What are U2’s 5 Biggest U.S. Hits?

The Irish rockers U2 came out firing in the early 1980s with a big sound and even bigger ambitions. Over the course of their career, which is now is in its fifth decade, they managed to become one of the world’s greatest rock bands, so you could probably consider those ambitions realized.

One of their achievements was the way they managed to cross over consistently to the U.S. pop charts without having to harness their normal musical approach in any way. Here are the five U2 songs that did the best on the American charts.

5. “Discotheque” (No. 10 in 1997)

You have to give credit to U2 for refusing to get bogged down too long with any one specific sound. Occasionally, that restlessness led them down avenues that didn’t always please longtime fans or critics. And, frankly, not all of their new musical guises fit them all that well. The Pop album from 1997 is generally regarded as a letdown on the whole, and the band course-corrected from it on their following album by returning to their fallback anthemic rock sound. But at least the album earned them their last U.S. Top-10 single in “Discotheque,” a shimmering dance track that gave Bono’s falsetto a good workout.

4. “Mysterious Ways” (No. 9 in 1991)

It’s a bit surprising to look back and discover that “Mysterious Ways” was the band’s most successful U.S. single off Achtung Baby, which is on the short list for the band’s finest album ever. “One” would probably be the guess of most people for that title, but it actually only made it to No. 10. In any case, “Mysterious Ways” certainly proved the band could bring accessibility to even their most exotic forays. You could easily have called the song “Mysterious Sounds,” as producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno take a kitchen sink approach here. Still, it’s the sultry groove that makes the biggest impact.

3. “Desire” (No. 3. in 1988)

You could argue “Desire” benefited from the timing of its release. It was the first single released from Rattle and Hum, the album that immediately followed the band’s huge commercial breakthrough The Joshua Tree. As such, demand for U2 product was sky-high at the time. Rattle and Hum, as a whole, was a hit-and-miss affair, and “Desire” is so reliant on the Bo Diddley beat for its forward thrust that it lacks some of the inspiration of the band’s greatest songs. At the very least, it’s great ear candy, and you can tell the band was enjoying the chance to rock out without so much on their minds.

2. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (No. 1 in 1987)

Coming into The Joshua Tree in 1987, U2 had managed just a single Top-40 hit in the U.S. (And that song, “Pride (In the Name of Love”), only made it to No. 33.) Why? Well, there wasn’t much of an appetite for topical material in the U.S., and much of U2’s stuff to that point could loosely be classified as such. On The Joshua Tree, they managed to make even political concerns come from a more personal place, and that broke the dam in a big way. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” does a nice job with its gospel touches, while the band interplay matches the deep feeling of the lyrics.

1. “With or Without You” (No. 1 in 1987)

Props to U2 for not settling for the typical love-song subject matter when it came to their early singles. When they finally did decide to go that route on a wide release, they made sure they got it dead solid perfect. Just the opening seconds of Adam Clayton’s thudding bass and The Edge’s high-lonesome guitar whine made this one iconic, and that was before we even made it to Bono’s high-wire singing and Larry Mullen Jr.’s crackling drum fills. Say what you will about Bono as a lyricist, but few have ever captured the love-torment dichotomy as succinctly and potently as he did here.

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