Every U2 Album, Ranked Best To Worst
This was inevitable. Some day, with a little luck, I’ll get to contribute to a canonical ranking on Vox.com, but I’ve been thinking about U2 so much for the last few weeks and after I finally got to publish words online about them, I thought I’d start workshopping my feelings.
My story: Grew up with U2 (THE JOSHUA TREE and RATTLE & HUM specifically) and they are, without question, my favorite band. I get why they annoy people, especially these days, but I think they’ve had a remarkable career (25 years of legitimate relevance) and proved themselves capable of great works of art.
I love music, but I haven’t written about it much. U2 is the one band I feel total authority to discuss. This is my website. So without further ado…
1. The Joshua Tree (1987)
Unassailable. U2 summoned everything that is true about themselves — their affection for ecclesiastical anthem rock, guileless emotion, and genuine fascination with the United States—and turned it into an album that will live forever.
The classics on Side 1 speak for themselves, but Side 2 is stronger than you remember. “Red Hill Mining Town” is the forgotten U2 epic, “Trip Through Your Wires” might be their best appropriation of bluesy American rock, “One Tree Hill” is gorgeous and its segue into the ferocious “Exit” is as good as track sequencing gets. It’s slyly political, a condemnation of Reagan’s America.
The Edge fine-tuned the expansive guitar work he unveiled on THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE into something more vital, and Bono was as good as he would ever be. This record earned its place in the rock pantheon.
Best song: “Running To Stand Still” is a haunting yet serene story of addiction following the album’s enormous openers.
Worst song: “In God’s Country” improves in the live setting — check LIVE FROM PARIS, a lesser-known live recording that is as good as the better-loved ones—but it’s probably the least distinct, most forgettable song in the studio.
2. Zooropa (1993)
Hear me out: As brilliant a career reinvention as ACHTUNG BABY was, the musical payoff didn’t come until ZOOROPA. On the band’s least-remembered, least-U2 album, they exorcised themselves of all the baggage that comes with being U2. They were almost unrecognizable. This is basically a science fiction concept album, and it ends with a Johnny Cash feature.
Yet there is still a core of what always made U2 great here: They find an elevated plane again, it just doesn’t sound at all like it used to. The existential ecstasy in the second half of the opener “Zooropa”, the lovesickness of “Stay”, the poignancy on “The First Time” are the kind of big notes that only U2 is so convincing in hitting — but they deliver them with a totally new sound.
Their infatuation with the United States has always made them seem like adopted sons of America, but this is a European band too and they achieved a total sonic reorientation on this record.
Maybe the pop songs are missing, as Bono said, but ZOOROPA proved U2 would try anything — and they could pull anything off.
Best song: “The First Time”. The quiet and earnest and emotional catharsis on Track 8 is what really pulls the whole album together. I wish I could have co-winners, because “Zooropa” is an audacious electronica reimagining of their earlier epics.
Worst song: “Babyface”. It works with the concept, I guess (a hokey love ballad to digitized women), but this is a borderline throwaway song.
3. War (1983)
There isn’t a weak point on WAR, which is its greatest strength. This is when U2 really started to define their own sound, and Bono’s youth and energy matched his righteous anger about the state of the world (and the state of the world matched his anger). THE JOSHUA TREE is more political than it seems on the surface, but WAR will always be their rebel record.
Larry Mullen Jr.’s drums rip through the whole album. Even the deep cuts — I’m thinking of “Refugee” and “Drowning Man”, a personal favorite—have a vivacity. I don’t need to sell “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day”, while “40” found the band really figuring out how to make a softer touch work for them for the first time. It would close their tours for years, fans chanting as the band members left the stage. Mullen and his drums left last.
“Under A Blood Red Sky” — a live EP from the War Tour — really launched the legend of U2 as an all-time great live act. The show at Red Rocks in Denver, the subject of an accompanying concert film, is an important moment in their career.
Best song: “Like A Song”. The less-heralded banger on Side 1 might also be the best by adding some self-awareness.
Worst song: “Refugee” probably? It’s a little goofy in isolation, though as a palette cleanser from an otherwise very somber album, it still works.
4. Achtung Baby (1991)
For the record, I think U2 has made four unimpeachable classics, so this is not really a dig at ACHTUNG BABY. The aural evolution here is everything that everybody has said it is and will say it was for the rest of time. The following 10 years would be defined by the band’s dance infatuations, but it was here, on “Mysterious Ways” and “Until the End of the World”, they best harnessed it.
They also embraced the darkness that had, until now, only surfaced on occasion. “Acrobat” is probably their heaviest song, and then the whole record ends on a note of unimaginable sadness with “Love Is Blindness”. It isn’t always so serious, though: “So Cruel”, an oft-neglected track, is a nice mix of emotional turmoil paired with an extremely listenable groove. “The Fly” is downright dumb but harmlessly fun. They could still pull that off back then.
“One” needs no elaboration — but it was a reminder that they were still tethered to being U2. That bond would only break completely on ZOOROPA, written and recorded during the over-amped tour that supported ACHTUNG BABY.
