U2 - The Edge, Bono, Adam Clayton,
and Larry Mullen Jr.
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Cover: U2 Go Home Live from Slane Castle, Ireland
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YouTube: U2 Where The Streets Have No Name Live At Slane Castle

"We've found different ways of expressing it, and recognized the power of the media to manipulate such signs. Maybe we just have to sort of draw our fish in the sand. It's there for people who are interested. It shouldn't be there for people who aren't."
–Bono on faith, quoted in "U2 at the End of the World"

U2 concert at San Siro stadium
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@U2 Links

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The band has sold approximately 50.5 million albums in the U.S., according to the RIAA, and upwards of 170 million worldwide, has had six #1 albums in the US and nine #1 albums in the UK and is one of the most successful bands of the rock era. The band has won 22 Grammy awards, more than any other recording artist.

The band is also politically active in human rights causes, such as the Make Poverty History campaign as well as Live Aid, Live 8, One.org, and Bono's DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa) campaign.

Formation and breakthrough (1976 – 1979)

U2 Studio in Dublin Hanover Quay Studios
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After 18 months of rehearsals, Feedback changed its name to The Hype. The band performed with their new name at a talent show in Limerick, Ireland on 17 March 1978. One of the judges for the show happened to be CBS Records' Jackie Hayden; they won the contest, earning a £500 prize. Hayden was impressed enough with the band that he gave them studio time to record their first demo. Jackie Hayden later went on to work for Irish Magazine Hot Press.

In an interview with Christianity Today, Bono said:

"I just go where the life is, you know? Where I feel the Holy Spirit," Bono told Christianity Today. "If it's in the back of a Roman Catholic cathedral, in the quietness and the incense, which suggest the mystery of God, of God's presence, or in the bright lights of the revival tent, I just go where I find life. I don't see denomination. I generally think religion gets in the way of God.

"I am just trying to figure it out. Everybody wants to make an impact with their life, whether it's small scale with friends or family—that's really big, is the truth—or whether it's on a grand scale, in changing their communities and beyond.

"I just want to realize my potential." He recalled one pastor's recent advice: Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Find out what God's doing. It's already blessed. "That's what I want," Bono said. "I want to align my life with that.[2]

U2's first release, the Three EP

Others feel that U2 derived its name from the Irish Unemployment form (in the same way as UB40 in the UK).

Dik Evans announced his departure in March 1978. The Hype performed a farewell show for Dik at the Community Centre in Howth. Dik walked offstage halfway through the set and later joined the Virgin Prunes, a fellow Dublin band. The remaining four members finished their performance as U2. In May, Paul McGuinness, who had been introduced to the band by Hot Press journalist Bill Graham (not to be confused with Billy Graham), became U2's manager.

Influenced by Television and Joy Division, U2's early sound had a sense of exhilaration that resulted from The Edge's "radiant chords" and Bono's "ardent vocals". U2 released its first single (in Ireland only) in September 1979, entitled U2-3, as a 12 inch and subsequently a 7 inch. The first 1,000 12 inch copies were individually hand numbered and it went on to top the Irish charts. In December 1979, U2 performed in London, their first shows outside Ireland, but failed to get much attention from audiences or critics. In February 1980, their second single "Another Day" was released on the CBS label but again only for the Irish market.

U2's debut album, Boy

Boy and October (1980 - 1982)

The album art seen at left is the United Kingdom album cover. American record-company executives thought the cover communicated pedophilic undertones and changed the image for the U.S. release. The boy on the cover is Peter Rowan, a brother of one of Bono's friends. Peter also appears, three years later, on the cover of War.

U2 made their first appearance on US television on Tomorrow hosted by Tom Snyder. It aired on 4 June 1981, and the band performed "I Will Follow" and "Twilight", followed by an interview.

The band's second album, October, was released in 1981. The album contained spiritual lyrics with Bono, The Edge and Larry being committed Christians and making little effort to hide that fact. The three band members had joined a religious group in Dublin called "Shalom," which led all three to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle. While the Bible has remained a major source of inspiration for Bono’s lyric writing, October is U2’s only overtly religious album and is generally held to be among their least successful work.

The Unforgettable Fire (1984)

It had a significant experimental aspect with the band striving to achieve a more atmospheric sound.

