Ranking the 5 Best Album-Openers by U2

U2 has made a reputation as being a band unafraid to make dramatic swings while still maintaining the essential chemistry that makes them so special. From album to album, you never quite know what you’re going to get, but you know it’s going to add up to something substantial.

Throughout their time together, the quartet has displayed the knack, one that all top bands seem to have, for knowing just how to get their albums off on the right foot. With that in mind, here are the top five album-openers from U2’s illustrious career.

5. “No Line on the Horizon” from No Line on the Horizon (2009)

A lot of folks point to the No Line on the Horizon as a point at which the band started to drop off a bit from the incredible run of brilliance they had more or less sustained for a quarter-century or so. That album is better than you remember, and it gets a great boost from the whiz-bang opening track. It’s a crunching rocker with a kind of mutated Bo Diddley beat that acts as an outstanding foundation. In addition, Bono has a lot of fun with some of the lyrics, such as this couplet: Time is irrelevant, it’s not linear / Then she put her tongue in my ear.

4. “Beautiful Day” from All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)

It seemed like U2 was a bit past their sell-by date when it came to the new millennium, as the experimental tendencies that had served them well throughout the early ’90s were starting to produce diminishing returns. With All That You Can’t Leave Behind, they slipped back into their anthemic wheelhouse from the ‘80s with ridiculous ease, even as they allowed in a few blips and bleeps here and there to keep current. “Beautiful Day” was their stirring retrenchment, achieving its uplift naturally without forcing the emotion.

3. “A Sort of Homecoming” from The Unforgettable Fire (1984)

U2 made the conscious decision to not go too far down the hard-rock path when they made The Unforgettable Fire. Connecting with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois was a crucial move, as that duo brought texture to the recordings, making sure there was enough going on in a sonic sense to match the depth of the lyrics. “A Sort of Homecoming” is a sweeping opener that takes its time getting to those peaks where Bono is belting out the lyrics in anguished desperation. That’s fine, because the beautiful interplay between Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. makes the song exciting long before that.

2. “New Year’s Day” from War (1983)

Before Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno took over as U2’s main producers, they worked with Steve Lillywhite, who tended toward a much brighter, punchier sound. His approach certainly played into this single, which just popped out of speakers upon its release and worked its way up into the nether regions of charts all over the world, despite its serious subject matter. “New Year’s Day” is a prime example of how well these guys could build a track, adding elements and taking them away, and rising to thrilling peaks all along the way.

1. “Where the Streets Have No Name” from The Joshua Tree (1987)

As the recording of The Joshua Tree rolled on, U2 guitarist The Edge contemplated the band didn’t quite have a song on the record that would be an uptempo, live showstopper. He set about writing the music to “Where the Streets Have No Name,” which fit the bill perfectly; however, it proved a bear for the band to record because of its sneaky complexity. Luckily, they stuck with it, and ended up with a recording set apart by Larry Mullen Jr.’s pummeling drum approach and Edge’s guitar riff, which is refracted “Gimme Shelter”-style into a million shining shards. Add in Bono’s rafter-scraping vocals about transcending dire circumstances, and you have album-opening perfection.

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