U2
From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project
Template:Infobox musical artistTemplate:Otheruses4
U2 are a rock band from Dublin, Ireland. Formed in 1976, U2 have consistently been one of the more popular acts in the world since the mid-1980s. The band has sold upwards of 170 million albums worldwide.[1] With six #1 albums in the U.S. and nine #1 albums in the UK, U2 are one of the most successful acts of all time. They have won 22 Grammy awards,[2] more than any other recording artist.
The band was formed when vocalist Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. were teenagers and had limited musical proficiency. By the mid 1980s, however, they had released four albums and developed a devoted international following, largely from extensive touring and from forging a trademark sound based upon The Edge's distinctive echoing guitar and Bono's impassioned vocals and deeply introspective lyrics. They reached a level of mega-stardom with their 1987 release The Joshua Tree. In the early 1990s, they replied to the dance and alternative music revolutions, criticism of their image, and their own sense of musical stagnation, with the critically-acclaimed Achtung Baby and the groundbreaking Zoo TV Tour. Although U2 had already developed a reputation for pursuing new musical paths with each new album, this time the band had ostensibly re-invented themselves; this experimentation was to continue for the rest of the 1990s.
In the early years of the 21st century, U2 have pursued a more traditional sound while maintaining some influence of their previous musical explorations, and continue to enjoy the highest level of commercial and critical success. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked U2 number 22 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[3] In 2005, U2 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the first year they were eligible. The band is known for being politically active in human rights and social justice causes, such as Amnesty International, Make Poverty History, the ONE Campaign, Live Aid, Live 8, Bono's DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa) campaign, and The Edge's Music Rising.
History
Formation and breakthrough (1976–1979)
U2 formed in Dublin, Ireland on 25 September 1976. Larry Mullen, Jr., then fourteen, posted a notice on his secondary school notice board (Mount Temple Comprehensive School) seeking musicians for a new band. Seven teenage boys attended the initial practice in Mullen's kitchen. Known for about a day as "The Larry Mullen Band," the group featured Mullen on drums, Adam Clayton on bass guitar, Paul Hewson (Bono) on lead vocals, Dave Evans (The Edge) and his brother Dik Evans on guitar, as well as Ivan McCormick and Peter Martin, two other friends of Mullen.[4] Soon after, the group settled on the name 'Feedback', because it was one of the few musical terms they knew. Martin did not return after the first practice, and McCormick left the group within a few weeks.
We couldn't believe it. I was completely shocked. We weren't of an age to go out partying as such but I don't think anyone slept that night....Really, it was just a great affirmation to win that competition, even though I've no idea how good we were or what the competition was really like. But to win at that point was incredibly important for morale and everyone's belief in the whole project.
In March 1977, the band changed its name to 'The Hype'.[6] Dik Evans, who was older and by this time at college, was becoming the odd man out as the rest of the band was leaning towards the idea of a four-piece; he was 'phased out' in March 1978. During a farewell concert in the Presbyterian Church Hall in Howth, which featured The Hype playing covers, Dik ceremoniously walked offstage. The remaining four band members completed the concert playing original material as 'U2'.[7] The origin of the name 'U2' is not clear. It is the name of a famous 1960s surveillance plane, the Lockheed U-2; however, the Dublin punk rock guru Steve Averill (better known as Steve Rapid of The Radiators From Space) claimed it was chosen by the band from a list of ten names created by him and Adam Clayton. In an interview with Larry King, Bono said "I don't actually like the name U2," and "I honestly never thought of it as 'you too'."[8]
On Saint Patricks Day 1978, U2 won a talent show in Limerick, Ireland for which the prize was £500 and funding to record a demo; an important milestone and affirmation for the fledgling band.[7] In May, Paul McGuinness, who had earlier been introduced to the band by Hot Press journalist Bill Graham, agreed to be U2's manager.
U2's early sound was influenced by bands such as Television and Joy Division, and contains a sense of exhilaration that resulted from The Edge's "radiant chords" and Bono's "ardent vocals".[9] U2's first release, an Ireland-only EP entitled Three, was released in September 1979 and soon reached the top of the Irish charts. In December 1979, U2 performed in London, their first shows outside Ireland, although they 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.
