U2: Top 100 Songs

U2 Top 100 Songs

At 16 years old, an Irish singer and guitarist named Paul Hewson (better known as Bono) hooked up with guitarist Dave Evans (aka “The Edge”), bassist Adam Clayton, and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. The four met at Mount Temple Comprehensive School and were signed to Island Records within four years, first hitting the scene with 1980’s Boy. Over the next seven years, they built a strong college-rock base and then with 1987’s The Joshua Tree became the world’s biggest rock band. The band has remained a stable force nearly four decades, thanks to their stick-together-as-a-group attitude. They’ve stretched their sound and been celebrated for nearly every direction they’ve gone. For a complete list of this act’s DMDB honors, check out the DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry. Click here to see other acts’ best-of lists. image from gigslutz.co.uk Spotify Podcast: Check out the Dave’s Music Database podcast U2: Songs of Surrender based on this list. Debut: March 21, 2023, at 7pm CST. New episodes based on Dave’s Music Database lists are posted every Tuesday at 7pm CST.

Awards:

Top 100 Songs Dave’s Music Database lists are determined by song’s appearances on best-of lists, appearances on compilations and live albums by the featured act, and songs’ chart success, sales, radio airplay, streaming, and awards. DMDB Top 1%: 1. With or Without You (1987) 2. One (1991) 3. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (1987) 4. Beautiful Day (2000) 5. Pride (In the Name of Love) (1984) 6. Sunday Bloody Sunday (1983) 7. Where the Streets Have No Name (1987) DMDB Top 2%: 8. New Year’s Day (1983) 9. Vertigo (2004) DMDB Top 5%: 10. Mysterious Ways (1991) 11. Desire (1988) 12. I Will Follow (1980) 13. Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own (2004) 14. Bad (1984) 15. Night and Day (1990) 16. Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of (2000) 17. Walk On (2000) 18. Angel of Harlem (1988) 19. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me (1995) 20. Sweetest Thing (1987) 21. Even Better Than the Real Thing (1991) 22. Staring at the Sun (1997) 23. Electrical Storm (2002) DMDB Top 10%: 24. You’re the Best Thing About Me (2017) 25. Stand by Me (live with Bruce Springsteen, 1987) 26. Discotheque (1997) 27. The Saints Are Coming (with Green Day, 2006) 28. All I Want Is You (1988) 29. When Love Comes to Town (with B.B. King, 1988) 30. The Fly (1991) 31. Window in the Skies (2006) 32. Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses? (1991) 33. Theme from Mission: Impossible (Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen, Jr., 1996) 34. Get on Your Boots (2009) 35. Gloria (1981) 36. Stay (Faraway, So Close!) (1993) 37. Two Hearts Beat As One (1983) 38. Elevation (2000) 39. Numb (1993) 40. The Unforgettable Fire (1984) 41. City of Blinding Lights (2004) 42. God Part II (1988) 43. All Because of You (2004) DMDB Top 20%: 44. In God’s Country (1987) 45. Ordinary Love (2013) 46. Bullet the Blue Sky (1987) 47. Last Night on Earth (1997) 48. Magnificent (2009) 49. Everlasting Love (1989) 50. Invisible (2014) 51. Moment of Surender (2009) 52. Every Breaking Wave (2014) 53. Lemon (1993) 54. Miss Sarajevo (1995) 55. Until the End of the World (1991) 56. A Sort of Homecoming (1984) 57. Unchained Melody (1989) 58. One Tree Hill (1987) 59. Song for Someone (2014) 60. The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone) (2014) 61. I’ll Go Crazy if I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight (2009) 62. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (1987) Beyond the DMDB Top 20%: 63. 11 O’Clock Tick Tock (1980) 64. Spanish Eyes (1987) 65. Jesus Christ (1988) 66. Get Out of Your Own Way (2017) 67. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (2000) 68. Original of the Species (2004) 69. If God Will Send His Angels (1997) 70. Silver and Gold (1985) 71. October (1981) 72. All Along the Watchtower (live, 1987) 73. “40” (1983) 74. Fire (1981) 75. Trash, Trampoline, and the Party Girl (1982) 76. The Hands That Built America (2002) 77. Running to Stand Still (1987) 78. Out of Control (1979) 79. Dancing Barefoot (1989) 80. A Celebration (1982) 81. Please (1997) 82. Satellite of Love (1992) 83. Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way (2017) 84. Surrender (1983) 85. Zooropa (1993) 86. Paint It Black (1992) 87. Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour) (Bono & the Edge with Jay-Z & Rihanna, 2010) 88. MLK (1984) 89. Three Sunrises (1985) 90. Red Hill Mining Town (1987) 91. Fortunate Son (1992) 92. Wire (1984) 93. Hallelujah Here She Comes (1988) 94. The Electric Co. (1980) 95. Your Song Saved My Life (2021) 96. Walk to the Water (1987) 97. A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel (1988) 98. Love Resuce Me (with U2, 1988) 99. Zoo Station (1991) 100. The First Time (1993) Resources and Related Links: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for U2 DMDB profile page for U2 Dave’s Music Database: “Acts’ Profile Pages and Best-of Lists” First posted 9/6/2017; updated 3/22/2023.

