Your U2 Order of Operations

[AnCatKatie]

I like this thread

Back when I was probably born and mostly around when I was six, Pride (In The Name Of Love), With Or Without You, All I Want Is You, Streets (my favorite) and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For were on the radio constantly. I was one of those kids who never knows band or song names, so it took until middle school for me to realize it was U2; my mom was like 'this band's U2, they have a really distinctive sound to their music' and now I find that hilarious...I remember not liking Desire or Mysterious Ways much, and New Years Day held a certain fascination for me, though for a long time I thought it was by another band.

I saw a clip of an ad for 'Vertigo' on TV when I was in middle school. Bono in glasses singing, I do believe, as usual. I liked that song but thought it was by a different band.

City Of Blinding Lights I heard in a movie and fell in love with, and heard on internet radio and bought, though I wasn't buying full albums back then. I got Vertigo, too.

I know I must have heard Gloria on the radio too...

Magnificent I heard in Italy in a restaurant about 2 years ago, and I knew it was U2 because of the guitar, and I loved the lyrics, but I only got that from the album. A year before I'd heard Sunday Bloody Sunday being essay-analyzed by a music class in the school I would be going to there, and thought the song had too much percussion.

Sometime last year I heard Sunday Bloody Sunday again and was amazed at all the energy in it, and that started Katie's U2 obsession. I bought No Line On The Horizon in May '10, hated it though I like it now, and then bought Boy and the love affair began. I now have everything but the Best Of albums.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Haha I used to be unsure of whether Gloria was U2 when I was young.

 

[AnCatKatie]

I never knew who did what, and was blissfully ignorant How embarrassing that is to me now...

 

[BlueSilkenSky]

There's not much to speak of for me. The chain went like this:
Where The Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet The Blue Sky
Running To Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God's Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers Of The Disappeared
...and after hearing all that I decided I really liked this band called U2. Though I was reluctant to name them as my top favorite band until I saw the live performance of Elevation from Slane Castle on YouTube. Then I watched more live from the DVD. Then I was like "Who cares about The Fray anymore?!" (my old favorite band)

 

[KiteKate]

I really liked the singles that were being released off HTDAAB, was given the album for my birthday, and have never looked back.

I think Beautiful Day and Miracle Drug really sealed it for me, though.

 

[Saracene]

Miss Sarajevo (from the concert in Bosnia) - for me it was all about Pavarotti but I did remember some guy in a beret who sang the verses

Mysterious Ways - it made me go out and buy the Best of 1980-90, though I was deeply disappointed that the song wasn't on it.

God Part II (Lovetown era) - I was watching U2 marathon on Rage late at night, and when during this live performance I saw Bono run and leap onstage with the lights exploding around him, I swear something just clicked in my brain. I think I can trace my later obsessive interest in U2 to this moment.

 

[2861U2]

I became a fan just after ATYCLB was released. Beautiful Day was playing non-stop on the radio. I had never heard of U2 and actually didn't like the song at first. Somehow hearing it a few more times, I fell in love with it. Then I started seeing the videos for Walk On, Elevation and Stuck on VH1, and I ended up getting the album for a birthday present when I turned 14.

A few months later, I did some research online and went out and bought what I understood as their two best albums, The Joshua Tree and The Unforgettable Fire- looking back I have no idea how I could have picked that one over Achtung, but whatever. My favorite songs off those two were Red Hill Mining Town, ISHFWILF, Pride and A Sort Of Homecoming.

I think right about that time is when the hour-long special from Slane Castle aired (on ABC, I think), and that pretty much sealed the deal. I owned all their albums up to that point within the next 18 months or so.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

Rattle & Hum was the first CD I ever owned, but only because a cooler older cousin listened to it a lot and he also got laid a lot and at 11 I wanted to be like him. Musically, at the time it didn't actually have that much of an impact on me. At all really. But I know I was also well aware of the JT singles around then, and earlier, as well.

But a couple of years later, at 13, everything is a bit different and you're ready to suddenly be "Oh...MUSIC! Wow!" and that was when the Order of Operations became:

The Fly
Achtung Baby (on the day it came out)
Sold.

 

[Laracious]

1. Who's Gonna Ride your Wild Horses video on Much Music late 1992 (age 11).
2. Achtung Baby for Christmas, as well as a few other band's tapes which I never listened to.
3. Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire for my birthday a couple weeks after Christmas, and that was it for me. Total obsession since 1992/early 1993.

 

[Acrobat51829]