Boy and October (1980-1982)
Island Records signed U2 in March 1980, and "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" became the band's first internationally released single that May. The band's debut album, Boy, followed that October. Boy has been praised as one of the better debuts in rock history.[10] Despite Bono’s unfocused, seemingly improvised lyrics, the hopes and frustrations of adolescence ran through the album as a lyrical theme[11] which touched on fear over sex, identity confusion, death and uncontrollable mood swings.[12] The album included the band's first hit single, "I Will Follow,". Boys release was followed by U2's first tour beyond Ireland and the United Kingdom. Despite their unpolished nature, these early live performances nevertheless helped demonstrate U2's potential, as critics noted that Bono was a very "charismatic" and "passionate" showman.[13] U2 made their first appearance on US television on The Tomorrow Show, on 4 June, 1981, performing "I Will Follow" and "Twilight".[14]
The band's second album, October, was released in 1981. The album contained spiritual lyrics; Bono, The Edge and Larry made little effort to hide their committed Christian outlooks. The three band members had joined a religious group in Dublin called the 'Shalom Fellowship', which led them to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle.[15] Although the Bible has remained a major source of inspiration for Bono’s lyric writing, October is U2's only overtly religious album. It is generally considered as being among their less successful work.[16]
In February 1982, the band first met photographer Anton Corbijn, noted for his work with Depeche Mode and Joy Division. This was to be the beginning of a long relationship; Corbijn became U2's principal photographer and has had a major influence on their vision and public image.[17][18]
War (1983)
Template:Sound sample box align rightTemplate:ListenTemplate:Sample box endFollowing the doubts of the October period, 1983 saw U2 with renewed purpose and the release of their third album War. The album included the song "Sunday Bloody Sunday," which expresses the band's reaction to the troubles in Northern Ireland. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the ability to use a range of powerful images, taking a song initially about sectarian anger, and turn it into a call for Christians to unite and claim victory over death and evil, showed that the band was capable of deep and meaningful songwriting.[19] The album's first single, "New Year's Day", was U2's first international hit, reaching #10 on the UK charts, and almost breaking the Top 50 on the US charts.[20] MTV placed the "New Year's Day" music video, on heavy rotation. This was to be instrumental in exposing U2 to an American mass audience.
For the first time, the band began performing to sold-out concerts in mainland Europe and the U.S. on their subsequent War Tour. The image of Bono waving a white flag during performances of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" became a familiar sight. U2 recorded the Under a Blood Red Sky album on this tour and a live video was released, both of which received radio and MTV play and helped expand the band's audience.[21]
With their generally unfavourable record deal with Island Records coming to end, in 1984 U2 signed an unusually lucrative extension. Forgoing a larger initial payment, they instead negotiated the return of their copyrights such that they owned the rights to their own songs, extending their contract, increasing the royalty rate, and a general improvement in terms.[22]
The Unforgettable Fire and Live Aid (1984-1985)
The Unforgettable Fire was the band’s fourth studio album and was released on 1 October 1984. Far more ambient and abstract than the hard-hitting War, it was at the time, the band’s most marked change in direction.[23] The album took its name and much of its inspiration from an exhibition of paintings and drawings at The Peace Museum in Chicago by survivors of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[24]
We knew the world was ready to receive the heirs to The Who. All we had to do was to keep doing what we were doing and we would become the biggest band since Led Zeppelin, without a doubt. But something just didn't feel right. We felt we had more dimension than just the next big anything, we had something unique to offer. The innovation was what would suffer if we went down the standard rock route. We were looking for another feeling.
