People like U2 because they perceive their music as uplifting.

I don’t actually like U2. But I’m going to write this answer from the angle of why people like them, because I understand now why I don’t like them, and it’s not necessarily their fault.

So I’m not going to argue that people shouldn’t like them. I’m going to confine myself to my own observations of why people do like them.

U2 started out as a very earnest band, inspired by punk but not actually punk themselves, and the thing about them that attracted people to them in the first place was a sort of passionate seriousness, a sense that they were singing about things that mattered, and that they meant what they sang, without any sort of coating of protective irony.

Their early stuff is clumsy (I think even diehard fans would admit this) but they’re never just pissing about, like some post-punk bands, or being deliberately opaque, like others (The Fall come to mind.) They sang and played like they meant it, and the songs that they wrote had a sort of obviousness about them, so that you didn’t have to hunt around for what they might mean.

Even Bono’s dramatic, rather breathy early singing style signalled their seriousness. He had a definite tendency in their early stuff to show how passionate he was, to make a sort of display of sincerity.

This reached a rather absurd (IMO) climax in the early 80s (I know I said I wouldn’t criticise them but, come on, I’m human) when it was sometimes almost impossible to tell what exactly he was singing, because of the overwrought style in which he sang it. I think that this tendency reached its apex in the Clannad/Bono collaboration ‘In a Lifetime’, in which I have very little f***ing idea what he’s wailing about:

Anyway, never mind—the truth is that there are other bands I do like where you can’t understand the singer (e.g. early R.E.M.) and so it doesn’t really matter.

But also, The Edge’s purchase, early on, of an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man delay pedal, and his subsequent mastery of that particular kind of technology, gave U2 a distinctively large and epic sound, based on a firm rhythm section with his guitar creating a sort of cloud of guitar over the top, and Bono’s voice serving to tie it all together into some sort of human reality.

U2’s sound might have been designed to fill stadiums.

I don’t think it actually was. I don’t think they were thinking in terms of how popular they could be, but in terms of what they wanted to express.

And again, we have to circle back to their earnestness.

In their younger days, three out of four of the band were very Christian: Bono, the Edge, and their drummer Larry. (I can never remember exactly how his surname is spelled.)

Their bass player, Adam Clayton, was not, particularly. Like The Edge, he was English by origin rather than Irish, but unlike The Edge, he wasn’t especially interested in things of the spirit. He was the one in the band who was business-minded; who, when the others were going off to prayer meetings, was hanging out in grungy Dublin rock clubs and schmoozing people who would be important for the band’s future. (Richard Cousins, longterm bass player for Robert Cray, served a similar function in Cray’s band, in their early years, because Cray himself was too shy and introspective to do that kind of thing.)

Adam Clayton was not, and is still not, one of the great bass guitar stylists of all time.

But he doesn’t need to be. He does the job he’s required to do, even if his playing on some of those early U2 albums is embarrassingly stiff.

But his far more important role, in their earlier career, was to be the guy in the band who was most committed to them being a band, and this ended up being crucial in their early years, when the rest of them (circa their second album October) were seriously wondering whether being in a rock band was the best way to serve Christ. Bono, The Edge and Larry weren’t entirely sure what they wanted, but Adam desperately wanted to be a rock star and have lots of sex with different girls. And he persuaded the others that music, not prayer, was their chance to be their best selves. I think that this is one of the reasons why the others have been so loyal to him.

It’s worth mentioning, here, that Paul Hewson, aka Bono, married his school sweetheart Alison in 1982, and they’re still together.

Dave Evans, aka the Edge, also married his school girlfriend Aislinn O’Sullivan, and left her in 1990 for Morleigh Steinberg, who’d be a dancer on the Zoo TV tour, and he and Steinberg are still together over 30 years later.

Larry also married his school girlfriend Ann Acheson, and they’re still together.

Adam didn’t get married until 2013, when he was 53.

I think it’s been better for music in general that the others recognised that Clayton was right: they were better off being a rock band.

The result has been that U2, like very few other bands, are an exemplar of the traditional and supposedly classic idea of a rock band as being these people, not a rotating cast of people who will do just as well.