U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb debuted at #1 in US

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb U2

Released: November 23, 2004 Charted: December 11, 2004 Peak: 11 US, 13 UK, 11 CN, 11 AU Sales (in millions): 3.3 US, 1.2 UK, 11.6 world (includes US and UK) Genre: rock

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Vertigo [3:14] (10/3/04, 31 US, 33 RR, 9 A40, 1 AA, 3 AR, 1 MR, 1 UK, 2 CN, 5 AU) Miracle Drug [3:59] Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own [5:08] (2/7/05, 97 US, 48 RR, 15 A40, 1 AA, 29 MR, 1 UK, 1 CN, 19 AU) Love and Peace or Else [4:50] City of Blinding Lights [5:47] (6/6/05, 40 A40, 3 AA, 2 UK, 2 CN, 31 AU) All Because of You [3:39] (12/5/04, 1 AA, 20 AR, 6 MR, 4 UK, 1 CN, 23 AU) A Man and a Woman [4:30] Crumbs from Your Table [5:03] One Step Closer [3:51] Original of the Species [4:41] Yahweh [4:21] Songs written by U2. Total Running Time: 49:03 The Players: Bono (vocals, guitar) The Edge (guitar, backing vocals, piano, bass) Adam Clayton (bass) Larry Mullen, Jr. (drums, percussion)

Rating: 4.032 out of 5.00 (average of 32 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: In the 1980s, U2 gradually built their audience from college rock to the culmination of “biggest band in the world” with 1987’s The Joshua Tree. Four years later, the band had another monstrous success with Achtung Baby, a conscious attempt to modernize their sound with dance and electronica elements. The new millennium found the Irish quartet “returning to the big, earnest sound and sensibility of their classic ‘80s wor.” AMG with All That You Can’t Leave Behind. “It was a confident, cinematic album that played to their strengths, winning back the allegiance of wary fans and critics” AMG who’d somewhat soured from 1993’s Zooropa and the “rocktronica fusion” AMG 1997’s Pop. U2’s follow-up, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, continued to “erase their wild flirtation with dance clubs and postmodernism so they can return to the time they were the social conscience of rock music. Gone are the heavy dance beats, gone are the multiple synthesizers, gone are the dense soundscapes that marked their ‘90s albums.” AMG Instead, there is “a clean, sharp production, gilded in guitars and anchored with straight-ahead, unhurried rhythms.” AMG This is “U2 at their simplest, playing direct, straight-ahead rock with little subtlety and shading in the production, performance, or lyrics.” AMG That can evoke criticism that the band are “scaling back their sound so far that they have shed the murky sense of mystery that gave The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree an otherworldly allure.” AMG The album “feels too constrained and calculated, too concerned with finding purpose in the past instead of bravely heading into the future.” AMG Still, “the stark production can also be an advantage, since the band still sounds large and powerful. U2 still are expert craftsmen, capable of creating records with huge melodic and sonic hooks.” AMG There are “songs as reassuring as the slyly soulful Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own and the soaring City of Blinding Lights, or the pile-driving All Because of You.” AMG Notes: “Fast Cars” was added as a bonus track in UK, Ireland, and Japan.