1. Heard Beautiful Day on the radio in my sophomore year of high school, when I was about 15/16, in 2000.
2. Asked my mother who played it and if she had any more CDs of whoever that band was.
3. She gave me her cassette tapes of Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum.
4. I listened to Exit and reocgnized that same beautiful "ringing" sound in the guitar that had caught my ears in Beautiful Day. She told me it was just one person (plus effects). I began to think of that person as God himself (I would of course turn out to be right).
5. Listening to R&H, I recognized Pride, Still Haven't Found, and Streets from the radio. I read the lyrics closer and started to feel more of a connection to Bono & wanted to know more about him and his causes.
6. Over the summer - bought my first two U2 albums (CDs) - The Best of 1980-1990 and Achtung Baby. I stood in the CD section at Walmart and looked through the song lists on each CD. I recognized the most songs on Best Of, and I recognized Mysterious Ways and One on AB, so those were the two I wanted to spend my money on.
7. Went home and listened to Best Of. Liked the majority of the "radio" songs - was my first time hearing I Will Follow and TUF. Didn't like either of them; I dismissed them as "too 80s," especially TUF with its "weird synths."
8. Over the summer, I listened to AB several times. Didn't like it, didn't hate it. UTEOTW especially creeped me out. The only song I began to warm up to was Acrobat, which over time became my window into the rest of the album.
9. Bought Boy, October, and War. Checked the release date for Best of 1990-2000 when it came out in late 2002, went to the same Walmart to buy it + B-sides disc the day it was released. Became my first introduction to Zooropa and Pop songs, plus my first U2 remixes heard on the B-side disc.
10. Got Zooropa for Xmas 2002. Hated it. Put it away, didn't listen to it for about four years.
11. Summer 2003 - bought Pop and TUF albums in Canada while on vacation, completing my album collection then. Loved Pop immediately, from the very first bars of Discotheque. Didn't leave my Discman for the remainder of the trip.
12. I forget which Xmas it was, but it was around this time that I got the Slane DVD for Xmas. This was what sealed the deal for me; watching it was my "Oh, shit, I really am a U2 fan--I really really love this band" moment. It didn't leave my DVD player for about a month.
13. Nov. 2004 - VH1 streams tracks from Bomb on their website a week before the album's release. I rush home from college classes every day to listen to them, Love and Peace and Vertigo especially. Bought the super deluxe edition early morning on release day.
14. May 2005 - I try desparately to win tickets to U2's Vertigo Tour shows in Boston from the radio. I fail. I sulk.
15. Fall 2005 - Gone abroad for a college semester. My friend informs me we're going to see U2 in Hartford a few days after I return. Vertigo Hartford becomes my first U2 concert. It was freezing, we were in the rafters, and it was the greatest night I could imagine.
16. May 2007 - Graduate college, work a meaningless desk job for the summer til I begin grad school--discover U2start.com one day at work on a Google search while bored. Am introduced to the world of bootlegs and live U2 aside from the one concert I went to. Also my introduction to online U2 community. Both of these increased 200% up through and including now, and will only continue.
17. 2009 - Follow the Interference leak threads for NLOTH religiously, was "there" the moment it leaked, got it (thanks again), listened to it. Drove an hour to Somerville to their mini-show in March 2009 even though I didnt have tickets; waited two hours to see the band in the back, saw them up close and personal. Bought the album when released. Saw U2 360 Foxboro 1&2; waited in line from 9am each day. Got Edge side inside the circle night 1, and same position right against the outer rail on night 2. Amazing.
18. Now - the love continues.


Woops, little too long there. Sorry bout that.

 

[AnCatKatie]

2. Asked my mother who played it and if she had any more CDs of whoever that band was.
3. She gave me her cassette tapes of Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum.
4. I listened to Exit and reocgnized that same beautiful "ringing" sound in the guitar that had caught my ears in Beautiful Day. She told me it was just one person (plus effects). I began to think of that person as God himself (I would of course turn out to be right).

But a couple of years later, at 13, everything is a bit different and you're ready to suddenly be "Oh...MUSIC! Wow!"

I know what you mean...it was more like around 15 for me, though, unfortunately...before then, my music tastes were crap

 

[Acrobat51829]

I know what you mean...it was more like around 15 for me, though, unfortunately...before then, my music tastes were crap

Same here - before 15 yrs old, pre-U2, it was all "Backstreet's back, ALL RIGHT!" for me. Plus a little Third Eye Blind sometimes.

 

[Angel-Of-Harlem]

Yep. All of us went through that stage For me it were the Spice Girls and some local groups like that

 

[AnCatKatie]

Same here - before 15 yrs old, pre-U2, it was all "Backstreet's back, ALL RIGHT!" for me. Plus a little Third Eye Blind sometimes.

Oh no, Backstreet Boys Not related really, but I remember a girl in my kindergarten class went to an NSYNC concert and now I'm thinking that's pretty amusing since she was so little. ...I could have been to a U2 one, dammit...even though it was the 90s...

I liked Coldplay, which is a plus, since they're not bad. Before that I had a Kelly Clarkson stage...oh god...

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Same here - before 15 yrs old, pre-U2, it was all "Backstreet's back, ALL RIGHT!" for me. Plus a little Third Eye Blind sometimes.

Haha, N Sync, Back Street Boys, Britney Spears. They might all be just awful, but since I grew up with them I cant actually hate it. When I hear it, I sing it.

 

[AnCatKatie]

Unfortunately true for me as well kind of love hate, though.

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Haha absolutely, just because it's a part of my youth and such. I do love Blink-182 though, and they're part of my youth that's stuck with me.

 

[ultraviolet92]

my neighbour down the road bought me all that you cant leave behind
i loved it but never really listened to any of their other stuff that much
i always knew vertigo, one, sbs, with or without, sweetest thing desire but i never really took much care into them

i saw achtung baby for 15 bucks and i was reading in this issue of rolling stone how this is one of the three masterpiece albums they've written (ALTYCLB being one) i thought why not get AB.
it took a while to get into it but then i got so obsessed with it loving songs like wild horses and acrobat then a month later i bought joshua tree and i heard streets.
then i joined interference and got far too obsessed

 

[Serena Vox]

1. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
(Aged 4.)

2. Pride (In the Name Of Love)
(Aged 4-12)

3. Beautiful Day
(Aged 12-13)

4. Beautiful Day (with Green Day)
(Aged 19)

5. Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
(Aged 19, via searching them out)

6. One Step Closer
(Aged 19, buying albums)

I owned The Joshua Tree when I was a kid but I had so many CDs floating around that were mine, my mother's and my siblings that I don't really remember being a super hardcore fan following them closely, but just buying their albums. I went a while without hearing much about them until I was 12, got All That You Can't Leave Behind, and it disappeared with my CD collection due to unfortunate circumstances and I once again didn't really look into them again until I saw the performance at the Superdome.