The Beatles, once Ringo got into the band, are the first great example.

ZZ Top are another.

U2 are another.

(The Rolling Stones, obviously, are not.)

The stable lineup of the band is definitely a part of their appeal. When you follow a band that has always had, after perhaps some early shuffling about, the same lineup, they present an image of coherence, almost an image of family, which might seem more coherent and familial than your own family.

So, U2 worked on developing their earnest, widescreen, stadium-friendly sound, and achieved massive fame with their 1987 album The Joshua Tree—the kind of fame from which you can never quite climb down.

They had done this, at least in part, by avoiding major controversy.

By inclination rather than by design, they had never sung the kind of song summed up in the title of the final album of another 80s band, Chicago’s Big Black:

Instead, they had sung about things like hope, faith, peace, and doubt and despair: the kind of thing that parents didn’t mind their kids listening to.

They also had songs about tougher subjects, such as ‘Running to Stand Still’ and ‘Bad’, which were inspired by drug abuse, but they referred to these things so obliquely that it was a long way away from something like the Velvet Underground’s ‘Heroin’. A parent could listen to their kid listening to ‘Bad’, and have no clue that the song is a vigil at the bedside of a junkie.

Having reached the very top, U2 did what all bands tend to do who get there: they overreached.

In Rattle and Hum, they (to my mind, unconvincingly) tried to reinvent themselves as the kind of roots-rock band they’d never been. They collaborated with Bob Dylan and B.B. King, and they covered a Beatles song, and the original album even included a snippet of Hendrix’s version of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, which to my teenage mind was stolen valour.

Didn’t really matter. It was a document of them being huuuuuge.

To their credit, they realised soon after the fact that they had simply overexposed themselves. (Their faithful acolyte, Irish rock journalist Bill Graham, who was to them as Charles Boyle in Brooklyn Nine-Nine is to Jake Peralta, raved that it was ‘their most ambitous record yet’, but completely failed to notice that it was also their worst.)

To their further credit, they withdrew for a couple of years, and when they came back, they had successfully reinvented themselves as their opposite.

The 1988 U2 had become pompous and self-important.

The 1991 U2 was still pompous and self-important, but it also knew it was, and it had magically acquired a sense of humour.

Achtung Baby was the U2 album that made someone like me reluctantly admit that they had something going on. It was slick, danceable, crunchy, noisy and at times even flippant, but even though you could see the band trying oh-so-hard to be more ironic about their enormous success, it was fun to watch them do it, and when they dropped the effort and wrote a simple, direct, underplayed song about feeling like crap, namely ‘One’, the result was an absolute gem.

Basically everything since Achtung Baby has been an afterword.

U2 pulled off one of the hardest things to do in popular music: they successfully reinvented themselves. They broke with the style that had made them famous, and they risked losing all the fans that loved them precisely for that style.

That’s the reason why people like me, who don’t much like them, like them a bit.

They’ve overcome many difficulties. They are, to be frank, not great players. (Which isn’t to say that they can’t make an eloquent noise.)

The main reason I disliked them so much as a teenage bass player is that the band I was in mostly played their music, and I desperately wanted to get better as a player, but U2’s music did not afford me that opportunity. It was, at the time, clunky, simplistic and boring to play, although it worked if you liked it—which I didn’t. And I resented them for that. It took me a long time to realise that it’s not fair to blame them for being poor examples for musical tuition.

Their music has never really become more sophisticated as music. But it doesn’t matter.

U2 are not the kind of band who are loved because most people who love them are fans of great music.

They’re the kind of band who are loved because people love their music.

They grew up, as a band, which many bands never do. They reached a point where they realised that they were personally out of step with the image they were presenting to the world, and they retreated, and painfully reshaped their image into something that was more reflective of who they were as people.

Most of the time, when young musicians do that, they end up doing something else which they’re not very good at, and which loses them most of their audience.

In U2’s case—perhaps because they had the wise counsel of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois—they pulled it off, and created a new sort of U2 music.

