1. God-Like Masterpieces:

    1. The Joshua Tree
    2. Achtung Baby
    3. No Line On The Horizon
    4. The Unforgettable Fire

    Any other bands best albums, near perfect group:

    5. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
    6. All That You Can't Leave Behind
    7. War
    8. Zooropa

    On a level of its own because their are some really great songs on it and some really god awful songs on it:

    9. Pop

    Boy and October are each just good albums but nothing more than that:

    10. Boy
    11. October

    The only U2 album I just can't stand, but it has ONE amazing song on it and that would be the masterpiece that is Heartland (should have been on JT):

    12. Rattle And Hum


  2. No way in hell Rattle and Hum is their worst album. You may not like its style of music, but it has some of their best songs on there.

    All I Want Is You, God Pt 2, Hawkmoon, Heartland, Van Diemens Land, Desire and some great b-sides and covers as well.

    Seriously, their early work was worse. I'ts common sense
  3. Originally posted by vanquish:No way in hell Rattle and Hum is their worst album. You may not like its style of music, but it has some of their best songs on there.

    All I Want Is You, God Pt 2, Hawkmoon, Heartland, Van Diemens Land, Desire and some great b-sides and covers as well.

    Seriously, their early work was worse. I'ts common sense


    Nah, I agree with the dude, R&H was their worst.
    Surely All I Want Is You, God Part II and Desire are among their best, but weak live performances of BTBS, Pride, Helter Skelter dont work along. On top of that, Angel Of Harlem, Heartland and Love Rescue Me are really
  4. Originally posted by markp91:[..]

    Nah, I agree with the dude, R&H was their worst.
    Surely All I Want Is You, God Part II and Desire are among their best, but weak live performances of BTBS, Pride, Helter Skelter dont work along. On top of that, Angel Of Harlem, Heartland and Love Rescue Me are really


    Yea, the live performances are nothing special on R&H and I'm not a big fan of Angel of Harlem and definitely not Love Rescue Me (but you don't like Heartland? it has such great atmosphere, and is a JT outtake as well).

    But even just going by the number of good songs on R&H vs other albums will see it not coming out last.

    For example from The Unforgettable Fire the only decent songs are TUF, Bad, Promenade and MLK (the album version of ASOH is on the fence). Even if we include Love Comes Tumbling in the count thats 5, R&H still comes out on top (6) and that's not including b-sides like Hallelujah Here She Comes, Everlasting Love, Unchained Melody or Dancing Barefoot.

    And The Unforgettable Fire is a better album than Boy and October (and definitely OST1 if we're counting it). So R&H is somewhere in the middle of the album ranking.
  5. Originally posted by vanquish:[..]

    Yea, the live performances are pretty bad on R&H and I'm not a fan of Angel of Harlem and Love Rescue Me either (but you don't like Heartland? it has such great atmosphere, and is a JT outtake as well).

    But even if you just go by the number of good songs on R&H vs other albums will see it not coming out last.

    For example from The Unforgettable Fire the only songs I like are TUF, Bad, Promenade and MLK (the album version of ASOH is on the fence). Even if we include Love Comes Tumbling in the count thats 5, R&H still comes out on top (6) and that's not including b-sides like Hallelujah Here She Comes, Everlasting Love, Unchained Melody or Dancing Barefoot.

    And The Unforgettable Fire is a better album than Boy and October (and definitely OST1 if we're counting it).


    Nah, Heartland is not really my fav no

    Well, if you look at it that way R&H would be a better album indeed. BUT to me a good album isn't good because it has more good songs than another album. I mean: they could write 100 songs, release them all and hope there are 10 good songs among them and it's a brilliant album
    To me a good album has a couple of brilliant singles, some fan favorites and mostly a minimum of weak tunes. Also the style of the album is very important to me.

    And I like OST1 and Boy better than TUF, JT and R&H.....
  6. Originally posted by markp91:[..]

    Nah, Heartland is not really my fav no

    Well, if you look at it that way R&H would be a better album indeed. BUT to me a good album isn't good because it has more good songs than another album. I mean: they could write 100 songs, release them all and hope there are 10 good songs among them and it's a brilliant album
    To me a good album has a couple of brilliant singles, some fan favorites and mostly a minimum of weak tunes. Also the style of the album is very important to me.

    And I like OST1 and Boy better than TUF, JT and R&H.....


    OST1 better than TJT, you're a strange one arent u .

    Yea I agree that albums are more than the sum of their songs, but ranking based on this feel or atmosphere is a bit too subjective.

