U2
160 articles
Free articles
Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 25 October 1980
I LOVE U2. I worry about U2. Hearing their debut single 'Out Of Control' and seeing them play in Ireland, I fell for their undismayed ...
Essay by Mark Cooper, Q, 1991
WHEN U2's recent Number 1 single 'The Fly' first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars ...
Audio interviews
Interview by John Hutchinson, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1987
The band talk about their respect for the blues and the roots of music; working with Robbie Robertson; writing ‘When Love Comes to Town’ for B.B. King; how they write and perform their songs; making The Joshua Tree — playing live in the room, sequencing the album, and mixing it; how they are perceived across different classes and cultures, and the political power of rock music; how they're judged by the press; Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton on what they do; the nature of rock criticism... and the art of rock.
File format: mp3; file size: 112mb, total interview length: 1h 56' 41" sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
Report by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 15 September 1979
DAVE McCULLOUGH GOES STRICTLY DUBLIN-WISE AND UNEARTHS A BUNCH OF EXCITING NEW SOUTHERN IRISH ACTS ...
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 8 December 1979
Honesty goes out of control ...
U2, Idiot Dance: Bridge House; Splodgenessabounds: Woolich Tramshed, London
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 29 December 1979
Bottoms of the bill ...
U2/Soul Boys: Moonlight Club, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 1980
TWO NEWCOMERS playing in NW6 either side of the Xmas go slow. Plenty of gaps in the gathering for the U2 show, but of the ...
Profile and Interview by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 12 January 1980
LIKE HEY! What is going on around me? ...
U2 Can Make it in the Rock Business
Report and Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 22 March 1980
"BUT CAN YOU trust it?!" Bono, the insurgent, irrepressible singer for Dublin quartet U2, finishes making a hard point using a typically animated gesture. I ...
U2, Berlin, Virgin Prunes: Acklam Hall, London
Live Review by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 29 March 1980
ITS ENERGY spent, its citizens content to lapse into style, to consume and give tacit consent, its insatiable media meanwhile ever needing fresh supplies, London ...
Live Review by Dave McCullough, Sounds, 21 June 1980
Guest list grotesquerie ...
Live Review by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980
The squalor show goes on ...
Echo & Bunnymen, U2, Delta 5: The Lyceum, London
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN dwell in the magical land between life and art that is the territory of great rock'n'roll. Making music alone isn't enough ...
Northern Ireland: The Fantasy And The Reality
Report and Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 11 October 1980
Gavin Martin has been NME's Belfast correspondent for the past three years. When, earlier this year, he announced his intention of moving to London, we ...
U2: Kings of the Celtic Fringe
Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 14 February 1981
BONO VOX, a.k.a. Paul Houston, the frontman and driving force behind U2 is huddled in the back of a small van, wrapped in a fur ...
Live Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 13 June 1981
THEY'D JUST FLOWN IN from the States, seen Springsteen the previous night, and gave Aylesbury a taste of what it's like to be totally wired ...
U2: Uncle Sam's, Minneapolis MN
Live Review by Laura Fissinger, Musician, July 1981
PRAISE FOR Ireland's U2 first spread through the U.K. press like head colds in autumn. Now with the American release of their debut LP, Boy, ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 10 October 1981
WHEN U2 first hit England in the twilight of 1980, a dull cry of relief rose up from rock's murky depths. U2 were "just what ...
U2: October (Island ILPS 9680)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, 17 October 1981
PURGATORY IN MOTION ...
U2: October (Island ILPS9680).
Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 1 November 1981
U2 FOLLOW-UP STALLS OUT ...
Review by Jim Green, Trouser Press, February 1982
IT'S EASY to criticize October; just call it "Son of Boy" and trash the band. What this line of thought fails to consider is that ...
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, February 1982
LIKE ALL good Irishmen, I enjoy nothing better than a good talker. At the same time, I share the instinctive Irish mistrust of anyone for ...
Report and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 27 February 1982
"THEY WENT right through it. Took out every sock. Squeezed every tube of toothpaste. Then this guy says to me 'You – come with me. ...
Interview by Jim Green, Trouser Press, 1 March 1982
PEOPLE HAVEN'T asked U2 if they're the future of rock. They've told them. ...
Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 26 February 1983
"If people come along expecting the world from U2 then they're gonna get it. I'm not afraid we won't be able to give it to ...
Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, May 1983
JERRY MATHERS' days as TV's beloved Beaver were numbered the second his voice began to crack and change, and U2's new War may force similar ...
U2: Small Victories in a Rock and Roll Struggle of Sound and Emotion
Report and Interview by Fred Schruers, Musician, May 1983
STUMPY, PRINCELY Bono Vox drives along Dublin Bay, left arm grasping the wheel of his humble sedan while he uses the right – temporarily game ...
Echo & the Bunnymen: Porcupine (Sire 23770); U2: War (Island 90067)
Review by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, June 1983
THERE AREN'T too many English bands that can buck the current vogue for synthesizers and funk/dance rhythms, remain musically adventurous and still be commercially viable ...
U2/Simple Minds/Eurythmics/Steel Pulse/Perfect Crime/Big Country: Phoenix Park, Dublin
Live Review by Jack Barron, Sounds, 20 August 1983
DATELINE DUBLIN: 3.30am Monday. There will no doubt be some measured reports of U2's home-coming gig. But I really hate measured reports. ...
U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Big Country, Steel Pulse: A Day At The Racecourse
Report by Dave Rimmer, Smash Hits, 1 September 1983
A long, hot, emotional day it was too. Dublin's Phoenix Park throws open its gates to U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Big Country and about 20,000 ...
U2: Under A Blood Red Sky (Island Mini LP IMA3)
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 26 November 1983
IT WAS only a matter of time before U2 released a live disc of some sort, since gruelling road-work has earned them a firm base ...
Songs Of Praise: Fire and Fervour from Ireland’s U2
Profile by Steve Turner, The History of Rock, 1984
U2, ONE OF IRELAND'S MOST SUCCESSFUL rock bands ever, seemed something of an anachronism when they arrived on the scene in 1980. The group had ...
Interview by Helen Fitzgerald, Melody Maker, 29 September 1984
Helen FitzGerald, the Emerald Isle's most astonishing export, gets all mysterious with ambient whizz-kid BRIAN ENO, who talks about life after the bush of ghosts, ...
Report and Interview by Tony Fletcher, Jamming!, 1 October 1984
Excepting live albums and video, U2 have been silent, both on record and in the media, for a year and a half. Now back with ...
U2: The Unforgettable Fire (Island U25)
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 6 October 1984
AT THE HOMECOMING ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 27 October 1984
EARLIER THIS year one of rock's newest messiahs U2's Bono appeared onstage alongside one of its oldest, Bob Dylan at an outdoor Dublin festival in ...
U2: The Unforgettable Fire (Island)
Review by J.D. Considine, Musician, November 1984
Turning Point: U2 mixes textural growth with thematic ambiguity in a view of Mythical America. ...
Epic Affirmation: U2 and Big Country
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, New Statesman, 9 November 1984
WITH ALL THE hype of chart pop proving more contagious that ever, what chance does the passionate old dream of rock now stand? If Jon ...
Live Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 10 November 1984
THE MOST boring band in the world. There can now be no question of U2 avoiding such a title. There may be groups equally as ...
At The Homecoming: U2’s Unforgettable Fire
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 1985
THIS HAS BEEN a long time coming, and there have been signs of strain. War, U2's last album of new material, was released more than ...
Report and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, 5 January 1985
When Adam Sweeting interviewed U2 in France in November, BONO felt he'd left a few things unsaid. So he suggested a rematch in America during ...
Brian Eno: Music Without Compromise
Interview by John Hutchinson, Mix, February 1985
BRIAN ENO IS something of a paradox. He is at once associated with the avant-garde and an artist/producer who has actually had his share of ...
Flags And Penance: U2'S American Dream
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 22 June 1985
IT IS SOME WAY into a U2 set at the vast Veterans' Coliseum in Hartford, Connecticut, and the place is strewn and bedecked with the ...
R.E.M., U2, The Ramones etal: Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire
Live Review by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 29 June 1985
THE LONGEST DAY ...