My favourite U2 song—out of the three or four songs in their considerable repertoire that I like at all—is probably one of their least characteristic, but I offer it here for its sheer absurdity.

This is just a big, dumb that song makes me happy.

Thanks for reading.

The question of why people like the band U2 is a very subjective and personal one. Different people may have different reasons and opinions about liking or disliking the band. The music and lyrics of U2 are known for their innovation, diversity, emotion, and message. They have experimented with various genres and styles of music, such as rock, pop, electronic, folk, and gospel. U2 has also written songs that express their feelings, beliefs, and experiences.

U2 band is known for their energy, passion, and spectacle. They have performed in hundreds of concerts and tours around the world, attracting millions of fans and spectators. Also created memorable shows that feature impressive stage designs, lighting effects, sound systems, and multimedia displays.

They have also influenced many other artists and bands across genres and generations with their music and activism. U2 has remained popular and successful for over four decades, selling over 170 million records and winning 22 Grammy Awards.

If you love reading this answer, kindly upvote :)

Have a good day/night.

I think U2’s music has two characteristics that make them enduringly popular.

1. Universal, generally uplifting lyrics. Even songs about specific events like “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, are still quite generic, and could apply to many things:
   I can't believe the news today
   Oh, I can't close my eyes
   And make it go away
   How long
   How long must we sing this song
   How long, how long
   'Cause tonight, we can be as one
   
   When you have such universal lyrics, people can see themselves and their communities in those lyrics, even if they live someplace far away and speak a different language. The above could really apply to any tragedy anywhere. Contrast this to many American rock or country songs.
   
   Early in the evenin' just about supper time,
   Over by the courthouse they're starting to unwind.
   Four kids on the corner trying to bring you up.
   Willy picks a tune out and he blows it on the harp.
   
   This is a very specific scene, one that many non-Americans, or even Americans that live in cities, wouldn’t relate to.
2. Catchy, repeating, spacey song structure. U2 songs musically are generally right down the middle of the strike zone. No hard edges, weird time changes, odd modulations, or even particularly long songs. They are well-crafted pop songs that have satisfying resolutions. Plenty of songs are also written this way, but Bono and Edge have a way of writing very memorable licks and melodies. It’s a skill that many would kill for.

There’s a third reason why they are so popular, and that’s Bono’s continuing ability to remain in the public eye. He’s a great showman, and is able to keep his image and name in the public eye, either though comments, charitable works, or media appearances. It’s a big job, and one he’s very astute at doing.

Their back catalogue.

U2 had a staggering run of albums for a long time which were huge sellers all around the world. Lately they’ve stopped making music which has nearly as much impact. Their singles no longer top the charts and their albums sell a fraction of what they sold in the past.

But it’s the back catalog that keeps people returning.

Here’s U2’s latest setlist at the time of writing.

U2 Setlist at Manchester Arena, Manchester

It includes 7 tracks from their most recent album, which they’re currently trying to promote but none at all from the album before that. Or the one before that. The second most represented album is Achtung Baby, from back in 1991, which provided 6 tracks to the setlist.

U2 recently went on a tour promoting Joshua Tree. It relied on a full performance of the 1987 album, propped up by a few songs from before it’s release and a few from afterwards but only one from the last 10 years of their career. It was a huge success and a lot of people turned up but can you imagine if they announced a tour which would be made up entirely of songs from the last ten years? I don’t think they would pack out the big rooms like they did touring on Joshua Tree.

U2’s enduring success is based on their back catalogue and the fact that they can still do it justice in live shows.

Their imagination. The reason they were inducted to the rock hall of fame in 2005 which is only twenty five years after Boy (their first album) was released is because they had so much imagination. if you look at all their eighties albums you can see them start to build a sound of literally making whole worlds with music, mainly in The Edge’s guitar and just when that sound came to a crystallization with Joshua Tree, they shattered that crystal and came up with Achtung Baby. a completely new sound, in a completely new world after all they went to Berlin because the wall had just come down. Did they lose some fans because of this change? Yeah I’m sure they did, But boy, did they gain so much more fans than they lost. Their sound switch in the nineties made them more famous and Achtung Baby came out just eleven years after Boy. Then come 2000 and they release All That You Can’t Leave Behind (ATYCLB) which is another completely different sound especially after Pop. ATYCLB was widely considered the album that had U2 come running back to homebase after stopping at first, second, and third. It was the album that proved them to be the best band after The Beatles and it proved them their worthiness of all the success they’ve had. That’s why they were inducted twenty-five years after their start and that’s the secret to their success. Their imagination.

