popularity because of its execution. A band in their teens not only attempted An Cat Dubh/Into the Heart, but made it sound fluid. Holy shit.

It doesn't hurt that Steve Lillywhite was a real talent back then. He worked on Peter Gabriel 3 that same year.

 

[Oregoropa]

Another Time Another Place is an early U2 gem. Really love that track

 

[Mack_Again]

Some people call him the space cowboy
Some call him the gangster of love
Some people call him Maurice

Cause he's a picker
He's a grinner
He's a lover
And He's a sinner
He plays his music in the sun

 

[Nate Dogg]

2 Shots of Happy is awesome!!!One of my favorite b-sides.


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[Oregoropa]

Crazy Tonight was playing at my gym today and it's a happy song. Love Edge's Irish jingle guitar solo. It's just out of place on NLOTH.

 

[mikal]

Crazy Tonight was playing at my gym today and it's a happy song. Love Edge's Irish jingle guitar solo. It's just out of place on NLOTH.

Agreed. I actually heard it at a bar last summer which was very odd. It actually sounded great in a public setting. Just makes me furious that it was placed on what was supposed to be an atmospheric album.

So furious that I made my own version of NLOTH and made a separate EP with NLOTH 2, Crazy and Boots. SUC can choke on a dick.

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[BVS]

Crazy Tonight was playing at my gym today and it's a happy song. Love Edge's Irish jingle guitar solo. It's just out of place on NLOTH.

You and I will agree here. With the exception of that weird falsetto part, it's a good fun playful song. I actually don't hate Boots either, it's actually not bad it just suffers from a weird lyric. But SUC sucks. And all three don't fit on the album.


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[Axver]

Going chronologically, here's a U2:18 that would make you want to rip your ears off:

1. Red Light
2. Trip Through Your Wires
3. Love Rescue Me
4. A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel
5. So Cruel
6. Babyface
7. Elvis Ate America
8. Miami
9. Stuck in a Moment
10. In a Little While
11. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
12. Original of the Species
13. Yahweh
14. Get on Your Boots
15. Stand Up Comedy
16. Breathe
17. The Miracle
18. California

B-sides were B-sides for a reason.

Yes, that reason being that U2 often don't know when they've recorded a great song. It's criminal that the likes of Love Comes Tumbling, Luminous Times, Spanish Eyes, Boomerang II, Lady With the Spinning Head, North and South of the River, etc. were left to languish as b-sides while almost all the shitty tracks I've named above made it onto albums.

 

[mikal]

Though I guess SUC did produce one of my best posts ever.

http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f189/stand-back-people-201891-5.html#post6419792

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[Oregoropa]

I actually don't hate Boots either, it's actually not bad it just suffers from a weird lyric.


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I've got submarine you got gasoline, I don't want to talk about wars between the nations . . . AT LEAST RIGHT NOW

I cringe at that lyric. Bono's self-awareness just comes across as being super pretentious

 

[BVS]

I've got submarine you got gasoline, I don't want to talk about wars between the nations . . . AT LEAST RIGHT NOW



I cringe at that lyric. Bono's self-awareness just comes across as being super pretentious

I never understood why "self-awareness" in a song is so off putting to some.

Although I never saw that lyric as being so.

It was more the chorus that killed this song.


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[Kieran McConville]

Going chronologically, here's a U2:18 that would make you want to rip your ears off:

1. Red Light
2. Trip Through Your Wires
3. Love Rescue Me
4. A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel
5. So Cruel
6. Babyface
7. Elvis Ate America
8. Miami
9. Stuck in a Moment
10. In a Little While
11. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
12. Original of the Species
13. Yahweh
14. Get on Your Boots
15. Stand Up Comedy
16. Breathe
17. The Miracle
18. California

I disagree with every single pre-2000 entry on your list. In fact if I'd never heard of U2 in my entire life, 'So Cruel' could put me halfway on the track to finding out more.

 

[Axver]

I disagree with every single pre-2000 entry on your list. In fact if I'd never heard of U2 in my entire life, 'So Cruel' could put me halfway on the track to finding out more.

You disagree with Love Rescue Me, Miami, Elvis Ate America, and A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel? (Never mind that Miami was good live.)

I probably fell asleep the first time I heard So Cruel.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Yes, yes I do. I'll give you Red Light maybe, but those others are quality.

 

[Axver]

Think about what you're saying, Kieran.

 

[Kieran McConville]

There is only one rattle and hum era song I truly dislike, and it's 'When Love Comes To Town', and maybe also 'Hallelujah Here She Comes'. The rest resonate to one extent or another.

A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel was a bside for a reason (for once), but it's a good one. As for your nineties submissions, I can't take them seriously. Let's single out an album track that isn't the greatest thing they ever did, but which still works excellently in context? Nope. Can't roll with that. Would a casual nobody 'get' Elvis Ate America? No, and fuck 'em.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I think (setting side Miami etc), you maybe just don't like slow-burn ballads.