U2, Sting et al: Amnesty International, Conspiracy of Hope Benefit, Cow Palace, San Francisco CA
Live Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1986
Amnesty's rock & roll roadshow All-star lineup gives America the message ...
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, September 1986
"I DON'T REALLY see myself as a guitar player," says U2's Edge. "I'm more of a songwriter or composer. In looking for a new way ...
Daniel Lanois: The Producer as Conscience
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Musician, December 1986
"THERE'S A lot of pollution out there," says Daniel Lanois, drinking tea in the gazebo of his Santa Monica hotel one September morning, before continuing ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 14 March 1987
OUT OF LITTLE ACORNS... ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 14 March 1987
WHEN I THINK of U2, I don't think of America, I don't think of stadia, sweat, pumping fists, auxiliary hair. I think of fresh air, ...
Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, The Observer, 5 April 1987
In Dublin they joke that Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, has God's phone number. Not for U2 groupies, drugs or a limo ...
Interview by John Hutchinson, Musician, May 1987
U2 Wrestle With Their Moment Of Glory ...
Interview by Colin Irwin, Spin, June 1987
With a platinum-bound LP and sell-out tour, U2 have finally conquered America. But first they had to conquer the problem of being a political band ...
Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 6 June 1987
Riots greet U2 in Italy! Bono is bigger than Il Papa! Rock is not dead! Sean O'Hagan gets an audience with the holy man of ...
Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, July 1987
The Unforgettable Something Or Other ...
U2: Another Day, Another Dollar
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Q, July 1987
WHEN U2 FIRST played Chicago, in the spring of 1981, it was as part of a loss-making tour. They played one club and a university ...
Retrospective and Interview by Karen Schlosberg, Creem, August 1987
SHERMAN, INTO the Wayback Machine. The year: 1981. A young Irish quartet called U2 is promoting its debut album, Boy. Its lead singer is simply ...
The Unforgettable Band: A U2 Overview
Overview by Kris Needs, Creem, August 1987
MAY 1, 1980, AND I'm sitting on a plane bound for Dublin. Next to me, the Island Records publicity man is telling me about the ...
U2: The Joshua Tree (Island 90581-1)
Review by Gene Santoro, DownBeat, August 1987
YOU CAN'T say they don't tell you what they feel. And in fact, what they've been feeling over the last couple of years has become ...
Live Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, August 1987
U2: Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 17-22, 1987 ...
Elvis: The Million Dollar Bonanza
Report by Mat Snow, Sounds, 15 August 1987
On the tenth anniversary of ELVIS PRESLEY's death, MAT SNOW makes a pilgrimage to Graceland and reports on the thriving industry at rock 'n' roll's ...
The Second Coming of Robbie Robertson
Special Feature by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 19 November 1987
Eleven, years ago, the enigmatic leader of the Band walked away from the rock world. Now, after some years of wild living, he's joined with ...
The Major Rock Stars Who Make My Life Miserable
Comment by Danny (Shredder) Weizmann, L.A. Weekly, 4 March 1988
MUSIC, THEY say, is all a matter of mathematics. Numbers combine, add up, subtract or divide to make tones, chords, harmonies, etc., etc. Music criticism, ...
Memphis: A Legendary Music City is on the Rebound
Report by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 8 September 1988
Keith Richards, U2 and R.E.M. have recorded there, but the city's future hinges on its home-grown talent ...
U2's Journey Through The Past: Rattle and Hum
Review by Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post, 12 October 1988
BY THEIR OWN admission, the members of U2 had little sense of history when they started making music. Like so many of their generation, the ...
Review by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, 15 October 1988
THE LORD'S PRAYER ...
Profile and Interview by Steve Turner, Sunday Express Magazine, 16 October 1988
Until the huge international impact of U2, the upper rungs of rock’n’roll had been almost totally dominated by musicians from Britain and America. For a ...
U2: 'In Ireland People Are Scared of Success...'
Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 20 October 1988
THE FULFILLMENT of any U2 project will always set tongues a-wagging in Dublin. Aside from being one of the country's major industries, the quartet are ...
Report and Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 23 October 1988
FOR HOURS, the same shot repeats over and over on a massive screen in a high-ceilinged editing room in Studio City, just a traffic jam ...