Critics and fans alike found Bono's lyrics to be more subtle and poetic, while the Edge's guitar became more effects-driven and his sound more symphonic, and the rhythm section demonstrated its versatility. Some critics, such as Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder, however, found that The Unforgettable Fire ironically lacked the "fire" of U2's previous albums Although listeners would, for the most part hear a new sound from U2, their material, although less overtly so, remained political. "Pride (In the Name of Love)", a song about civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was the first single, cracking the UK Top 5 and the US Top 40. Arguably the centerpiece of the album, the six-minute long "Bad" was to become a live favorite, but was never released as a single.

The associated Unforgettable Fire Tour saw U2 playing indoor arenas for the first time. U2 also participated in the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium for Ethiopian famine relief in July 1985, which was seen by more than a billion people worldwide. U2 were not expected to be one of the main draws for the event, but the band provided the show with one of its most memorable moments, a relentless 13-minute version of "Bad" in which Bono hurdled off the stage to dance with a fan. The other band members were upset with Bono for spending the time they had planned for playing "Pride (In the Name of Love)," and Bono was convinced he had squandered a chance for promoting the band to a greater audience. Larry Mullen Jr. admitted that the rest of the band had considered leaving the stage as he was performing. The Live Aid version of "Bad" has however become one of U2's most renowned performances, and was an indication of the personal connection that Bono could make with audiences.

U2's Achtung Baby

Achtung Baby, Zoo TV and Zooropa
(1991 – 1994)

In November 1991, U2 released the often experimental and distorted Achtung Baby in which the band had used influences from dance music.

It was also a more inward and personal record, and as a result, darker than the band's previous work. Commercially and critically it was one of the band's most successful albums, and like The Joshua Tree, is often cited as one of rock's greatest. It played a crucial part in the band's early 1990s reinvention.

The Zoo TV stage

U2 used the show to mock the excesses of rock and roll by appearing to embrace these very excesses. Live prank phone calls to President Bush caused controversy, as did link-ups to war-torn Sarajevo.

Recorded in 1993 during a break in the ZooTV tour, the Zooropa album followed many of the themes from Achtung Baby album and Zoo TV tour. Initially intended as an EP, Zooropa expanded into a full-fledged LP and was released in July of 1993. It was a further greater departure from the style of their earlier recordings, incorporating techno style and other electronic effects. The Zooropa album was, like Achtung Baby before it, popular among people who had never been fans of U2, further expanding the fanbase and increasing the band's ability to remain popular into the 1990s and beyond. Most of the songs were played at least once in the 1993 leg of the tour through Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, with several songs becoming fixtures in the set.

After some time off—and a few side projects (the Batman Forever and Mission: Impossible soundtracks)—the band returned in 1995 with Brian Eno under the moniker "Passengers", and released an experimental album called Original Soundtracks No. 1. The album, including a collaboration with Luciano Pavarotti, "Miss Sarajevo", was largely unnoticed in the industry, and received little attention from the critics and public alike after the band lost the battle with the record company to release it with the U2 name.

U2's Pop

Pop and Popmart (1996 – 1998)

Released in March 1997, the album debuted at #1 in 28 countries, and earned U2 mainly positive reviews.

Rolling Stone even went so far as claiming U2 had "defied the odds and made some of the greatest music of their lives."

However, American audiences and fans felt that the music industry had exceeded the limits of tolerance in promoting Pop, and the album was seen as something of a disappointment by many die-hard U2 fans. The band later admitted they were hurried into completing the album before the impending tour, and say that a number of tracks on the album were not finished as well as they would have liked. This possibly explains the re-recording and re-mixing of a number of Pop tracks for single releases and U2's second greatest hits album.

With the subsequent Popmart Tour, U2 continued the Zoo TV theme of decadence. The tour commenced in April 1997; the set included a 100-foot tall golden yellow arch, a large 150 foot long video screen, and a 40 foot tall mirrorball lemon. One of the stops was in Sarajevo, where they were the first major group to perform after the war. The Popmart Tour was the second-highest grossing tour of 1997 (behind the Rolling Stones' Bridges to Babylon Tour) with revenues of just under $80 million. However, it cost more than $100 million to produce. Although the extravagance of the tour was visually and technically impressive, in the early stages, Popmart was occasionally marred with less-than-par performances. The problem stemmed from the band booking their tour before the album was finished. Originally set to be released in November 1996, Pop was not in stores until March 1997. As a result, the band had to spend time recording that had originally been allocated for tour rehearsals. Both the Popmart Tour and the Zoo TV Tour were intended to send a sarcastic message to all those accusing U2 of commercialism. The shows were also intended to be shining a mirror back onto the world, taking all the subtle advertising and messages we are exposed to every day and blowing them up. However, many misinterpreted the band's new image and thought they had "lost it."