 

[kabigon]

1. With a Shout (Jerusalem)
2. Red Light
3. Silver And Gold
4. Drunk Chicken/America
5. Van Diemen's Land
6. Love Rescue Me
7. When Love Comes to Town
8. Some Days Are Better Than Others
9. Corpse (These Chains are Way too Long)
10. Elvis Ate America
11. Viva Davidoff
12. New York
13. The Saints Are Coming
14. Get on Your Boots
15. Stand Up Comedy
16. Song For Someone

 

[Mack_Again]

So Cruel is amazing, what are you talking about, Ax?

 

[Axver]

Kabigon makes a good call with Drunk Chicken/America. Also, I completely forgot about Song For Someone, which surely says something. Replace The Miracle with it on my list.

I think (setting side Miami etc), you maybe just don't like slow-burn ballads.

Hard to call those ballads slow-burning when nothing, in fact, burns. Something like WOWY, which isn't exactly fast-paced, is in my top thirty (despite its over-exposure). A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel is completely unbearable, especially with the backing vocals; So Cruel I concede has good lyrics but it manages to be simultaneously over-wrought and boring; Babyface is flat-out creepy; Elvis Ate America was the most cringe-inducing thing U2 had ever done until, oh I don't know, "stop helping god across the road like a little old lady" or thereabouts.

And, for the record, I enjoy both When Love Comes to Town and Hallelujah Here She Comes. Neither is especially notable, but nor do they deserve derision. I've always been surprised by the hatred for WLCTT on here. I recall it doing rather well and lingering for quite a while on radio.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Kabigon makes a good call with Drunk Chicken/America. Also, I completely forgot about Song For Someone, which surely says something. Replace The Miracle with it on my list.



Hard to call those ballads slow-burning when nothing, in fact, burns. Something like WOWY, which isn't exactly fast-paced, is in my top thirty (despite its over-exposure). A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel is completely unbearable, especially with the backing vocals; So Cruel I concede has good lyrics but it manages to be simultaneously over-wrought and boring; Babyface is flat-out creepy; Elvis Ate America was the most cringe-inducing thing U2 had ever done until, oh I don't know, "stop helping god across the road like a little old lady" or thereabouts.

And, for the record, I enjoy both When Love Comes to Town and Hallelujah Here She Comes. Neither is especially notable, but nor do they deserve derision. I've always been surprised by the hatred for WLCTT on here. I recall it doing rather well and lingering for quite a while on radio.

We will have to agree to disagree.

A song like Love Rescue Me? Plenty burns. It's more of a genre effort than a lot of their ballady songs (the aforementioned With or Without you for instance), and I wouldn't care to hear an album based on that approach, but it's fine.

Babyface is meant to be creepy. The lyrics to Elvis Ate America are miles ahead of any of those 2000s clunkers, while it is certainly not the most serious effort ever, song-wise. But it's got a swagger about it that I can definitely get on board with. Plus it's actually about something (Elvis), as opposed to being Bono's napkin notes in between meetings at Davos.

I cannot consider So Cruel to be overwrought. It is simply sublime in its despair.

 

[Axver]

Normally I'd be with you that a song actually about something would be superior to Bono's Davos napkin notes, but when the result is Elvis Ate America I'll take the napkin notes. I've long considered Elvis the worst song with which U2 are associated. Yes, even ahead of all their 2000s drivel.

But to be fair if you told me I had to cut eight songs from my list, probably only a couple of the pre-2000s songs would remain. There's no doubt that most of the Worst of U2 1980-2015 can be found in the last fifteen years of that period.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Normally I'd be with you that a song actually about something would be superior to Bono's Davos napkin notes, but when the result is Elvis Ate America I'll take the napkin notes. I've long considered Elvis the worst song with which U2 are associated. Yes, even ahead of all their 2000s drivel.

But to be fair if you told me I had to cut eight songs from my list, probably only a couple of the pre-2000s songs would remain. There's no doubt that most of the Worst of U2 1980-2015 can be found in the last fifteen years of that period.

Yes, I'm probably over-egging my enthusiasm for Elvis Ate America a little bit, for effect. I genuinely do quite enjoy it, but I don't mean to sound like I'd die in a ditch for it.

If I had to make a worst of list (wait! I already did!), maybe one or two songs from their prime era would make it. Maybe.

Shit, someone above nominated Silver and Gold. Silver and Gold is on freaking fire.

 

[kabigon]

Simmers, singes and smoulders maybe, but not on fire.

 

[Kieran McConville]

The guitar in the chorus is like sheet lightning in my brain.

 

[LemonMelon]

Silver and Gold is about 100 times more exciting to me than anything on SOI at least. They've completely forgotten how to make a rocker. Silver and Gold doesn't have a great melody, but it crackles and moves.

 

[Kieran McConville]

It has a great groove is what it has.

 

[Axver]

It even has THE BLUES!