Band of Gold: U2 Rattle and Hum
Report and Interview by David Rensin, Premiere, November 1988
AGAINST A BLOOD-RED backdrop, four silhouetted figures file onstage to the pomp of a prerecorded organ. Dry ice smoke billows, and sparks crackle from lightning ...
Interview by Max Bell, The Face, December 1988
For many he's a rock messiah, a man with a message and all the answers. Perhaps that's why BONO did no interviews to promote what has become Britain's fastest-selling album ...
Interview: Island Records' Chris Blackwell (1989) [transcript]
Transcript of audio interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1989
This is a transcript of John Tobler's 1989 audio interview. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
U2: Rockin' in the Not So Free World (Part 1)
Report by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 16 December 1989
Yen will I see you again?!!...In the first of an exclusive two part report on the band that more than any other has found a ...
U2: Rockin' in the Not So Free World (Part 2)
Report by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 23 December 1989
BONO'S OSAKA Plaza hotel room is littered with the ephemera of a rock 'n' roll traveler. There are Japanese picture books for his baby daughter ...
Daniel Lanois: Let the music speak
Interview by David Toop, The Times, 2 February 1990
David Toop meets Daniel Lanois, the hit producer of albums for U2, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan, now a performer himself on record and visiting ...
The Irishness on the Inside of Bono and U2
Essay by Steve Turner, The Independent, 20 April 1991
Steve Turner tours Dublin who, despite huge success, can still drink quietlt at home ...
Profile by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 7 November 1991
All but canonised in Ireland, U2's lead singer preaches redemption through rock 'n' roll. But now he's learning to write about girls. Sean O'Hagan profiles ...
Profile by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 7 November 1991
All but canonised in Ireland, U2's lead singer preaches redemption through rock 'n' roll. But now he's learning to write about girls. Sean O'Hagan profiles ...
Daniel Lanois and U2: Five Men and Achtung Baby
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, December 1991
The new U2 album — released on November 18 — is "rougher and harder-hitting than anything we've done before" …Producer Daniel Lanois talks to Max ...
Review by Max Bell, Vox, December 1991
BONO VOX once mentioned in passing that if and when he ever published a volume of his poetry, the title of said tome would be ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
WITH EACH NEW U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, January 1992
CONFUSION REIGNS. What Is their trip? Achtung Baby sounds very 1991, but only as the most tangential of bulletins from four musicians who've been holed ...
Review by Mark Cooper, Q, January 1992
WHEN U2'S RECENT NUMBER 1 single 'The Fly' first came on the radio, it sounded like a confused mess, an irritating jangle of throbbing guitars ...
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Face, 1 April 1992
IT'S EARLY evening in a Russian restaurant somewhere in west London, a place that specializes in vodka – chili vodka, lemon vodka, brandy vodka, even ...
U2: Flying High With a Jet Set
Report and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 31 May 1992
HAVING, BY his own account, spent most of the 1980s "trying to dodge being a rock star," Bono aka Paul Hewson, the singer and most ...
Fatima Mansions: Putting the Catalan among the pigeons
Report and Interview by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 6 June 1992
What can CATHAL COUGHLAN and BONO possibly have in common? ANDREW MUELLER flew to Barcelona to discover why the acerbic lead singer decided to support ...
Let There Be Satellite: U2: Earl's Court, London
Live Review by Jon Wilde, Melody Maker, 6 June 1992
THE ROOM IS SPINNING. U2 are detonating 'Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World'. Bono, doing a passable imitation of the Lord's Anointed, swanks ...
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, Details, 1 September 1992
With Achtung Babyand their Zoo TV tour, U2 have found a way to be the biggest band in the world and still have fun. Sean ...
Public Enemy and U2: The Chuck and Bono Show
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, December 1992
When U2's tour brought Public Enemy to the Deep South, where segregation is still an issue, Chuck D did his best to pour napalm on ...
Ground Control To Major Labels
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 30 January 1993
Unattached, paranoid, fancy working your ass off and seeing five gigs a night, listening to 400 tapes a week and shouldering the blame when the ...
Negativland: A Fistful Of Lawsuits
Report and Interview by Tony Fletcher, Creem, April 1993
"I don't think there are any record companies right now in the real sense of the word. We're all in the fashion business. You used ...