Best song: “Ultraviolet” always does it for me. The mix of hope and hopelessness defines the record’s emotional state. “Baby, baby, baby/Light my way.” These songs have great melodies and hooks.
Worst song: “Who’s Gonna Run Your Wild Horses” has some nice moments, but it feels oddly shapeless and unfinished considering how fully realized the rest of the album is.
5. The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
We’re now in the good-but-not-quite-classic tier. There are at least three bonafide stunners on this record: “Pride (In the Name of Love)”, “A Sort Of Homecoming”, and “Bad”. Live versions of the latter can make the case for being the absolute best music that U2 has ever played in any setting. (I would recommend the “Bad” rendition on WIDE AWAKE IN AMERICA, for starters.)
The ambient soundscapes (with an assist from Brian Eno) were a necessary transition to the career peak they achieved on THE JOSHUA TREE. But there are some pretty forgettable stretches on THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE, where that willingness to experiment renders the music inert. I am more likely to call up a live version of its better songs than listen to the whole thing front to back.
Best song: On the album, probably “Pride”.
Worst song: I’ve been on a weeks-long U2 binge, and I couldn’t tell you what “Indian Summer Sky” sounds like.
6. Songs of Innocence
I’m now convinced this is rather good album, tainted (fairly or not) by its release strategy.
These songs have real bite and lift. The sequence is sort of brilliant: from nouveau U2 hits (or at least catchy, radio-ready singles) to a string of nice throwback rockers to an ending that’s a little darker and different and defies anything we’ve heard from the band before. The thematic cohesion — Bono’s lyrics are an improvement on most of the rest of his 2000s writing — helps to knit those sounds together. (I also like that it’s 11 songs, just about the right length for a U2 record and shorter than its maybe slighted bloated follow-up.)
I can think of two reasons for the mixed reaction. The release strategy is the obvious culprit and, you know, whatever. I get it, I guess, but I’m not the right audience for your complaints.
The second explanation is a few songs — I’m thinking of “Iris” and “Raised by Wolves” specifically — are good but sound a bit unfinished. They feel like they could be fuller. It’s the Unforgettable Fire Syndrome.
But on balance, I think the first SONGS record’s reputation doesn’t comport to its actual quality as a piece of music.
7. All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)
The comeback from the dance doldrums that we haven’t covered yet. These are just really nice, catchy songs: “Beautiful Day”, “Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” and “Walk On” were proof-positive U2 could still make hits and make it sound effortless.
Some people don’t love the back half of this album, and it’s undoubtedly weaker than the first, but “When I Look At The World” and “Grace” are really strong. On the other hand, “New York” is definitely one of their worst songs ever. Plodding, awkward lyrics and a bland guitar riff. Bono is losing it a little bit.
But this is most of a genuinely great album and shouldn’t be lost as an artistic achievement just because of what came before and after.
Best song: “In A Little While” is maybe U2’s best pop love song, in the running with “Sweetest Thing”.
Worst song: Seriously, “New York” is so terrible. The guys on the “U Talkin’ U2 To Me” podcast (a must if you’re a fan of them and absurd meta-humor) put it well: Part of this album’s story is it landed shortly before 9/11 and U2 was still truly galactic and they were the right band for that moment.
If this song had been any good at all, it would have been huge. But it sucks. So it wasn’t.
8. Songs of Experience (2017)
I have to give the U Talkin’ U2 To Me? guys some sincere credit. I blew through their episodes and, once they got to these albums, they loved them. So I decided to give the SONGS records another try.
I’m now convinced that they might have the band’s goodbye. And a pretty damn good one.
While the first entry saw U2 still striving for something new, the second is content to sound, as Adam Scott Aukerman put it, like a greatest hits version of itself. They are four guys, with a microphone, guitars and drums and they know just enough about technology to be dangerous.
The hooks are strong. The sound is so big. Bono reflects on his mortality, having always been a little preoccupied with death and having lived a large life. There are some nice lyrical recalls to INNOCENCE.
The meat of the album is really rocking, even loose and light at times, but it begins and ends on two soft, more melancholy notes in “Love Is All We Have Left” and “13 (There is a Light).
The latter is a sequel to “40”, the fan’s fan’s favorite, which ended their shows for years in a kind of choral chant. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last full album they ever release.
9. Boy (1980)
BOY is just stubbornly solid. The very early U2 period is probably the least interesting to me because the post-punk influences they were channeling are not among my favorites. But some of these songs are too good to be ignored. They showed up almost fully formed.
“I Will Follow” laid the groundwork for what would come later. “Out Of Control” is simply joyful music. “An Cat Dubh” is admirably adventurous for a debut album. “The Electric Co.” finds another gear live.
Even a relative deep cut like “A Day Without Me” exhibits exceptional songwriting. I think U2, since they’ve become a caricature of themselves, don’t get enough credit as great songwriters. This is one of the most distinct lead guitarists of all time, backed by a dynamite rhythm section, and led by one of the most outlandish vocalists in rock history, one whose lyricism was truly moving and evocative and immediate at its best.
