U2

877. ‘Beautiful Day’, by U2

/ UK #1s blog / 22 Comments

A rock band! With guitars! On top of the singles charts in the Year 2000!

Beautiful Day, by U2 (their 4th of seven #1s)

1 week, from 15th – 22nd October 2000

The extended nature of our journey through this year has distorted things slightly, as we’ve had both Oasis and the Manics on top of the charts in recent months, not to mention the Corrs, but still. Rock music has become a highly endangered beast around here.

For someone who wouldn’t count himself as much of a U2 fan, their first three #1s all had merit. The raw, bluesy hum of ‘Desire’, the industrial prog of ‘The Fly’, and ‘Discotheque’s, well, disco beats were all enjoyable curios, oddities almost, which is a strange position for the biggest band in the world to be in. But here, at last, is U2: Biggest Band in the World ™.

And my heart sinks, because songs like this are why I don’t count myself as a big U2 fan. At least, not of 21st century U2. For this soaring, uncomplicated (undeniably catchy) rock music is not just setting U2’s manifesto for the new millennium, but that of rock music in general. From here we can draw a line to Coldplay, to Snow Patrol, to Imagine fucking Dragons… To U2 themselves foisting an entire album on unsuspecting iPod buyers. To stadium gigs at 300 quid a pop (or more, thanks to dynamic pricing). To streaming algorithms. To the death of indie clubs and small venues, and nightlife in general…

Okay, okay. I don’t lay all of this at the feet of U2’s ‘Beautiful Day’, but I’d say it represents a shift. They’re not the first band to soften the edges – in fact, the production here isn’t a million miles away from All Saints with William Orbit – but this does feel like a huge grasp for ubiquity. It’s a beautiful day…! Don’t let it get away… Of course, radio ate it up, and of course it featured as background to sports montages, adverts, and political campaigns, for years. (In fact, a big part of the reason I dislike this song is that it reminds me of when ITV had the rights to the Premier League highlights. This, versus the Match of the Day theme? No contest.)

The middle eight introduces a bit of edge, as Bono casts an omnipotent eye around the world and sees the oil fields at first light and the tuna fleets cleaning the sea out… But this feels more like an in-joke, to see if anyone will actually notice, than a statement. The rest of the song, unless my sarcasm detector is on the fritz, is pure motivational schmaltz. Pure corporate rock, the sort that the world’s worst CEO listens to in his Mercedes, on his way to making five hundred people redundant.

For anyone who thinks that I’m being harsh, or that I’m letting an anti-U2 bias cloud my judgement of one of their biggest hits, I will state that I really rate the two singles that followed ‘Beautiful Day’: ‘Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of’ and ‘Elevation’. But neither of them made #1, and so we are left discussing this record. I’ll leave the final words to a quote I heard once (I wish I could remember where from): If it is a beautiful day, then I don’t need Bono telling me about it…

760. ‘Discothèque’, by U2

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

We come to the last of five one-week number ones, the end of a run of interesting short-stays at the top of the charts. And is this the most interesting?

Discothèque, by U2 (their 3rd of seven #1s)

1 week, from 9th – 16th February 1997

U2 do dance. Or at least, U2 incorporate dance beats, loops and lots of effects into a rock song. Sadly, the title is misleading – there’s no disco to be found here. Bono doing his best Gloria Gaynor is sadly still a pipe-dream, though at various points he does attempt a falsetto to rival the Bee Gees.

No, the ‘dance’ element is firmly nineties-dance – house beats with a techno-ish edge. But underpinning it all is a pretty cool guitar riff, which is fed through different layers of feedback as the song winds on. It is at times crunchy, chiming and, in its best incarnation, gloriously scuzzy. It means that for all Bono’s theatrics, ‘Discothèque’ is actually the Edge’s show, especially when you see his handlebar moustache in the video…

But more on that in a sec. As soon as this single was played on the radio, rock snobs may well have clutched their pearls in horror at what U2 had become. Dance beats! In a rock song! And remixes… by DJs! Pass the smelling salts… But the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers, even Babylon Zoo, have been pushing this sound for months already, to great success. If anything the critics could have accused U2 of bandwagon jumping. But who cares if it’s not that original – it’s a fun tune. A banger that is sadly forgotten among some of U2’s bigger, more po-faced, hits.