Following the Popmart Tour, The band played a brief concert in Belfast in May 1998, three days before the public voted in favour of the Northern Ireland Peace Accord. Also that year, U2 performed on an Irish TV fundraiser for victims of the Omagh, Northern Ireland bombing which killed 28 and injured hundreds earlier in the year. In late 1998, U2 released the single "Sweetest Thing" (previously a b-side from a "The Joshua Tree" single), as well as its first compilation, The Best of 1980-1990.

U2's All That

All That You Can't Leave Behind and Elevation Tour (2000 – 2001)

Regarded by many, including Rolling Stone magazine, as U2's "third masterpiece" alongside The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, it was once again produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois.

It debuted at #1 in 22 countries and spawned a world-wide hit single, "Beautiful Day," which also earned three of a total of six Grammy Awards associated with the album. "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" and "Elevation" were also successful singles. The album also would win the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 2002 and was responsible for two Record of the Year awards in consecutive years.

The Elevation Tour saw the band performing in a scaled-down setting, returning to arenas after nearly a decade of stadium productions, with a heart-shaped stage and ramp permitting greater proximity to the audience. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 nearly led U2 to cancel the last third of the tour but they decided to continue nonetheless; the new album's "Walk On" and "New York" gained added resonance. The tour ended up as the top concert draw in North America in 2001. Following such a favourably-received album, and a hugely successful tour, many fans felt that U2 had been successful in "re-applying for the job of the biggest band in the world," an application Bono had made a year earlier.

U2 performs at Super Bowl XXXVI Halftime Show, 3 February 2002

Bono then opened his jacket, which he had worn throughout the Elevation Tour, to reveal the American flag printed as the lining, an image that was widely reproduced in the media.

Bono continued his campaigns for debt and HIV/AIDS relief throughout the summer of 2002. In late 2002, U2 released part two of its greatest hits collection, The Best of 1990-2000.

U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and Vertigo Tour (2004 – 2006)

The first single from the album, titled "Vertigo", was released for airplay on September 24, 2004. The song received extensive airplay in the first week after its release and became an international hit.

The album was released on November 22 worldwide and November 23 in the United States. The album debuted at #1 in 32 countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the band's native Ireland. It sold 840,000 units in the United States in its first week. This was a personal record for the band, nearly doubling the first-week sales of All That You Can't Leave Behind in the US.

The indoor stage design: the "ellipse" B-stage and LED curtain, as featured on the Vertigo: Live From Chicago DVD

February and March 2006 saw the band play shows in Latin America. The tour has featured a much more varied set list than any U2 tour since the 1980s, with a greater diversity of songs played each night.

The Edge from U2 on 1. April 2005 in Anaheim. Source: originally posted to Flickr as As we all know, Edge plays a smokin' guitar: Date: April 1, 2005, Author: Chris Sansenbach (Kurisu) from Huntington Beach
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On February 8, 2006, U2 won Grammy Awards in all five categories they were nominated in: Album of the Year for How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, Song of the Year for "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," Best Rock Album for Atomic Bomb, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "Sometimes.." and Best Rock Song for "City of Blinding Lights". "If you think this is going to go to our head, it's too late," said Bono as he accepted the award for "Song of the Year".

In August 2006, the band came under criticism after having decided to transfer part of its multi-million-euro business empire out of Ireland due to changes in tax laws there.

Next album recordings (2006 – 2007)

In April 2005, reports emerged that U2 have plans for a new album. According to Bono there are 24 songs that came out of the How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb album sessions, of which the band took 11 for their subsequent record. In the January 2006 edition of Q magazine, Bono said that the band was in fact working on a new album for 2006. An early July email to members of U2.com's paid fan club broke the news that the band was back in the studio, although it is unknown at what point in the process the sessions are.