    I prefer my metric, cause it's simpler and it puts AB out on top as best album, which is a good sign.
  7. Originally posted by markp91:[..]

    Nah, I agree with the dude, R&H was their worst.
    Surely All I Want Is You, God Part II and Desire are among their best, but weak live performances of BTBS, Pride, Helter Skelter dont work along. On top of that, Angel Of Harlem, Heartland and Love Rescue Me are really


    Pride is one of the most energetic performances ever, and how could you fell to sleep when Heartland plays? Bullet ain't a weak performance either, but I agree it's not that special.

    Opinions differ of course but I had to give my 2 cents
  8. Zooropa (as an album. if you just play the entire album it sounds the best)
    Achtung Baby (album with the best songs)
    Joshua Tree (just one weak song: Red Hill Mining Town)
    No Line On The Horizon (could've been so much better without Stand Up Comedy and Magnificent)
    Pop
    Rattle And Hum (new songs are pretty good, some great live performances: Pride, Silver And Gold, Watchtower)
    War
    The Unforgettable Fire
    Boy
    How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb
    All That You Can't Leave Behind
    October

    Means that if I just pick a song best chance it will be a Achtung Baby song, but if I want to play an entire album it's probably Zooropa.

    Oh and I like Rattle And Hum. My earliest memories of hearing U2 is that album, and I loved it. October is just an album without any epics on it (maybe Gloria), Leave Behind is not bad as an album but some songs are just boring, same counts for Bomb, which only has 3 good tracks on it (Vertigo, Miracle Drug, City Of Blinding Lights)
  9. Originally posted by vanquish:Yea I agree that albums are more than the sum of their songs, but ranking based on this feel or atmosphere is a bit too subjective.

    I prefer my metric, cause it's simpler and it puts AB out on top as best album, which is a good sign.

    But seeing as music is about subjectivity, I don't why basing a ranking on feel or atmosphere isn't a valid measure. People have different preferences and prefer different music, no one can claim to have a better set of preferences etc. because music and sound affect people in different ways - fans of metal music would point to something like Metallica's Master Of Puppets or Ride The Lightning as one of the seminal pieces of work in the last 20-30 years, whilst fans of something such as U2 would point to something like Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree. People think The Beatles' work is some of the greatest of all time, but that's based on personal judgement combined with commercial success - who's to say either which way? You can't negate a factor on the basis of subjectivity because that defeats the purpose of music. I personally rate October much higher than a lot of later stuff (especially War, not my favourite album at all) but that doesn't mean I disregard other people's opinions, e.g. dieder just put October at the bottom of his ranking but I'm not going to dismiss that and tell him he's wrong. Well, I might... but yeah, there's so much stuff that you can factor into the ranking of albums and musical work, and personal subjectivity is in amongst said 'stuff'.
  10. Originally posted by WojBhoy:[..]
    But seeing as music is about subjectivity, I don't why basing a ranking on feel or atmosphere isn't a valid measure. People have different preferences and prefer different music, no one can claim to have a better set of preferences etc. because music and sound affect people in different ways - fans of metal music would point to something like Metallica's Master Of Puppets or Ride The Lightning as one of the seminal pieces of work in the last 20-30 years, whilst fans of something such as U2 would point to something like Achtung Baby or The Joshua Tree. People think The Beatles' work is some of the greatest of all time, but that's based on personal judgement combined with commercial success - who's to say either which way? You can't negate a factor on the basis of subjectivity because that defeats the purpose of music. I personally rate October much higher than a lot of later stuff (especially War, not my favourite album at all) but that doesn't mean I disregard other people's opinions, e.g. dieder just put October at the bottom of his ranking but I'm not going to dismiss that and tell him he's wrong. Well, I might... but yeah, there's so much stuff that you can factor into the ranking of albums and musical work, and personal subjectivity is in amongst said 'stuff'.


    Well you can try It's not that I dislike the album but there are just no gems on it, not a single song that I would pick if you ask me to play a song right now. But if I listen to the record I'm not dissapointed though.
  11. Originally posted by dieder:Well you can try It's not that I dislike the album but there are just no gems on it, not a single song that I would pick if you ask me to play a song right now. But if I listen to the record I'm not dissapointed though.

    Aha, but you see I wouldn't try because I consider your opinion as valid as my own - the album itself isn't necessarily chock-a-block with stand-out material but I think it works really well as a complete piece of work. If I was to listen to anything it would be Gloria or October, but it's one of those albums that I like to listen through from start to finish instead of picking different tracks etc., to my mind it has a great chronology.