Best song: I don’t think they made another song that really sounds like “An Cat Dubh” and its transition into the soulful “Into the Heart” demonstrated these guys were not just making music, they wanted to make art.
Worst song: Maybe “Another Time, Another Place” isn’t so bad, but it hasn’t managed to take up any space in my memory bank.
10. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2004)
Same story as its predecessor — strong first half, weaker second half—but even more extreme. “Vertigo” rocks, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own” is quite beautiful, and “City Of Blinding Lights” is possibly their best latter-day anthem. I mean, Barack Obama did use it for his 2008 presidential campaign.
But “A Man And A Woman” is such a jarring transition after a solid first half that the album, as a cohesive piece of music, kind of falls apart. I can still be convinced there are some good songs on that second half— and I like “One Step Closer” a lot—but the fears that U2 couldn’t put together a great record anymore were and are legitimate.
11. October (1981)
OCTOBER feels a lot like treading the waters of BOY — except, if you ask me, for “Tomorrow”.
For as good as their debut was, there wasn’t really an emotional showstopper. But on “Tomorrow”, a wrenching ballad written about the day Bono’s mother died when he was 11, the singer found the register that would deliver some of his best performances for the rest of their career.
There are a couple of other good songs here—“Gloria” is rightfully immortal thanks to the Red Rocks set—and you can feel them starting to break out from being a Ramones knockoff. It would just take another record to finish the job.
Best song: “Tomorrow” is in their all-time top 10.
Worst song: “Is That All?” These guys have some classic final tracks, so the rare flat one sticks out.
12. Pop (1997)
If I’ve just listened to it, and I’m feeling particularly contrarian, I can think of a case for POP. But the truth is I just hate a few of these tracks. “Miami” is the worst song they’ve put on an album, I think, clunky and dull: It’s actually so bad that it ruins the next song, “The Playboy Mansion”, for me. I think there is maybe a good song there, but, in sequence, it falls apart.
A couple songs are worthwhile, though. “Please”—especially a live version from the Netherlands that then transitions into “Where The Streets Have No Name”—should be considered a U2 classic. Affectively despairing. “Gone” is good, too. I can dig “Last Night on Earth.” Depending on the day, I either hate or really love “Mofo”—their most dance song ever— and I’m not sure I’ll ever decide.
It doesn’t help POP’s case that the last few songs, “Please” excepting, are uninspiring. Not quite the all-out disaster its reputation might suggest, but they definitely overplayed the ironic disco bit. These guys have a tendency to overdo it. Did you not notice?
Best song: “Please” really is that good. The live version on the POPMART EP is otherworldly.
Worst song: “Miami” is irredeemable. Not even a nugget of a good idea.
13. Rattle & Hum (1988)
I like some of the original songs on RATTLE & HUM. “Hawkmoon 269” is almost an abstraction of the Joshua Tree sound. “Heartland” is effective. “God Part II” — especially if you ignore the John Lennon backstory—serves as a nice preview of the Achtung Baby overhaul and has one of my favorite Bono lines: “Don’t believe in riches/But you should see where I live.”
I grew up on this record, so I’m biased. But I get why it doesn’t work for people. Appropriating has always been part of the U2 style—they basically started as a copy of the Ramones, at least in Bono’s mind—but it’s a little more explicit than usual on here. Some of it works better in the movie, when you can see BB King make fun of Bono backstage. But I get it.
And some of it is… whatever. “Helter Skelter” doesn’t bother me so much because it’s a Beatles song but because it sounds kind of lifeless when done by U2. The message is also not quite coherent: They did this on POP too, where they know what they want to talk about but they aren’t sure what exactly they are trying to say about it.
This probably should have been an EP. What’s frustrating is, in their earlier years, they would have known that. But instead they released an 18-song album and they tried to put a dang movie in the movie theaters. It was all a little much.
14. No Line on the Horizon (2009)
Let me talk about “Moment of Surrender”. U2 can be a religious—you could even say psychedelic—experience. I grew up in the church, grew up familiar with that kind of experience. U2 makes no secret of its spiritual feelings. They almost broke the band up in its early years if you believe the stories. These guys can find that level, if you can get on their wave length. You see it at their live shows. It’s like worship. It’s not for everybody, and that’s fine.
They can still achieve transcendence. “Moment of Surrender” — a seven-minute hymn, another song about addiction—is as divine as any music they have ever produced. I actually hold out hope for one last great U2 album on the basis of this song alone.
I also dig the transition into “Unknown Caller”. They were working with Eno again and they were frantically, almost recklessly searching for their muse.
But some of the songs are just… blegh. “Get On Your Boots” is indefensible, grotesque. Others are just uninspired.
But I appreciate that they were trying to find something. God, maybe. It was just vague, undefined and they don’t sound like they found it. They wouldn’t strive this hard again for the next decade. They retreated to the safer spaces of simply being U2.
Which is fine. But let’s be honest: It’s been a full 25 years since U2 put out a truly essential record.
They’re still great live, though.