Appeal? A catalog of timeless, original, inspirational tunes, but music is personal and we all have different tastes, don’t we? U2 are arguably the biggest band to come out of Gen-X. Many of their albums received critical acclaim and they have garnered more Grammys than any rock band, ever. They are also polarizing due to the 1) immense success over the past 40 years , leaving some tired of them and others just thinking they’re flat out uncool, and 2) Bono’s geo-political stances don’t help things no matter how good his intentions are, but he’s always been an activist.

Music wise, where to start? No one before them really sounded like them but there have been many influenced by them since. You can identify most U2 songs by the Edge’s guitar sound alone. No one ever played like him or uses effects like him. His guitar is an orchestra. Bono is regarded as one of the great songwriters, too. His lyrics for songs like One and With or Without You are classic and eternal. Those songs haven’t aged at all. Larry’s militaristic drumming propelled them through their early years and the intro to Sunday Bloody Sunday is one of the most iconic intros in the history of music. Adam’s bass has been consistent throughout, jazzy when it needs to be but never excessive. None of these boys played an instrument when the band formed, only Larry, who briefly played drums in a marching band as a kid. This is probably why the music is so identifiable as U2. They found their own sound, and it resonated with people from their earliest recordings. The early days were very raw in a punk/new wave way and very energetic. But the music is neither punk nor new wave, it’s just…U2! Playing live is what made them popular in the early days. If you went to a u2 gig, you weren’t going to sit down.

Sales wise, their most successful album, The Joshua Tree, sold about 27 million copies and is regarded as one of the greatest albums in rock history. A BBC radio poll of fans ranked it as the best album of the 80s, pretty impressive when you consider Springsteen, Prince, and REM were all in there commercial primes, and let’s not forget a little album called “Thriller”. Why did it sell so much? End to end great songs, a perfect album, and it sounded nothing like that was popular in the 80s. Their next most successful album, Achtung Baby, released in the early 90s, was an about face for the stripped down image and music that fans were used to, going more for electronic and dance beats. One of the best image resets any artist has accomplished, IMO. That album also sold well over 20 million, and if you ask me, it set them up for the rest of their career as a band who could change and not lose their ethos or essence. Add to these two albums other albums like Boy, War, Unforgettable Fire, Zooropa and All That You Can’t Leave Behind and you have an incredible catalog of music with a little something for everyone. The albums not mentioned are also pretty good and diverse in sound too!

What’s the appeal of any band? Any movie or art work for that matter?
If you don’t like it, move along and find something else.
There are so many options out there. You don’t need to worry yourself over why people are drawn to something you have no interest in.

For those that like U2, there would also be multiple reasons they find them appealing. It could be the music. It could be the lyrics. It could be the messages within the lyrics. It could be the underlying religious (Judeo-Christian) themes within the lyrics. It could be the personalities and/or attractiveness of the group members. It could be something they have in common with other friends/family.
It could be all of these things and more.

It could be they were there at the beginning and there is no way of understanding that unless you were there too.

Honestly, you could ask that about any entertainment or art product, and there would be hundreds of answers for each one.

In 1993, U2 was:

• the biggest band in the world
• the best band in the world
• the smartest band in the world
• somewhat cool

The band that slumps into 2022 is surviving much like The Simpsons (which also peaked in 1993).

Their music is Phil Collins bland but without Phil’s popcraft. It’s a sad reminder that the band hasn’t broken up. I love this band, but I love what they were.

If I was 22 I’d probably think of U2 as overrated. For 25 years now, they’ve been putting out mediocre music and have been undeserving of the title of Biggest Band in the World for some time. However, they keep churning out mediocre albums and stadium tours. I guess they just love U2 and hate to see them go, just as many of us do.

