Albums

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

Disc: 1
1. Vertigo
2. Miracle Drug
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
4. Love and Peace or Else
5. City of Blinding Lights
6. All Because of You
7. Man and a Woman
8. Crumbs from Your Table
9. One Step Closer
10. Original of the Species

Audio CD (November 23, 2004)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Interscope Records

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (Deluxe)

DELUXE EDITION (CD/DVD): In addition the the full CD, the DELUXE EDITION includes a DVD featuring Making of the Album footage, B Roll in studio, Acoustic performances of 4 songs.

Disc: 1
1. Vertigo
2. Miracle Drug
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
4. Love and Peace or Else
5. City of Blinding Lights
6. All Because of You
7. Man and a Woman
8. Crumbs from Your Table
9. One Step Closer
10. Original of the Species

See all 11 tracks on this disc Disc: 2
1. Interview With Neil McCormick [DVD]
2. Vertigo [DVD]
3. Vertigo [Remix] [DVD]
4. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own [Studio] [DVD]
5. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own [Acoustic] [DVD]
6. Crumbs From Your Table [DVD]

Audio CD (November 23, 2004)
Number of Discs: 2
Label: Interscope Records

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (Collector's Edition)

COLLECTOR'S EDITION (LIMITED): In addition the the full CD, the COLLECTOR'S EDITION includes a DVD with Making of the Album footage, B Roll in studio, and Acoustic performances of 4 songs. In addition to the CD & DVD, the COLLECTOR'S EDITION features a full color hardback book. The book includes extracts from band members note books, original paintings, illustrations and photography along with quotes and statistics.

Disc: 1
1. Vertigo
2. Miracle Drug
3. Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own
4. Love and Peace or Else
5. City of Blinding Lights
6. All Because of You
7. Man and a Woman
8. Crumbs from Your Table
9. One Step Closer
10. Original of the Species

See all 11 tracks on this disc Disc: 2
1. Interview With Neil McCormick [DVD]
2. Vertigo [DVD]
3. Vertigo [Remix] [DVD]
4. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own [Studio] [DVD]
5. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own [Acoustic] [DVD]
6. Crumbs From Your Table [DVD]

Audio CD (November 23, 2004)
Number of Discs: 2
Label: Interscope Records

U2 - The Best of 1990-2000

U2 - The Best Of 1990-2000 (Deluxe Limited Edition)

3 Disc special edition

Best of 1990-2000 [EXTRA TRACKS] [IMPORT]

Japanese Import

All That You Can't Leave Behind [Album]

The foursome come roaring out of the blocks with their latest collection. The album's first single, "Beautiful Day," raced to the No. 1 slot on the U.K. singles charts and received a similar rapturous reception stateside. From its shimmering preamble to its sweeping, infectious chorus, it perfectly stakes out the middle ground between the anthemic U2 of the '80s and the more grounded group of the '90s. With Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno sharing production chores again after having taken a break with Pop, the U2 team enters the new millennium with their lineup--and mission--intact.

Audio CD (30 October, 2000)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: CIDU212

The Best Of: 1980-1990 [Album]

One need hear only the first notes of this collection--the Edge's ringing guitar notes ushering in "Pride (In the Name of Love)"-to be taken back to 1984: Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher rule the Western world, the L.A. Olympics is the top sports story, and Ms. Pac-Man reigns at arcades. In rock & roll, there's U2 growing in stature with each new title. Even doubters of the Irish lads have to concede that together they formed the one '80s band with the skill and sense of scale to take over the airwaves and concert stages in a decade of diminished expectations. This 15-song '80s best-of assortment (stick around for the hidden track) spans the decade, reaching back to 1980's "I Will Follow," when Bono and company were peach-fuzzy and earnest as choirboys, and tracking their path through their most glaring misstep, 1988's overblown Rattle and Hum

Audio CD (9 November, 1998)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: CIDU211

Pop [Album]

