Product description
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U2 Boy (2008 issue UK 11-track digitally remastered
[from the original analogue master tapes] CD album - their debut
album originally released in October 1980 including the singles I
Will Follow Out Of Control and A Day Without Me. With a 16-page
picture sleeve booklet containing previously unseen photos full
lyrics & new liner notes by Paul Morley)
BBC Review
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Here's a mind-bending 'what if?' moment. This, U2's
debut album, was originally to be produced by Martin Hannett, but
at the last minute he withdrew, distraught over the recent death
of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Imagine how the universe-gobbling
careers of the four boys from Dublin would have fared in the
hands of the Mancunian experimentalist. Luckily Hannett's
replacement, Steve Lillywhite was (like Eno and Lanois seven
years later) to help steer them to a sonic identity that made
them stand out from the crowd. In the days of grey raincoated new
wave, the band's sound was stadium-sized.
A lot of this was also down to The Edge's ringing, Echoplex-ed
Gibson Explorer. From the two-note delay-drenched start to I Will
Follow, underpinned by Larry Mullin Jr's massive gated drums,
theirs was a sound that had ambitions way beyond the smokey clubs
of Dublin. Of course none of this made sense without the gigantic
ego of Paul David Hewson. The re-christened Bono Vox was the
focal point that marked the band for glory. On the band's first
polytechnic-touring promotion of the album in the UK he was
already climbing PA stacks, mixing it up with his adoring public
and generally acting like the world was his; it just didn't know
it yet.
In interviews of the time the band hinted that their collective
christianity had informed the writing. Certainly the hit I Will
Follow displays the themes of faith and belief. But overall the
album marks the passage from childhood to adulthood, and all its
attendant uncertainties and anxieties. Hence the title. In this
sense, lyrically, the songs are too immature to pass muster. It
would take a few more years before Bono's words matched his
vaulting ambitions and messianic zeal. Also, musically, it lacks
a satisfying variety, with most songs fitting the same skittering
four-four pattern shaded by the Edge's minimal chords, arpeggios
and ringing harmonics. Only the morose sketch, The Ocean, the
mid-tempo pairing of An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart or the closing
Shadows And Tall Trees exhibit life beyond the bluster. Oddly
it's on the latter number that they most resemble Hannett's
beloved Joy Division. They weren't above a little plagiarism too;
the opening riff of Stories For Boys bearing more than a passing
resemblance to The Dead Kennedy's Holiday In Cambodia. Still, for
a debut it still contained a fair number of their early defining
live moments. A song like Out Of Control was hand built to be
stretched, embellished and bludgeoned about on stage. And one
thing was for sure: they really knew how to fashion some great
intros. The Electric Co. never quite delivers on its promise, but
the riff is still utterly mighty.
Of course it was to take two more Lillywhite-helmed albums to
really make the world aware of what the band themselves already
knew. But all the warning signs were here in this brave,
life-affirming cry of youthful defiance. --Chris Jones
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