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 2/22/2009; last updated 5/1/2022.

U2 charted with “One”

One U2

Writer(s): Bono/U2 (see lyrics here) Released: February 24, 1992 First Charted: January 4, 1992 Peak: 10 US, 3 CB, 12 GR, 2 RR, 24 AC, 12 AR, 11 MR, 7 UK, 14 CN, 4 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.2 UK, 0.36 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 86.0 video, 459.23 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Inspired by the fall of the Berlin wall, U2 went to Germany to record their album Achtung Baby and “cast off their trad-rock shoes and restyled themselves as post-modern, electro-tinged experimentalists.” TB It has been speculated that the song “One” is about the reunification of the country SF while it is also theorized that the song is about the reunification of the group itself. They bickered over the direction over their sound and even broke up temporarily before achieving a breakthrough with “One.” WK The Edge, the band’s guitarist, said, “It was a pivotal song in the recording of the album, the first breakthrough in what was an extremely difficult set of sessions.” SF U2’s lead singer, Bono, was initially vague about the song’s theme, but did say in the book U2 by U2 that the song “is not about oneness; it’s about difference.” SF Prompted by a number of fans who told the band they played the song at their weddings, Bono said, “Are you mad? It’s about splitting up!” WK In fact, Bono may have been writing about the Edge’s marital problems (they split soon after the recording sessions) and/or the girl troubles his friend Guggi, an Irish painter, was experiencing at the time. SF The Edge said the song was “a bitter, twisted, vitriolic conversation between two people who’ve been through some nasty stuff” SF but that it’s also about the “privilege to carry one another. It puts everything in perspective and introduces the idea of grace.” SF In a 2005 interview with Rolling Stone, Bono said the song was “about someone I knew who was coming out and was afraid to tell his father.” SF The proceeds from the single were donated to AIDS research. American artist David Wojnarowicz, whose work created controversy for its uncompromising depictions of homosexuality and his own infection by the H.I.V. virus, created the artwork for the single. The liner notes described the depiction of how native Americans hunted buffalo by running them off cliffs as representative of how we are “pushed into the unknown by forces we cannot control or even understand.” WK One of the three videos done for the song focuses on buffalo running in a field. Bono acknowledged “the best U2 songs seem to occupy this place of contradictions.” TC No matter its meaning, “One” is “a record that is both intensely personal and universal as well.” TC Rolling Stone said it is “a ballad in which Bono wonders whether individuality also means eternal loneliness and comes down on the side of hope.” SS Bono said the song “ironically…went in a totally different direction from everything we’d been working on.” TC It is “a much more simple, stately affair, anchored not by tinkering with the latest studio gadgetry but by an elegant four-chord riff, everyman lyrics, and a magisterial singalong chorus.” TB Mary J. Blige, Adam Lambert, and the Glee Cast have all charted with versions of the song. Johnny Cash, Joe Cocker, Gov’t Mule, and Usher have also recorded the song. Half of the band – Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen – joined with R.E.M. members Michael Stipe and Mike Mills to perform the song at the 1993 inaugural ball for Bill Clinton. In 1992, readers of Rolling Stone voted “One” the best single of the year. In a 2007 pool done by the Irish radio station Today FM, the song was voted the best Irish single ever. SF In 2003, it was voted the best song EVER by Q Magazine. SF More specifically, in a 2006 VH1 poll, the line “one life, with each other/ Sisters, brothers” was voted the UK’s favorite song lyric. SF Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for U2 TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 415-7. SF Songfacts SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 250-1. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 257. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/29/2019; last updated 3/26/2023.