I was recently watching Sing 2 with my girlfriend and her kid. Cute movie. At the end, a new U2 song debuted: “Your Song Saved My Life”. This is one of the most embarrassingly bad songs put out by a band that was once phenomenal. Even worse is that the band seemed to think it would be a hit and featured it at the end of the film.

The Rolling Stones has some good tracks on 1997’s Voodoo Lounge. Tom Waits and Elvis Costello still put out good albums. Leonard Cohen did some of his best work in middle age. U2 hasn’t released anything I want to listen to twice since 2004.

So, are they overrated? I can see how someone would think so. If they had broken up in 1995 after “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me” it would be a different story. From 1983 to 1995 they just couldn’t miss. The uncertainty following Pop really put them into a corner. They became the eager-to-please nice guy trying to get back his ex-girlfriend. It’s been difficult to watch.

Lack of critical acclaim??? The Joshua Tree is considered one of the best albums of the 80s. In fact, a poll of BBC radio listeners ranked it the best album of the 80s, no small feat when your competition is Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, REM, and Prince. Achtung Baby is considered one of the greatest rock reinventions in history and sold about 20 million copies. They have a ton of other albums - War, Unforgettable Fire, Zoorpa, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, that won tons of critical acclaim. U2 also have the most most Grammy wins of any band with 22, so I’m not sure about the claim of no love from the critics when the same community has bestowed this many honours on them.

Can’t speak for anyone but myself, but for a while there in the mid-80s, U2 was perfectly instep with the mid-80s zeitgeist when the aggression and nihilism of punk/post punk fell out of fashion, and sensitive males who earnestly cared about serious things came back into vogue. It’s no accident that the biggest star in feature films at the exact moment U2 hit their early peak was Kevin Costner, who also exuded innate sensitivity and earnestness.

But what really set U2 apart, aside from their passion, and the martial drive of their simple music, was that over the first half of their career they evolved into staggeringly great masters of sound even though they weren’t possessed of more than ordinary chops, and it was all done in a style that was perfectly suited to creating overpowering arena-scaled live shows. The second half of their recording career has dropped of in quality more precipitously than any other major artist of their era, (maybe even worse than the Stone’s post ‘72), but even today, they remain one of the best live acts on the planet when they stick to their pre ’96 material.

I know a lot of younger listeners will never forgive them for that iPod automatic download album drop, but they really were the best arena band in the world circa 83–92, and very few rock artists have had a stretch of albums as compelling as what they put out starting with War through to Achtung, Baby.

some thoughts w/o getting into too much detail:

1. Their passion. Passion for what they do, as well as passion found w/in the music itself
2. Live shows. Word of mouth spread quickly that these lads from Dublin put on a great live show. As they grew, they still found ways to put on amazing live shows with intimate feel. (great use of technological advancements over the years too).
3. Good management. Paul McGuinness was in the business of making U2 a successful band. The band was also “all in”. This is what they wanted to do, and they had to make a conscience decision after the success of Boy and questioning period of October, that this is what they want. They agreed they would be all in, no matter what the cost (family, friends, church, etc.)
4. Willingness to experiment with their sound. They basically became the biggest band in the world with the success of The Joshua Tree as they perfected the sound they were building towards, and then they wanted to evolve as musicians and artists and totally revamped their sound and image. “Achtung, Baby” introduced U-2.0. That was a huge risk to “chop down the Joshua Tree” and “dream it all up again”.
5. Bono. He’s a great lead singer and front man. He had sex appeal for the ladies, swag for the gents. Outspoken, humorous. Appears to be having fun. (This has also caused backlash as there are many U2/Bono haters).

As to Why do you think they are popular despite having mediocre songs?

U2 is not inherently mediocre. They’re not inherently good or bad. They just are. They make sounds that, apparently, you don’t like. You simply haven’t yet realized that your taste in art - like everyone else’s tastes in art - is entirely subjective and not objective in any way. This isn’t just about U2, of course, but about all creators of artistic content.

