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One of only a few bands to achieve consistent commercial and critical success across two full decades, U2 has charted success on its own terms on both the artistic and business sides of the music industry. From the band's earliest days in Dublin, Ireland, to the present, U2 has broken free from the traditional limitations of what a rock band - and rock music - could and couldn't do.
By combining an original sound with honest lyrics and a challenging social message, the band have earned the respect of their peers and critics, and an almost fanatical following of fans around the world.
U2 formed in Dublin in the autumn of 1976 after 14-year-old Larry Mullen, Jr. posted a note on the bulletin board at his school seeking musicians for a new band. From the group of hopefuls that showed up at Mullen's home that first day, a 5-piece known originally as Feedback formed, with Mullen (born October 31, 1961) on drums, Adam Clayton (b. March 13, 1960) on bass, Paul Hewson (later nicknamed 'Bono Vox' and eventually just Bono, b. May 10, 1960) on vocals, and Dave Evans (later nicknamed The Edge, b. August 8, 1961) on guitar. Dave's brother Dick also played guitar for a while, but left Feedback very early on to join another Dublin band.
Feedback quickly changed their name to The Hype, and began rehearsing on weekends and after school as often as possible, forming genuine friendships and developing an undeniable chemistry in the process. After nearly 18 months of rehearsing, the band's big break came at a talent show in Limerick, Ireland, in March, 1978. With CBS Records' Jackie Hayden judging, The Hype won the contest, earning a prize and impressing Hayden enough to be given studio time to record their first demo. Shortly after, the band changed their name to U2 and prodded a Dublin businessman named Paul McGuinness to agree to manage them.
Now out of school, the band played as many shows as possible in and around Dublin, trying to build up a local fan base. In September, 1979, U2 put out their first single, an Irish-only release called 'U2:3' which topped the national charts. In December of that year, they traveled to London for their first shows outside Ireland, but struggled to get attention from music fans and critics.
After continuing to build a large following inside Ireland, and after the success of a second Irish-only single, Island Records signed U2 in March, 1980. The first album to come from that agreement was 'Boy,' released in October of that year. The album offered a fresh, new sound that earned rave reviews in both the Irish and UK press. Bono's lyrics tackled subjects like faith, spirituality, and death. U2's first tour outside the UK helped develop new fan bases in other parts of Europe and in the United States, where strong club shows helped propel 'Boy' briefly onto the U.S. album charts.
But while synthesizer acts and bubblegum pop bands dominated the early 80s, U2 went off in their own direction. Their second album, 1981's 'October', saw an open embrace of Christianity, especially in songs such as 'With a Shout' and 'Gloria'.
Of the four band members, only Adam Clayton wasn't an admitted Christian. Bono, The Edge, and Larry joined a religious group in Dublin called Shalom, which led all three to question the relationship between the Christian faith and the rock and roll lifestyle. After nearly throwing in the towel on U2, they decided it was possible to reconcile the two and continue making music without shedding their personal beliefs. But the band's confusion led to an unfocused record: 'October' sold relatively well on the growing strength of U2's name, but failed to yield the hit single many in the industry expected.
That changed in 1983, with the release of 'War', U2's third album. An all-out attack against the keyboard- and drum machine-based songs that made up the single and album charts,'War' featured the band's most aggressive songwriting to date in both music and https://lyrics. The album's first single, 'New Year's Day', was U2's first legitimate hit single, reaching the #10 spot on the UK charts and almost cracking the Top 50 in the U.S. MTV put the song's video into heavy rotation, and helped introduce the band to a new audience of fans.
Tours that supported the 'War' album in the U.S. and Europe included many sold out shows. The band captured this era with the 'Under a Blood Red Sky' mini-album and video, which also received heavy airplay on MTV and other TV channels in Europe, and only served to add to U2's reputation as a top-notch live act. The success of 'War' and 'Under a Blood Red Sky' allowed U2 to renegotiate their record deal with Island Records, and the band gained more creative control and financial rewards for the future.
Just when it appeared U2 had found the formula for success, they switched gears and took off in an entirely new direction. For their 4th studio album they chose Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois to produce, a surprise which Bono explained by saying the band members felt their new music would be more ''ambient,'' and needed an appropriate guiding hand in the control room. 1984's 'The Unforgettable Fire' - named for a series of paintings drawn by survivors of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki - introduced the world to a new U2, a more experimental and less focused band.
Gone was the aggression of 'War', but the band's social and political messages stayed alive in songs such as 'Pride (In the Name of Love)', which was written for Martin Luther King, Jr., and the mesmerising 'Bad', written in response to the struggles Bono's friends had with drugs in Dublin. While 'Bad' quickly became a highlight of the band's live set, it was 'Pride' that took U2 up another rung on the charts. The single cracked the UK Top 5 and the U.S. Top 50. Rolling Stone magazine named U2 their ''Band of the 80s,'' suggesting that ''for a growing number of rock-and-roll fans, U2 has become the band that matters most, maybe even the only band that matters.''
With four years of nearly constant recording and touring behind them, and with album and single sales increasing with each release, U2 was poised for international stardom in the mid 1980s. They earned it with a pair of charitable live shows. The Live Aid concert for Ethiopian famine relief in July, 1985, was seen by more than a billion people world wide. Not expected to be one of the main draws, U2 stole the show with a relentless 13-minute version of 'Bad' in which Bono jumped down into the Wembley Stadium crowd to dance with a fan. That performance helped earn U2 the headlining spot on 1986's Conspiracy of Hope tour for Amnesty International.
Greatness arrived in 1987, with the release of U2's 5th studio album, 'The Joshua Tree'. They had delivered a record that caught them at their musical and lyrical peak, finally comfortable with the ''rock band with a conscience'' label they first encountered with the OEWar¹album four years earlier. Even TIME magazine put U2 on its cover (as only the third rock band so honoured, behind the Beatles and The Who), declaring the band ''Rock's Hottest Ticket.'' The Joshua Tree tour sold out stadia around the world. U2 had become the biggest band in the world.
The band now set out to document their latest run at stardom with 'Rattle & Hum
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