Report and Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 26 June 1993
Stereo MCs are already one of the biggest (dance) bands in Britain. By the end of the summer, after touring Europe with U2, unarguably the ...
Animal Lightweight: U2: Zooropa (Island)
Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 3 July 1993
SO THE intergalactic rock megastar reclines on his Virtual Reality waterbed at the Hotel Zooropa with multiple TV screens blasting 24-hour infotainment from every wall. ...
Review by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 July 1993
U2 Flies Off on a Tangent: Group's new album Zooropa is slow and plodding ...
Review by Max Bell, Vox, August 1993
WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE in exchange for your soul? U2 bartered their time for a new album, made quickly. What started out as an impromptu ...
Welcome to Empty-V: U2's Zoo(ropa TV)
Comment by Stephen Dalton, Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 21 August 1993
Is Zoo(ropa/TV) a subversive, ironic multi-media bombardment and situationist statement or a two-hour post-modernist Pot Noodle advert made by politically naive, culturally unaware squares with ...
U2: I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night
Report and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, September 1993
It seemed like such a good idea at the time: serenading Axl Rose; sleeping in an igloo; drinking the swimming pool; licking the promoter; blowing ...
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 11 September 1993
THE BRITISH Royal Family would need to perish en masse in a satanic suicide pact to generate half the press that Zoo TV's long-awaited Irish ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, March 1997
U2 have a fine sense of event and how to tweak it. Preceded by advance publicity suggesting more than enough stylistic innovation to maintain the ...
U2 Part One: 'Only Now Do We Look Cool'
Report and Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 8 March 1997
But that's not all that's changed. Yes, you read it here first...U2, those hoary old rock behemoths, have gone dance! Sort of! ...
U2 Part Two: 'I Feel Caught Between the Bootboy and the Ponce'
Report and Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 15 March 1997
Ah, the problems of being the biggest band in the world. In the second of a two-part special, Keith Cameron keeps up with U2 as ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rolling Stone, 20 March 1997
IT IS HARD to believe we’re a whole decade away from The Joshua Tree – U2’s very own Born In The USA, its Purple Rain, ...
Review by James Hunter, Spin, April 1997
WITH BRITISH soul sage Howie B. dispensing '90s groove advice and a thousand rhythm tracks bulldogging throughout this exhilaratingly complex album, Pop could get slotted as U2's ...
U2: Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas
Live Review by Robin Bresnark, Melody Maker, 3 May 1997
SLOW DEATH IN VEGAS ...
Comment by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 13 June 1997
U2 are that rarity, a clever rock band. So why do the English press hate them? By Sean O'Hagan ...
U2, Oasis: Oakland Coliseum, Oakland CA
Live Review by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 22 June 1997
Last week, Oasis played to a stadium of American U2 fans. There's dedication... ...
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 23 August 1997
Bono and Co go big, only to come up with a lemon ...
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 6 September 1997
Mart For Art's Sake ...
U2: The Year of Living Dangerously
Report and Interview by Andrew Mueller, The Irish Independent, 30 December 1997
U2 started '97 badly, but their annus horribilis has undergone a miraculous recovery. Interview: Andrew Mueller ...
U2 and Ash: I was there, helping to make history. (I just wish I hadn't been scratching my chin)
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 24 May 1998
THE PHONE rings at 10.30 on a Monday night. It is Bono. "We're going to Belfast tomorrow night," he says, "and we're trying to come ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1998
It is the '80s, and the decade is full of one Irish band and their guitarist's exotic millinary. So, follow Edge through the first ever ...
Chris Blackwell: A Man of Wealth & Taste
Profile and Interview by Fred Schruers, Rolling Stone, 18 February 1999
For forty years, CHRIS BLACKWELL has survived on killer instincts, killer bud and tough business tactics. Along the way, he's changed the course of pop ...
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 1999
Twenty years ago next month, four teenagers from Dublin played their first British date in a north London pub, in front of less than a ...
U2: Billion-Dollar Dreams (Part 1)
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 4 March 2000
German TV interviewer: "You own a hotel. Now, you've made a film about a hotel. Why hotels?" Bono: "Rock bands tend to know a ...
