Which U2 era is the best?

I actually really like No Line on the Horizon.
I know, I... yeah. Good stuff.

lol

Probably Joshua Tree timing.

Joshua Tree is fantastic but I do love All That You Can't Leave Behind so I'm split between the two.....Late 80's is where it is at

"The Unforgettable Fire" is a great album but U2 really shined in "The Joshua Tree".

@coribald: I do love that, but it'll never not bug me when people use the phrase "ATM Machine."

Mid to late 80's U2, although I love achtung baby.

probably the White Album

I feel like after War came out, Bono's main concern shifted from making good music to figuring out how to most effectively blow himself.

i think i like achtung baby/zooropa/pop era the most- if only because it really demonstrated their artistic worth. it probably doesn't have their 'best' songs, but god damn what a bold change in direction. i love it when artists take risks.

and that's when the edge's sonic palette started getting really interesting. as a guy who loves to manipulate guitar sounds, it's my bread and butter.

Isn't The Joshua Tree consensually considered to be their best album?

among critics and historians- absolutely. but like most bands with large, quality backlogs...you could argue till you get blue in the face.

@snail said:

War, Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby are usually regarded as their three best with Joshua Tree being the most significant release.

I'm not really a fan of the band, but find myself partial to War. I have my dad's old beat-up copy of the album on vinyl and it sounds gnarly in a way I kinda like, so maybe that has something to do with it.

@funkasaurasrex: War is just a gnarly album in general. Joshua Tree had some really great songs, but it also marked a move away from post punk and towards a more stadium-friendly sound. YMMV with that stuff - I just gag at stadium rock, but that's me.

I can't pick one so I will go with all of them.

I think 90s-era U2 is by far the best. I like the 80s stuff okay, but I think it's awesome that a band that was so incredibly popular took a huge risk with Achtung Baby, and they only got crazier from there. Zoo TV was freakin' nuts.

I was really disappointed when ATYCLB brought them back to the stadium-rock stuff, and recently it seems like they're more interested in money than anything else. Who knows what kind of music they could be making now if they had stayed as creative as they were back then.

Yeah I'm kind of on the same wavelength. Whenever I hear about one of U2's ostentatious never-ending sold-out stadium tours I just sorta roll my eyes. That said there's some arena rock that's a-OK with me; I unironically love the shit out of Cheap Trick's At Budokan.

Joshua Tree era, with the latest era as a close second. No Line on the Horizon was a surprisingly good album, despite being marred by its first single.

Miami on Pop is a terrible song that I am completely obsessed with.

I also think "Rattle and Hum" gets a bit of flak for being pretentious but there is stellar stuff on that album too. It has my favorite version of "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "All I Want Is You".

I don't know how anyone could support Bono, considering his bullshit ONE Campaign. Disgusting human being.

"...it's just Bono onstage - the stadium's deserted, the band fades away - and the message, his message, once vague, now gets more powerful and he's nodding at me and I'm nodding back, everything getting clearer, my body alive and burning, on fire, and from nowhere a flash of white and blinding light envelopes me and I hear it, can actually feel, can even make out the letters of the message hovering above Bono's head in orange wavy letters: 'I...am...the...devil...and I am...just...like...you...'"

-Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

...the good one?

@apparatus_unearth said:

The one where they pulled a Spinal Tap? Beh. U2. If it wasn't for that Spinal tap moment I don't think I would even be here. About the only good thing I can say about them is that their guitar player knows how to work a delay pedal.

whatever. the man's a capitalist in the purest sense- for better or worse. he certainly is self-righteous, egotistical, and preachy at times...but he's also spent a large amount of his own time on humanitarian causes. more than i certainly have. the one campaign is ill-advised, granted- but welcome to the world of charity. there's mismanagement and extravagance in all corners. and i think it's exceedingly easy to be critical of those who have great success and wealth. there are plenty of others of similar wealth (steve jobs, for example) who largely avoid philanthropy entirely. yes- perhaps they're less patronizing. but i'd rather have a loud mouth hypocrite doing some good work, than a uninvolved aristocrat.

besides- forgetting everything else- the man has an incredible set of pipes.

Every time I read U2 I think of Ultra 2 from Super Street Fighter IV.

The era in which they made that song for Batman Forever. I like that song.

I'm not gonna pretend that i remember in which order the words in the title go.

Joshua Tree. I mean, that's it for me. It's one of the best albums ever made and it holds up remarkably well. I dislike where they went after that, but for that album alone, I'll always consider them to be one of my favorite bands.

I'm disappointed there isn't a "Fuck U2" option.

War is pretty much the only U2 album I go back to regularly. I prefer the raw post-punk feel to the ultra-polished boring crap they put out after that.

Me too, that's what I came in here to choose.

I'm partial to "All That You Can't Leave Behind", but I have to acknowledge that "Joshua Tree" is probably the best thing that they've done.

I enjoy their music but everything surrounding that band is insufferable. I don't even know where to start, so much shit to wade through with U2 outside their music. Fuck U2.