Get one thing straight: Techno is merely the fairy dust sprinkled atop another massive, brilliantly conceived slab of dense, drug-like rock & roll from the only band this side of the Smashing Pumpkins who could pull off such a feat. Mainstream audiences are desperate for something fresh yet familiar, and this Warholian treatise on the plasticity of pop culture expertly mixes new sonic colors with the band's signature art-rock genius. "Discotheque" is an exhilarating opener, "Staring at the Sun" is their answer to relative upstarts Oasis's hit "Wonderwall," and "If God Will Send His Angels" has the makings of a crossover anthem. This is U2 in peak unit-shifting form.

Audio CD (March 4, 1997)
Number of Discs: 1
Catalogue Number: CIDU210

Zooropa [Album]

Following the band's Zoo TV tour, which took aim at consumerism and media overload, U2 brought those themes and the complex, futuristic sound of its preceding album, Achtung Baby, to their somewhat illogical conclusion on Zooropa, the group's most chaotic, cutting-edge work. The monotone techno-rap "Numb" leads the way, while "Lemon" offers reminders of David Bowie's Berlin trilogy of more than a decade before. Best of all is "The Wanderer," featuring a guest vocal by country-music icon Johnny Cash. His bottomless baritone sounds bizarre over burbling synthesizers, but Bono's trenchant lyric about a postapocalyptic seeker of sensation and experience before he repents nails Cash's legend at least as well as he ever has himself.

Audio CD (June 1993)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: CIDU29

Achtung Baby [Album]

"I'm ready / Ready for what's next," Bono announces at the outset of Achtung Baby, the album that proved the so-called "band of the '80s" was capable of blazing into the '90s by replacing its flag-waving arena-rock stance with screaming synths, clubby rhythms, and industrial skronk. The group advances its sound without losing accessibility on "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses," "Even Better Than the Real Thing," and "Mysterious Ways," while pushing the envelope a bit more on "The Fly," "Zoo Station," and "Acrobat." The moody ballad "One" is arguably the finest song the band has produced, full of sorrow, compassion, and hope all at the same time.

Audio CD (October 1991)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: CIDU28

Rattle & Hum [Album]

The ill will that initially greeted Rattle and Hum--the follow-up to the band's massively successful Joshua Tree album--was due in large part to the bloated and self-important feature film that accompanied it, which showed the band as being simultaneously naive and pretentious as it "discovered" America. But as the film mercifully slips from memory, the music has remained, from the furious swirl of "Desire" and a clutch of live hits to insightful musical nods to heroes such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Billie Holiday. Songs like "When Love Comes to Town," a supercharged blues duet with B.B. King, suggests the quartet knew more about America from listening to its music than Phil Joanou's unintentional mockumentary suggested.

Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: CIDU27

Joshua Tree [Album]

Having nearly exhausted their capacity for pop-song politics on War and The Unforgettable Fire, U2 turned toward themes of personal identity and complex relationships on The Joshua Tree. Not that the group was willing to come down off the barricades entirely: "Mothers of the Disappeared" and "Bullet the Blue Sky" turned a jaundiced eye toward Central America and the United States' role there. But the predominant mood here is one of self-discovery and the hunger for something more on tracks like the pulsating "Where the Streets Have No Name" and the gospel-ish "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." The album's masterstroke, however, is "With or Without You," a nasty love song dressed up as an ode of devotion and care. It ranks with the Police's "Every Breath You Take" as the most misread smash hit of the '80s.

Audio CD (March 1987)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: CIDU26

Wide Awake In America [Album]

The defining moment of 1985's Live Aid music festival was U2's pulsing, magical performance of "Bad," where Bono climbed down into the audience and danced with a young woman while millions watched, for almost 20 minutes. The album version of the song wasn't anywhere near that amazing, so the centerpiece of the four-song Wide Awake EP, released in a hurry after Live Aid, is another gorgeously drawn-out live take on "Bad." It's augmented by two rather nice outtakes from the Unforgettable Fire sessions (which had previously appeared as British B-sides), both more showcases for the band's collaborative electricity than good songs per se, and another solid live recording.

Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: IMCD75

The Unforgettable Fire [Album]

An appreciable leap forward in almost every fashion from the group's first trio of albums, The Unforgettable Fire is its first with the production team of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. And while they take a strong hand in wrestling U2's music out of the mainstream and into a more individualistic area, it's the songs themselves that demand a more subtle approach. Moody gems such as "A Sort of Homecoming" and the entrancing "Bad" set the table for more explosive fare such as "Pride", "Wire" and the title track. This is the album that made U2 a career act, showing that their music could grow by leaps and bounds, even at the hand of another, without sacrificing its soul.

Audio CD (1 June, 1985)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: IMCD236

Under A Blood Red Sky [Album]

There seem to be two major camps of U2 fans now: Those who dig the early albums (good and sensible people), and those who only like the ones from the 1990s, putting everything previous down as "classic rock." But U2 only became a classic rock sort of band in 1984, with The Unforgettable Fire. The real early stuff, from '80 to '83, still comes off as edgy--and it's comparatively ignored. Here's a sampler: Under a Blood Red Sky is from a U.S. tour (1983's) in which U2 still thought of itself as a hungry little band from Ireland--and draws (fairly wisely) from the band's first three albums. There's nary a misstep on the entire disc, although it could stand a few more tracks.

Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: IMCD248

War [Album]

The final album of U2's early period, before the group broadened its sonic palette and lyrical vision, War is a brilliantly conflicted album, sounding martial and majestic while its very purpose is to tear down false idols propped up by politics. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "40" take the subject of Ireland's troubles head-on, while it's the subtext of "New Year's Day," which is about a sundered love relationship symbolic of a greater division. "Torn in two, we can be one," Bono pleads, as Edge's guitar scratches and snarls behind him. Songs such as "Two Hearts Beat as One" and the delicate "Drowning Man" take a back seat here, but they help make War a compelling and well-rounded album.

Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: IMCD141

October [Album]

Long a favorite of U2's original core following, October not only avoids the sophomore slump, but adds an edgy, emotional resonance to the buoyant self-confidence they showed on their debut, Boy. Though producer Steve Lillywhite deserves mention for helping effectively frame the material with production that manages to be both stark and atmospherically murky, this is the music where Bono, Edge, and company first show the potential that would make them superstars. Lacking the sometimes ham-fisted polemics that would mar War, The Joshua Tree, and later works, October has an oft-tortured sense of emotional and philosophical ambivalence that only underscores concerns that range from the crypto-spiritualist yearnings of "Gloria" and "Rejoice" to more anxious moments like "I Fall Down," "I Threw a Brick Through a Window," and "Fire." In retrospect, they may have peaked early.

Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: IMCD223

Boy [Album]

There's little in U2's 1980 debut to suggest that this was a band bent on world domination. Indeed, there's a charming, if naive, coming-of-age urgency in songs such as "I Will Follow," "Stories for Boys" and "Out of Control" that may startle listeners more familiar with U2's latter-day bombast and stadium-scale theatrics. Bono's viewpoint, still tantalizingly vague and wide-eyed, showed that his penchant for strident polemics hadn't yet gotten the best of him; his anthems are those of a yearning Dubliner barely out of his teens rather than those of a world-weary multimillionaire. The band's sometimes-ragged musical chops work in its favor here, gently burnished to then-fresh new-wave sheen by producer Steve Lillywhite. If the Edge's dense, effects-laden guitar work seems overly familiar, it's only because this album was such a key influence on the whole "rock of the '80s" sound. Though not quite as moody or musically accomplished as October, arguably the band's first masterpiece, Boy still ranks as one of U2's best albums.

Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Island
Catalogue Number: IMCD211