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 29 March 2000
IF IT'S PARIS it must be Spring. Bono's been out roaming the city of light with Miles' 1957 opus L'Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaudon the headphones, feeling ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2000
WITH EACH new U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind; PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000
I'VE PLAYED the Radiohead album about a dozen times, pushed my way in to see them live, and yes, there is a certain pleasure to ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 26 October 2000
U2'S TENTH STUDIO album and third masterpiece, All That You Can't Leave Behind, is all about the simple melding of craft and song. Their first ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 27 October 2000
HAVING SPENT the majority of the past decade searching for ways to rejuvenate the jaded stadium-rock formula — as much for their own benefit as ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 27 October 2000
PRISING THEMSELVES free from their mid-'90s fixations with irony and Las Vegas glitz, U2 have circled back to what they've always done best. That means ...
Interview by Jeff Apter, Rolling Stone (Australia), November 2000
This interview was held in conjunction with the theatrical release of The Million Dollar Hotel in Australia. ...
U2: All That You Can’t Leave Behind Richard Ashcroft: Alone with Everybody
Review by The Rev. Al Friston, Rock's Backpages, December 2000
WE WERE assured that Dublin’s finest would be going back to basics on All That You Can’t Leave Behind; that they’d dispensed with the electro-trappings ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, December 2000
Corn without authenticity. Bono and Co rediscover the importance of being earnest ...
Interview by Chris Heath, Rolling Stone, 18 January 2001
BONO LEADS THE WAY through a maze that runs from Dublin's Clarence hotel — owned by U2 — to behind the bar of the Kitchen, ...
Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 19 August 2001
BONO DOESN'T know what to do. Midway through 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', that most troublesome of U2 songs, someone – someone wearing a Celtic shirt – ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Payday, March 2002
"WE'RE NOT GOING to let people rip us off, we want the money!" That's what Bono said in 1979 when Dublin's teenaged hopefuls U2 were ...
Various Artists: America: A Tribute To Heroes
Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, March 2002
Star-Spangled Bummer: Record of benefit concert/telethon for victims of September 11 ...
Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, July 2002
WHEN U2 visited the capital in the summer of 1980, their intention was to play a handful of low-key club shows. Three months, a Marquee ...
Another Time: The inside story of U2's very first record
Retrospective and Interview by Chas de Whalley, Record Collector, 1 September 2004
I FIRST MET U2's manager Paul McGuiness sometime in February 1979. He was on a trip to London doing the rounds of the record companies ...
U2 and the Making of Achtung Baby
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 2004
TOYKO, LATE 1993, somewhere in the fast-forward blur of the dying 20th century. As the biggest, loudest, most expensive and technically ambitious rock tour in ...
U2: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 23 November 2004
AH, U2, ONCE AGAIN PERCHED at the apex of world rock cool as they prepare to release (or is that unleash?) their umpteenth album. Mullets, ...
U2: City of Manchester Stadium
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 16 June 2005
STILL THRILLING huge audiences more than 25 years into their career, U2 become ever more impressive in their longevity, integrity, capacity for reinvention and willingness ...
Interview by Paul Morley, Observer Music Monthly, December 2005
1: IN A VAST penthouse suite on top of a hotel that could be anywhere in the world overlooking a city that seems to shimmer ...
Daniel Lanois: The Compromise You Make For Some
Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), March 2006
The "Fifth Beatle" moniker has been bandied about numerous times over the years in reference to everyone from George Martin to Pete Best, but if ...
U2 3D (Dir. Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington)
Film/DVD/TV Review by John Lewis, Sight & Sound, December 2007
Live concert show filmed on the South American leg of U2's Vertigo Tour of 2005/2006. The film has been edited from footage of several different ...
U2: The Joshua Tree – remastered edition
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, January 2008
20th anniversary reissue of an oft-maligned masterpiece. IT IS VEXINGLY DIFFICULT to improve upon the summation of The Joshua Tree offered by longtime U2 confidant Bill ...
U2: The Joshua Tree (remastered edition)
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, January 2008
20th anniversary reissue of an oft-maligned masterpiece ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, The National, February 2009
THE LAUNCH OF a U2 album always feels bigger than a mere musical event and inevitably stirs up fierce critical friction. ...
