Today is the 27th Anniversary of Live Aid

Rattle and Hum shouldn't count because it was part live album. And a bunch of the songs that weren't on other albums are still pretty damn good (Desire, Hawkmoon, Silver and Gold, When Love Comes to Town, Angel of Harlem). The cover of All Along the Watchtower and Helter Skelter are cringeworthy, but everything else on there is solid at worst. I had that album in pretty heavy rotation in the late 80s.

 

Watched it at my cousin's house and couldn't pull away from it, especially when Sade sung "Your Love is King." 25 years later and she's still smoking hot. That aside, the entire day would definitely rank as one of my most memorable TV moments (yes, I know I'm kinda of cross-threading on that one).

 

I remember this book from the early 90's listing Unforgettable Fire as one of the worst albums of all time.


Really?

I wore out this album. Some real gems on it.
And I think Rattle and Hum is underrated.
And Pop is even more underrated.
And Zooropa...

[But I'm sort of a big fan...]

Saw U2 last year in Nashville and even though I wasn't crazy for the last album(s)
they are incredible live. Just an incredible show.

 

Listen to almost anything from the Genesis catalog - not the first two albums or last one because he wasn't a member of the band for those - and the percussion one hears is Phil Collins.

Many of you think of him the way Inky Wretch was honest enough to admit. I have always viewed him as a percussionist first and foremost. He could play for Led Zep or anyone else. Showed plenty of jazz and fusion chops during his time with Brand X.

 

My dormmates and I spent a night listening to unintentionally hilarious intros to live albums once. U2's Helter Skelter made the list ...

"Here's one Charles Manson stole from the Beatles ... we're stealing it back!"

Oh snap, Manson!

The best/worst live intro is from the Scorpions' World Wide Live.

"Do you see the microphones in the air, do you see them? Do you know what we're doing tonight? We're making a live recording toniiiiiiiiiiiighhhhttt!"

 

Dammit, I have that book and I can't find it, which means it's buried in a box in the garage and I'll never see it again.

I think Pop and Zooropa are underrated, which is not the same as saying they're good. They're not crimes against humanity, which is how they're viewed. They're just lousy albums, with a winking sense of irony that was a horrible misstep.

I think the "new" stuff on Rattle and Hum was probably worse. It was nice of U2 to try to introduce me to American music, though.

I think the last album was quite underrated, largely because the first single was a pretty bad choice and people kind of wrote the whole thing off. There are some very good songs there, and they translated well live.

 

I like the intros on Cheap Trick's "Live at Budokan," because they seem to think anyone can understand English if you just speak slow enough. "This next song.. is the first song.. on our new alllllllbum. It just came out this week.... and the song is called.... 'Surrender."

 

I was there as well.

 

I was just looking at track listings and I was really impressed with Pop.
Discotheque, MoFo, Miami, The Playboy Mansion are all quite disposable.
Do You Feel Loved, Gone, Staring At The Sun, If God Would Send His Angels, Wake Up Dead Man, Please, Last Night On Earth are
some really great songs. I would go so far to say that Pop ranks behind only Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby as my favorite U2 album.

Upon further review, Zooropa is not nearly as good as I was thinking it was. But then you have a diamond in the rough song like "The First Time" which is an all-time favorite U2 song. [Kinda like "All I Want Is You" on Rattle and Hum]

No Line On The Horizon has really grown on me. You are so right about the poor choice for the first single. I don't know why U2 seems to do stuff like that: The Fly as the first single off Achtung Baby? Discotheque off of Pop? Really?

 

Yeah, I really like "The Fly," but there were probably 5 or 6 songs on that album that would have been infinitely better as a lead-off single.

I suspect there are a lot of people who were so turned off by "Get On Your Boots" that they never heard "Magnificent."

 

Loved U2's first three studio albums (Boy is probably still my fave album by them) and Under A Blood Red Sky is a terrific representation of their great live show. but I found Unforgettable Fire really uneven. Yeah some great high points in "Pride", "A Sort Of Homecoming" and especially "Bad", but also plenty of crap, stuff that feels half finished.

Didn't mind at all the studio portion of Rattle And Hum. Some really solid stuff on there: "Desire", "When Love Comes To Town", "Bullet The Blue Sky", "Angel Of Harlem,", "All I Want Is You", and I still love the live "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" with the gospel choir back up.

 

I like 'Rattle and Hum.'
I don't like the 'When Loves Comes to Town' or the 'Helter Skelter' and 'Watchtower' covers, but the rest of it is good.