Perhaps one day you’ll gain the tiny modicum of self-awareness and humility required to understand this.

Now, as to my opinion of U2:

Boy, October - They carved out an interesting niche of post-punk sound. Mostly, there was promise. Bono was willing to tackle issues but really was focusing on variations of teen angst and wasn’t offering a sufficiently new take on them (compared to, say, the Smiths - no, I like U2 better, but Morrissey was mining that subject matter better). Bono hadn’t figured out how to fully or properly use his voice yet, and had quite a ways to go as a songwriter. Also, the Edge hadn’t fully developed his delay techniques. The rhythm section was more or less fully-formed - sufficient yet unspectacular. In all, lots of promise but they weren’t there yet.

War, The Unforgettable Fire - Here, things begin to jell. Bono finds his voice on issues bigger than personal matters. An interesting trend has developed. Their debut album had been shiny and almost brittle in its production, with a lurch to the murky and ambient in October. Those sounds suited the songwriting. War is a lurch back, rawer even than Boy. For the first time the subject matter is presented angrily; the production is suitably sparse. And these guys are showing that they can rock a club, an arena, a stadium (the latter of which they haven’t played… yet). Their third album starts out with multiple rages against nationalism, wanes somewhat on side two (yes, I’m old), but is a huge step forward. Then, with Unforgettable Fire, another radical change in sound. Back to the moody, ambient production, but this time the touch is light; it is far more accessible than on their second album. More politics, and Bono begins to turn an eye toward the United States on several songs, foretelling the band’s next step. He writes a pair of terrific songs - The Unforgettable Fire (maybe my very favorite by the band) and Bad - about the heroin epidemic in Dublin, but the group continues its shift toward addressing more international political issues.

Under a Blood Red Sky - Between the third and fourth issues, the band releases a short live album. It showcases the group’s live intensity and Bono’s ability to work an audience. There is a parallel release Live at Red Rocks, with partially overlapping material. In a stroke of luck, the show is shot in a light rain, which creastes mist and steam that add a remarkably visual quality to the recording. Terrific show.

Wide Awake in America - After the fourth album, this short EP of just four songs include what becomes the definitive version of Bad, further underscoring the band’s live capabilities. After that, there is Live Aid, where Bono goes off-script, infuriating the rest of the band until, a few days later, it turns out to be one of the most talked-about moments of the show (Bono leaves the stage to dance with an audience member, out of sight of the band that just has to keep on playing while having no idea where he is).

The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum - This is where it really gets interesting. Having spent a decade building their sound, and four studio albums, with a very European style, the band lurches towards a sound built on American roots. This is a massive risk. And it totally works. It’s the biggest album of 1987, and U2 becomes the biggest band in the world. The ensuing tour is massive. The hit singles - With or Without You, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Where the Streets Have No Name - show Bono in full mastery of his vocal abilities and the Edge’s ability to do exactly what he wants with his guitar.

And the follow-up? Rattle and Hum is similarly massive. It’s as popular as its predecessor. Its single are as well. Desire and Angel of Harlem delve even deeper into a quitessential American sound, while All I Want Is You is a sublimely effective ballad. so what’s wrong with it? Well, the movie wasn’t well-received. And it’s a classic case of a spectacular album that was wrongly turned into a double album. Why exactly are there two songs on it that aren’t even played by U2? Hendrix doing the Star Spangled Banner? Huh? The band’s live tracks aren’t all that interesting (and the mixing of studio cuts with live performances is jarring, annoying), and they’re not interesting. All Along the Watchtower? They just basically did Jimi’s version. Helter Skelter? They did nothing new, except for the cringeworthy “This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles. We’re stealing it back!”. And the duets! Look, I like U2 and I like Bob Dylan. I also like chicken and chocolate, but I certainly don’t want chocolate-covered chicken; I’ll similarly take my U2 and Dylan separately, please. (I will give Bono credit for the taste and credit of working with excellent collaborators - Dylan, B.B. King, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, among others) Anyway, scrap the live songs and the movie and Rattle and Hum equals the heights the band achieved with Joshua Tree, even with the duets.