The band feared that following the overt rock of the War album and tour, they were in danger of becoming another "shrill", "sloganeering arena-rock band";[26] the success of the Under a Blood Red Sky album and video, however, had given them artistic—and for the first time—financial room to move.[23] Thus, rather than become another formula band, experimentation was sought;[27] as Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty."[28] The Edge admired the ambient and 'weird works' of Brian Eno, who along with his engineer Daniel Lanois eventually agreed to produce the record. Island Records boss, Chris Blackwell, initially tried to discourage them from their choice of producers, believing that just when the band were about to achieve the highest levels of success, Eno would "bury them under a layer of avant-garde nonsense".[29]
The initial recording sessions were at Slane Castle, Dublin; held in a Gothic ballroom built specially for music, the sessions had a relaxed and experimental atmosphere.[30] A far more atmospheric album than the previous hard-hitting War, The Unforgettable Fire has a rich and orchestrated sound and was the first U2 first album with a cohesive sound.[23] Under Lanois' direction, Larry's drumming became looser, funkier and more subtle, and Adam's bass became more subliminal, such that the rhythm section no longer intruded, but flowed in support of the songs.[30]
Template:Sound sample box align rightTemplate:ListenTemplate:Sample box endThe album's lyrics are open to many interpretations, which alongside its atmospheric sounds, provides what the band often called a "very visual feel".[23] Bono had recently been immersing himself in fiction, philosophy and poetry, and came to realise that his song writing mission—which up to that point had been a reluctant one on his behalf—was a poetic one. The last two weeks of recording, however, were a panicked scramble to finish the lyrics,[30] such that Bono felt songs like 'Bad' and 'Pride In The Name of Love' were left as incomplete "sketches".[31] Typical of the album, "The Unforgettable Fire" track, has a rich, symphonic sound built from ambient guitar and driving rhythm; a lyrical "sketch" that is an "emotional travelogue" with a "heartfelt sense of yearning".[32] Bono tried to describe the rush and then come down of heroin use in the song "Bad". [33] "Pride (In the Name of Love)", the song closest to the established U2 sound, is about Martin Luther King; the first single from the album, it was at the time, the band's biggest hit.
The Unforgettable Fire Tour saw U2 shows moving into indoor arenas in the United States, although in Europe they were not quite at that point. The tour commenced in Australia in September 1984 where translating the complex textures of the new studio-recorded tracks to live performance proved a serious challenge.[23] One solution was programmed sequencers, which the band until then had been reluctant to use. They were used to overcome difficulties in live performance of sonically elaborate new songs such as "The Unforgettable Fire" and "Bad"; since then sequencers are now used on the majority of U2 songs in performance.[23] Songs criticised as being 'unfinished', 'fuzzy' and 'unfocussed' on the album, made more sense on stage; Rolling Stone, for example, critical of the album version of "Bad", described its live performance as a 'show stopper'.[34]
U2 participated in the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium for Ethiopian famine relief in July 1985.[35] U2's performance was one of the show's most memorable; during "Bad" Bono leapt down off the stage to embrace and dance with a fan. Initially thinking they'd "blown it", it was, in fact, a breakthrough moment for the band, showing a television audience of millions the personal connection that Bono could make with audiences.[36] In 1985, Rolling Stone magazine called U2 the "Band of the 80's," saying that "for a growing number of rock-and-roll fans, U2 have become the band that matters most, maybe even the only band that matters."[37]
The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum (1986–1989)
Following the Unforgettable Fire Tour, Bono and Edge had been exploring American blues, country and gospel music in attempt to make up for the fact that up until that point they had 'no tradition', and that their music was from 'outer space'.[38] Irish influences were also being explored with the band spending time with fellow Irish bands The Waterboys and Hothouse Flowers. The band felt a sense of indigenous Irish music being blended with American folk music' [39] Friendships with Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Keith Richards not only encouraged the band to look back into Rock’s roots, but focussed Bono on his skills as a song and lyric writer.[40] The band wanted to build on The Unforgettable Fire's atmospherics, but also work for a more hard-hitting sound within the strict discipline of conventional song structures, rather than The Unforgettable Fire’s often out-of-focus experimentation.[41]
The wild beauty, cultural richness, spiritual vacancy and fercocious violence of America are explored to compelling effect in virtually every aspect of The Joshua Tree—in the title and the cover art, the blues and country borrowings evident in the music, the imagery that pervades songs like "Bullet the Blue Sky," "In God's Country" and "Exit" (which drew its inspration from The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's book about Gary Gilmore's murderous odyssey in the American West). Indeed, Bono says that "dismantling the mythlogy of America" is an important part of The Joshua Tree's artistic objective.