How I Learned To Love U2 (Almost)
Comment by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 14 February 2009
LIKE MOST right-thinking people, I grew up hating U2. ...
Will U2 be the saviours of the music industry?
Report by Andy Gill, The Independent, 20 February 2009
Five years on from their last record, U2 have hauled Bono away from his saving-the-world duties long enough to finish their twelth studio album. But ...
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, April 2009
Rock juggernauts' 12th studio album is a grower, says Andrew Mueller ...
Empire of the Sun: Island at 50
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, June 2009
The grand scheme of a gambler with a taste for chicken blood, Jamaican label Island Records introduced Bob Marley and U2 to the world. On ...
U2: Remembering The Unforgettable Fire
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, June 2009
YOU TOO COULD love U2, if you could only transport yourself back to a time when their fundamental pomposity and crusading bad faith weren't such ...
Ego Warriors: U2 Speak Out On Rock-Star Hypocrisy
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 30 July 2009
Over the years, U2 have taken many a kicking. But the band believe they're unjustly maligned for their unique brand of "stadium activism" ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, August 2009
WRITING ABOUT pop music, as some wag once famously remarked, is like dancing about architecture. Maybe so, but U2 spent more than two hours dancing ...
Live Review by Chris Roberts, The Quietus, 17 August 2009
U2 Live Under A Slate Grey Claw. Chris Roberts reports from Wembley ...
Glastonbury: Coldplay and U2 almost spoil the party
Report by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 28 June 2011
The headliners split the crowds, but this year's Glastonbury showed that the '70s dream lives on at Worthy Farm. ...
"Fifth member" of U2 Paul McGuinness to Walk On after 35 years
Report by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 15 November 2013
"WE'RE NOT GOING to let people rip us off, we want the money," Bono, the singer for the penniless and unknown band U2 proclaimed in ...
A World Of Dreaded Fear: Band Aid's Unforgivable Crimes
Retrospective by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 10 December 2013
Band Aid raised awareness of a disastrous famine, as well as huge sums of money to try ease it. But, one year ahead of its ...
Songs Of Innocence: On U2, Tax & Hypocrisy
Comment by John Doran, The Quietus, 10 September 2014
John Doran is singularly unimpressed by U2's invocation of William Blake's Songs Of Innocence. Shouldn't they stop cosying up to morally bankrupt corporations, banks, philosophers, ...
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 September 2014
Originality loses out as Bono's boys retreat to comfort zone ...
U2: "It's the job of art to be divisive"
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Observer, 12 October 2014
Thirty years after becoming the biggest band in the world, Bono and co still polarise opinion. Here, taking a break in the Côte d'Azur, they ...
Dennis Sheehan Talks About Led Zeppelin (and a little bit about U2)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, May 2015
NOTE: This is a transcription of an April 2010 phone interview with Dennis Sheehan – then tour manager for U2 – for my oral history ...
Live Review by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 26 October 2015
The cathartic nature of the band's 13th studio album, Songs of Innocence, is sensitively reflected in this tour, which melds the personal and the political. ...
In Trump's country: U2 takes Joshua Tree politics back on the road
Live Review by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 16 May 2017
30 years after their blisteringly political album and tour, U2 opts for subtle anti-Trump imagery over big speeches. ...
Another view: The thing with Bono and Apple...
Comment by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 24 November 2017
I HEAR THAT U2 have a new album coming out. I know this not because I have received a press release (though I have) but ...
How do U2 fill the O2? They send for Stufish
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 15 October 2018
Stufish Entertainment Architects has made spectacular sets for the rock band, as well as Elton and Beyoncé. Stephen Dalton sees how ...
The 30 best live concert albums of all time
Guide by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2020
LAST WEEK, A STORY appeared in the New York Times that predicted that live music would not return to the world's stages until the autumn ...
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, TIDAL, 19 October 2020
Before the stadium tours, MTV and Eno, the world's biggest band found themselves and their widescreen sound in the heady post-punk era. ...
Bono: Surrender – 40 Songs, One Story
Book Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 2 November 2022
Surrender: praying in the church of Bono In his account of being "saved" by love and religion, the U2 frontman's sincerity overpowers the scorn of his ...
back to LIBRARY