Achtung Baby - This is where U2 began to lose me. Don’t get me wrong. I admire the hell out of it. U2 had become massive with the sound of their previous two albums. And? They were bored with it, and wildly veered back to a European sound again, this time melding dance and industrial. And? It worked! Brilliantly! It just, mostly, wasn’t my cup tea. The pop, the irreverence, and the (forced, IMHO) irony didn’t work for me. But I know the album is beloved. So I hopped off the U2 train. Doesn’t make my love of the band’s previous stuff any less, however.

What do I think happened? Well, I think it’s a microcosm of the classic ‘sophomore slump’. It’s been noted how second albums tend to be a let-down from a band’s debut. The reasons abound, but one is that a band forms and spends, typically, years working their way up: practicing in garage and/or basement, playing schools and bars and small clubs before finally getting a record contract. By that time they have written many dozens of songs. These songs include their best musical ideas and inspirations, the ones that were always there and just waiting for a chance to be expressed. And a band cherry-picks those years of creativity for their first album’s tracks. The next album consists only of what they’ve written in the intervening year or two, and the early years’ leftovers. over the long-term, a band simply uses up its best ideas. The creative well runs dry, or at least shallow. Times change, and a band is no longer writing from the point of view of a bunch of uoncertain young people struggling to survive and hoping last night’s pay will cover the van’s gas to get to the show in Cork. Fast-forward, and what are the trials and travails of life? Choosing between France of Italy as a tax exile’s destination. Irritation that the Gulfstream is late. A 23-year-old trying to figure out life is interesting. A 33-year-old who can’t decide whether to lease or buy a personal jet? Not so much. Oh, they’ve got the hit-making down. And they can go forever on the glories of that first decade-plus. They just lost my interest. The craft remains but, for me at least, the underlying inspiration isn’t particularly interesting.

One final note on Bono being annoying: Huh? Firsts, I don’t really care about his personal, non-music life. I’m not a fanboy; I just like his music. I don’t care if he hates martinis, doesn’t like Breaking Bad, or prefers the toilet paper to come off the top of the roll.

That doesn’t trigger me. Oh, you need a safe-space from Bono’s latest geopolitical pronouncment? Your problem, dude. Turn off the TV maybe?

Well, they, or rather The Edge, did something that no other band had done to the extent they did and that was the use of, particularly, delay effects. I have seen lists that put Evans quite high as a guitarists although, to the best of my knowledge, they are lists compiled from opinions of non guitarists. In conversations I've had with young guitarists, The Edge isn't somebody who is mentioned as the inspiration for taking up the guitar. I don't know any guitarists who are particularly fond of U2.

The unfortunate thing is that Evan's technique is so integral to the band that they can't really change it and still be “U2".

Search out Bill Bailey's impression of The Edge on Utube. If you're a U2 fan, you'll hate it.

I would not call them a rock band. More like an alternative pop band with a rock format.

They started as an Irish punk band. I think by the late 70s they saw the tide was turning.

Just guessing, but my feeling is that the early Public Image records had a big impact on U2. The track Public Image off the debut from 1978 in particular.

The Edge probably adopted a guitar style and approach very similar to Keith Levine.

That way, by following John Lydon’s artistic direction in Public Image, after the demise of The Pistols, U2 could carry on with punk credentials but “progress” into the Post-Punk era with “integrity” intact doing something similar to PI. Except with more “accessible” vocals and a less confrontational frontman

I saw U2 in early 1981 in New York. They were touring the first LP. They were not well known at the time and live musically were not especially awesome in any way. But they were energetic and played well. Tight.

The Edge already had that guitar sound. Similar to Keith Levine’s; “epic” sounding with a lot of effects. It made them sound much larger than a normal guitar, bass and drums instrumentation.

They all had youthful enthusiasm and a “positive ” and “uplifting” vibe. They were “delivering” and “on a mission” so to speak.

Being Irish helped as well. In the East coast of the States, there are a lot of people with Irish ancestry who would be willing to cheer them on as underdogs. As I did.