Songs rumoured to appear on the next album are:

• "North Star" - a song from the How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb sessions that includes a guest organ appearance from Michael W. Smith. Smith has described in an interview that it is a tribute to the late Johnny Cash.
• "Lead Me In The Way I Should Go" - an outtake How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb first mentioned in the February 2003 issue of Grammy Magazine.
• "You Can't Give Away Your Heart" - an outtake How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb that was first mentioned in SPIN magazine.
• "Mercy" - one of the last songs cut from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. It was described in Blender magazine as "a six and a half-minute outpouring of U2 at its most uninhibitedly U2-ish." A demo version of the song from the recording sessions to How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb appeared on the Internet shortly after the album was released.
• "Love Is All We Have Left" - a song penned by Bono during his May 2006 excursion to Africa, of which he has said he "thought it was a Frank Sinatra song".

Recordings from sessions in Èze, France, known as "beach clips", have led to new speculation concerning the band's next album. It has been reported that famed producer Rick Rubin is currently in the South of France with U2, working on new material for their next album. This is the first collaboration between the band and Rubin. On September 12, it was reported on the official U2 website that the band was working on a new album in the famed Abbey Road studios.

It was announced in early September 2006 that Green Day would join U2 in the studio to record a cover version of the song "The Saints are Coming" by The Skids to benefit Music Rising, a charity founded (with support from The Edge) to help in the purchasing of new instruments for the musicians of New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina. To coincide with the recording, both bands performed a live version of the song during the NFL Monday Night Football Pregame show of the New Orleans Saints/Atlanta Falcons game on September 25, 2006. "The Saints are Coming" will be digitally released on October 31st and the single on November 6th, 2006

U2's website announced that a new "Best Of" album is in production, it will be called U218. It will contain 16 of the band's most well-known songs and two new recordings including "The Saints are Coming", recorded with Green Day. A bonus edition of the album will include a live CD featuring 10 tracks from the Veritgo Tour in Milan as well as a DVD collection of video clips from U218 U218 is due for release on November 20 2006.

Other projects

While working under the pseudonym "Passengers," U2 gave producer Brian Eno creative control and released the album Original Soundtracks No. 1. The work was proposed as a compilation of film music for nonexistent movies, and a bit of a step back from the usual style of the band - thus the pseudonym "Passengers". Two of the tracks, "Miss Sarajevo" (which got world airplay after its live duet between Bono and Pavarotti was included in the album Pavarotti And Friends) and "Your Blue Room" (which included a vocal track by the band's bassist, Adam Clayton), made it to their Best Of 1990-2000 album.

U2 also worked together with non-music artists, including the U.S. author William S. Burroughs, who had a guest appearance in their video of "Last Night on Earth" shortly before he died. His poem "A Thanksgiving Prayer" was used as video footage during the band's Zoo TV Tour. Other collaborators included William Gibson and Allen Ginsberg.

Many musicians have been influenced by the work of U2. There are several cover versions of U2 songs by bands such as Pet Shop Boys, Pearl Jam and The Chimes, and musicians such as Cassandra Wilson, Joe Cocker, Billy Corgan and Johnny Cash. U2 have enjoyed reciprocal influential relationships with artists including R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen and Anton Corbijn, as well as exerting influences on others.

Since 1982, Anton Corbijn has been the principal photographer for U2, having a major and ongoing influence on their public image. Since their first encounter in February 1982 in New Orleans, they have had a longstanding friendship, mutual inspiration, and shared interest of rock history.

On several occasions, U2 have collaborated with fellow Irish band The Corrs, with very specific collaborations between the frontman of U2, Bono, and frontwoman of The Corrs, Andrea Corr. The Corr's VH1 Live in Dublin album (2002) featured Bono providing lead vocals with Andrea on "When the Stars Go Blue" (a cover of a song by Ryan Adams) and "Summer Wine", and when Bono and Gavin Friday wrote the song "Time Enough for Tears" for the motion picture In America, Andrea was once again brought in to provide the vocals. Their most recent collaboration was for the title song of the 2005 film Don't Come Knocking, penned by Bono. Bono also performed with The Corrs at the 2005 Live 8 Edinburgh concert to reprise the duet "When the Stars Go Blue."

See also:
@U2

Notes

1. « www.atu2.com U2 Bible References in lyrics Retrieved 8/20/2010
2. « Bono's American Prayer The world's biggest rock star tours the heartland, talking more openly about his faith as he recruits Christians in the fight against AIDS in Africa.. 3/01/2003. Retrieved 8/20/2010

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