Taking place in the middle of their 1986 album sessions, U2 were a headline act on Amnesty International's A Conspiracy of Hope Tour, but rather than a distraction to their album work, their tour experiences had the effect of adding extra intensity and power to their music, focussing the band on what they really wanted to say. [43] Bono’s 1986 travels in San Salvador and Nicaragua, for example, where he saw first hand the distress of peasants bullied in internal conflicts, were a central influence on the album most noticeably on 'Bullet the Blue Sky' and 'Mothers of the Disappeared'. Antipathy towards America, including anger at American foreign policy in Central America, is juxtaposed against the band’s deep fascination with the country, its open spaces, freedom and what it stood for.[44] The band aimed for music with a sense of location, or a 'cinematic' quality, with music and lyrics that drew on the imagery created by American literary writers that the band had been reading.[45]
Named The Joshua Tree as a 'tribute' to, rather than a 'metaphor' for America,[46] the album was released in March 1987. It debuted at #1 in the UK and quickly reached #1 in the U.S. It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and a Grammy for the Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocal.[47] The rock & roll bolero[48] "With or Without You" and the rhythmic gospel "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" quickly went to #1 in the U.S. U2 became the fourth rock band to be featured on the cover of Time magazine (following The Beatles, The Band, and The Who), who declared that U2 was "Rock's Hottest Ticket".[49] The album brought U2 to a new level of mega-stardom and is often cited as one of rock's great albums.[50] The Joshua Tree Tour sold out arenas and stadiums around the world, the first time the band had consistently played venues of that size.
The documentary Rattle and Hum featured footage recorded from The Joshua Tree Tour shows and the accompanying double album of the same name included nine studio tracks and six live U2 performances. A total of seventeen songs are on the album, including two non-U2 tracks. "Freedom For My People" is a live except by Adam Gussow and Sterling Magee, and "The Star-Spangled Banner" features Jimi Hendrix. Released in record stores and cinemas in October 1988, the album and film were intended as a tribute to American music. The film was recorded, in part, at Sun Studios in Memphis (along with The Point Depot, Dublin, Ireland), with tracks performed with Bob Dylan and B.B. King, and a song about jazz legend Billie Holiday. Among the live recordings on the album were the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" and a cover version of Bob Dylan's famous song "All Along The Watchtower". Despite a positive reception from fans, Rattle and Hum received mixed-to-negative reviews from both film and music critics.[51]
Achtung Baby, Zoo TV, Zooropa (1990–1993)
Buzzwords on this record were trashy, throwaway, dark, sexy, and industrial (all good) and earnest, polite, sweet, righteous, rockist and linear (all bad). It was good if a song took you on a journey or made you think your hifi was broken, bad if it reminded you of recording studios or U2. Sly Stone, T. Rex, Scott Walker, My Bloody Valentine, KMFDM, The Young Gods, Alan Vega, Al Green and Insekt were all in favour. Berlin became a conceptual backdrop for the record. The Berlin of the Thirties—decadent, sexual and dark—resonating against the Berlin of the Nineties—reborn, chaotic and optimistic...
The band began work on Achtung Baby in East Berlin, again with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois producing. In the initial sessions, conflict arose within the band over the direction of the album. While Adam and Larry preferred to keep a similar sound, Bono and The Edge, inspired by alternative and European dance music, advocated a change. Weeks of slow progress, argument, and frustration ended when Edge came up with a chord progression that the band quickly worked up into the song "One". In November 1991, U2 released the often experimental and distorted Achtung Baby. It was a more inward and personal record (Edge going through a divorce), and as a result, darker than the band's previous work. The band often referred to the new sound as "four men chopping down the Joshua Tree".[53] 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.[54] It played a crucial part in the band's early 1990s reinvention.
Template:Sound sample box align leftTemplate:ListenTemplate:Sample box end1992-1993s Zoo TV Tour was a multimedia event, and showcased an extravagant but intentionally bewildering array of hundreds of video screens, upside-down flying Trabant cars, mock transmission towers, satellite TV links, subliminal text messages, and over-the-top stage characters such as "The Fly", "Mirror-Ball Man" and "(Mister) MacPhisto". 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 satellite uplinks to war-torn Sarajevo.[55]
Recorded in 1993 during a break in the Zoo TV tour, the Zooropa album continued many of the themes from the 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 an even greater departure from the style of their earlier recordings, incorporating techno style and other electronic effects. Most of the songs were played at least once in the 1993 leg of the tour through Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, with half the album's tracks becoming fixtures in the set.
Passengers, Pop and Popmart (1995–1998)
After time off—and side projects including the Batman Forever and Mission: Impossible soundtracks—the band released an experimental album in 1995 called Original Soundtracks No. 1. Brian Eno, producer of three previous U2 albums, this time contributed as a full partner including writing and performing. For this reason, and due to its highly experimental nature, the band chose to release it under the moniker "Passengers" rather than "U2" to distinguish it from their conventional albums. Commercially, it was a relatively unnoticed album by U2 standards, although the single "Miss Sarajevo" featuring Luciano Pavarotti, and which Bono cites as one his favourite U2 songs,[56]