After the gig I said to a friend that out of all the numbers in the entire set, they really only had 2 songs. But. Those 2 songs were great. One of them was I Will Follow which was their current single off Boy. I do not remember the name of the other one.

They went onward and upward from there and did fairly well.

Apparently.

My theory is that they went one step too far with their attempts to be innovators, lost their audience and started trying to chase them to win them back.

Their opening albums were a sort of melodic post-punk that had an audience but then the Unforgettable Fire and Joshua tree were unlike anything anyone else was doing at the time. It was anthemic without resorting to the production tricks and effects that people used to try and sound anthemic. It wasn't like anything else going around at the time and you could see people struggling to catch up. Rather than rest on their laurels they experimented further with Acthung Baby, an album that somehow combined guitar rock with more industrial sounds but created something nobody had ever heard before. It was a huge album and cemented their place as innovators who could go in new directions but take audiences with them.

And they released Zooropa and everyone lost interest. They took their electronic experimentation a step too far and lost a lot of their audience. Sales were less than half the sales of Achtung Baby and the radio as a whole said "that's just bollocks". Their response was The Passengers, a collaboration with Brian Eno, which was even worse and saw a further dip in sales.

When they returned in 1997, six years after the success of Achtung Baby, they had lost confidence in their ability to innovate and were trying to chase trends rather than set them. Rather than hiring a producer to help them realise a coherent vision they worked with four seperate producers in the hope they could capture some of the musical zeitgiest of the time. Since then it feels like they've been chasing current musical trends rather than set them. They've been trying to play catch up with the modern sounds of music with limited success and their albums have sounded like aimless attempts to make something that sounds modern.

I actually quite like U2.

Their early work is honestly quite great. I feel like U2 are a bit overhated, sure they’re pompous and kinda douche-y but there’s tons of great musicians that are also pricks. Robert Fripp, John Lennon, Miles Davis, Dave Mustaine, etc. All douchebags, but also great musicians. Which is why I don’t understand the collective hate-train I’ve seen for U2 over the years. War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby are all awesome albums, and I’d even make the argument that the latter two of those four albums I just mentioned are bona fide classics in their own right. I will say that their latest work has been quite middling and phoned in though, it feels as if they’re not pushing forwards and reinventing themselves like they used to and as though they’re stuck in the past and have nothing new to offer, quite sad really.

Because they REALLY ARE GREAT!

I love listening to their songs now and then and I went to a concert of theirs back in 1997 (yay!, my first real concert hehehe) - it was the Pop Mart Tour and it totally rocked my world! Bono was amazing, loved the guitar solos and in general also, the nice iconic songs (like "One" or "Where The Streets Have No Name"), the newest ones (not so new anymore), the ‘heavier’ stuff (if you can call it that) like "Sunday Bloody Sunday",…

I had always heard their music on the radio, even when I was young and innocent and didn’t have any English skills, but I believe you don’t have to understand the lyrics of the song, what’s being sung (though it helps) because I believe that Music is an universal language!

When I got older I started to make sense of what the lyrics were saying, heard my classmates talking about them and it all helped me getting "closer" to them. However, when I went to the concert I only knew their singles that were often on the radio and a handful of others from listening to records at some friends’ home. After the concert, I went crazy and bought ALL their albums to the date and some singles that were still available. I uploaded all the songs to my iTunes library and my iPod and, because normally I have my iPod on shuffle, when I hear the strings or drumming to one of their songs I just get goosebumps and travel back in time to that 11th day of September that shifted many things in my little world!

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to go to another of their concerts, but they’re back in Portugal a lot and quite a few of my friends (even if not always the same) tend to go to their shows and I must admit I sometimes get pretty jealous when I see their pictures or videos

Guess that’s saying something about it, but keep in mind that I’m someone who really enjoys their art even though my favourite band has a sound quite different from U2’s!

Give their songs a try and listen with your ears first, absorbing all the different tunes and then take notice of the lyrics! You’ll have a very different experience then if you’d just ‘listen’ to the band named U2…

Hope this helps!

~ Sónia Coelho Gomes.