monkey

Haven't seen this one yet...my fave band. I have to go with Achtung Baby all the way.

raithen

It's a toss up between Achtung Baby! and The Unforgettable Fire, but the latter edges (no pun intended!) it out by a bit. While I believe Achtung is superior musically, Unforgettable just holds a special place in my heart - it was the first U2 album I ever bought or listened to.

Cheers,

-matt

uberjoe

Joshua Tree, then Achtung, then I don't even know what. I love 'em all, and buy every U2 CD I can get my hands on. My collection of real stuff, plus burned concerts, is a little over 100 total CDs.

monkey

uberjoe, perhaps we can do some trading. Drop me an e-mail.

bigjim25

I love that song they did with BB King. That's why I voted for Rattle & Hum.

kilcher

I'm not really a U2 fan but I consider Rattle & Hum to be one of the top 10 cd's I've ever owned/heard. I absolutely love it.

codefree

Hands down: Achtung Baby! Runners up: Joshua Tree & All That You Can't Leave Behind

Adboy151

Joshua Tree, then AB, followed possibly by War...

J-Dubya

I voted for Unforgettable Fire as the title track is my all-time favorite U2 song. War and The Joshua Tree are also fantastic albums. What a trio, especially since they were 3 in a row. I doubt any other band has released 3 albums that were so good consecutively.

Precious

I voted for The Joshua Tree it brings back some great memories and was a fine album.

Foole

IMHO, The Unforgettable Fire shows U2 at their peak. It all went downhill from there once the band started getting more video-oriented...

raithen

Definitely my favourite track by U2 as well! Perhaps we need a thread for fave U2 song?

-matt

POWERBOMB

For me:

3) Rattle and Hum
2) Joshua Tree
1) Greatest Hits

bralph

Ditto. I also own a couple other U2 Cds (Joshua Tree, Actung Baby, Greatest Hits), but the only one I regularly pop in is Rattle and Hum.

grunter

Unfair! Unfair!

This is like the "Sophie's Choice" of album polls. How can I possibly choose just one?

For nostalgia's sake, I'll go for "Joshua Tree." It came out my senior year in high school and I marked the release date on my calendar in black magic marker, counting down the days until that masterpiece was released. That album - above most others - was the soundtrack of my youth.

But I have such a soft spot for "Zooropa" which tossed off the preachiness of the earlier more earnest U2 much more effortlessly than I believe even "Achtung Baby!" did. Where AB is dark and propulsive (containing my single all-time favorite U2 track "Until the End of the World)," "Zooropa" was light, frothy and ready to rave. Bono came to boogie on that album.

Gonna have to go back and watch my "EL - E - VA - TION" DVD again . . .

BDB

I'm pretty sure Joshua will win this poll, I voted for AB, as I think there are some excellent songs on it, this is a tough poll as many have said, the new album has taken on a whole different meaning with the 2nd round of shows in the US.

Songs like New York - obv w 9/11
and Kite with the loss of Bob Hewson are now amazing songs.

Walk on to me is one of my songs of the year so far, it sums up a lot of my feelings in a couple of lines.

I have the ability to walk on and leave it behind.

But Ab is a great album, with some amazing songs. The Fly is one of my top top songs.

They are such a supergroup

Wag The Frog

The Joshua Tree...but Achtung Baby is a close second. Unforgettable Fire and War contain some of their best songs ever, but these albums have some filler on them. JT and AB are strong all the way through.

atlantamoi

Tough one. "Joshua Tree" is one of the best recordings of the 80's.
"Achtung Baby" one of the best of the 90's. I think I might be one of
the only people who really loved "Pop".
And "All That You Can't Leave Behind" is one of the biggest DUDS of this decade (so far).

monkey

I also think Pop is terrific. Very underrated. Many people have a hard time associating the image the band assumed for this album with the actual music (which was the point, anyways). But I have to disagree about ATYCLB, which I find to be the finest record of the year and a refreshing move for the band.

Ky-Fi

Unforgettble Fire is #1 for me---very abstract, moody, deep, but also very warm and a little odd--and October is in the same vein. For me, with the Christian, moral, noble vibe the band works in, it just comes off better when the music, and especially Bono's lyrics are more abstract and stream-of-consciousness. I just found Joshua Tree to be too perfectly planned out and focused to the point of losing some of the mystery of the earlier works. Although they've made some great music since, after Unforgettable Fire, for better or worse, they became a "rock band"---and to me that term didn't exactly apply to their earlier incarnation. I think they occasionally got overpowered by their influences on some of the stuff after Unforgettable Fire--whereas UF just had a completely original sound and vibe, IMO.

monkey

This may seem cheap, but if anyone has live U2 shows they wanna trade, e-mail me. Don't think is completely off-topic, and the band supports trading bootlegs of their shows.

Snooples

As others have noted, this is a very difficult choice to make, especially since U2's albums are so varied, and different ones speak to different moods and situations.

I'm going to have to go with Joshua Tree, though, because it came out at an extremely difficult time in my life, and touched me very deeply. I am still moved every time I hear those opening organ notes in "Where the Streets Have No Name." The album has lost none of its power.

BTW, monkey, where's Under a Blood Red Sky (the live Red Rocks concert album) on the list? That's the first U2 album I ever bought (on VINYL!!)...way back in (gulp) 1983.

monkey

Snooples: While Under A Blood Red Sky is a fantastic live album (yes, I also still own the original vinyl pressing ), I narrowed it down to U2's ten studio efforts, excluding live albums EPs, side projects, and the best of compilation.

Toad

Joshua Tree leaves 'em all in the dust.
"One Tree Hill"?? Doesn't get better than that.