Plus, anyone complaining about this hadn’t been listening to U2 for the better part of a decade. Large swathes of ‘Achtung Baby’ and ‘Zooropa’ had incorporated non-rock influences. Their last #1, ‘The Fly’ was well over five years earlier, but you can hear the roots of ‘Discotheque’ in it, and for most of the 1990s they had been flirting with some avant-garde stuff. So, no, this cannot claim to be the quirkiest of our recent chart-toppers – that accolade remains with White Town. Finally, what confirms this as a good song is that the band look like they’re having great fun in the video, prancing around inside a disco ball, and dressing up as The Village People.

In my posts on U2’s previous number ones, ‘The Fly’ and ‘Desire’, I may have referred to them not being my favourite band, and Bono not being my favourite frontman. But actually, their first three chart-toppers are all very good, and very different. I might even name ‘Discothèque’ as my favourite of all their #1s, if I didn’t know one of the harder-rocking ones to come. It’s definitely better than their next chart-topper, which is U2 by numbers. In fact, this, and the ‘Pop’ album, were probably the last really experimental thing that the band did. For their next LP, in 2000, they went back to the stadium rock anthems that their fanbase loves, but that always leave me a little cold.

668. ‘The Fly’, by U2

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

After four months, sixteen weeks, one-hundred and twelve days… a long old time however you want to count it… something desperately needed to end Bryan Adams’ record-breaking run. Thank God for U2, then, and the lead single from their seventh album.

The Fly, by U2 (their 2nd of seven #1s)

1 week, from 27th October – 3rd November 1991

And it’s a real palate cleanser after the thick stodge served up by Bryan. ‘Achtung Baby’ was a big departure for U2, away from the new-wave rock of their early albums. Away even from ‘Rattle and Hum’, and the stripped back rock ‘n’ roll of their first #1 ‘Desire’. ‘The Fly’ was intended as an opening statement: this is where we are now.

Where they were now was distorted, industrial rock, with clear influences from the musical movement of the time: electronic dance. Everything is drenched in a murky reverb, even Bono’s half-rapped verses, and his falsetto vocals in the chorus. It must have surprised fans who’d fallen in love with ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’, or ‘With or Without You’.

Despite this being U2, and a number one single, I don’t think I’d properly listened to ‘The Fly’ before today. It was the album’s biggest hit, but I’d say the subsequent singles – ‘One’, ‘Mysterious Ways’ and ‘Even Better Than the Real Thing’ – have left a bigger cultural mark. But I like it: it’s uncompromising, innovative, and the most ‘nineties’ number one so far. We’re almost two years into the decade, and this is first chart-topper that categorically couldn’t be mistaken for coming any earlier.

I said we needed something to kick the overblown ‘(Everything I Do)..’ out the way. And it’s funny, because U2 aren’t the first band you’d normally turn to for unpretentious rock ‘n’ roll. If you dig a little deeper into the song, you’ll find that it believes in itself every bit as much as its predecessor. It’s sung, according to Bono, by a character called ‘The Fly’, who’s in hell but who’s actually quite loving life down in the fiery pits: Look I gotta go, yeah, I’m running out of change… the song ends with… There’s a lot of things, If I could I’d rearrange…

Luckily, you can ignore the brainy stuff and lose yourself in the song’s cool groove. It rocks, whatever the message, and U2 are at their best when they rock. Luckily for this blog, many of their lead singles, and therefore their number ones, do instantly leap from the speakers. Oasis were good at this, too: picking for a lead single not the best song on an album, but the one that made the most noise and the biggest statement. Yes we’re back, ‘The Fly’ seems to say, and we’re the biggest band on the goddamn planet!

This record is very modern in another way, too. Since the mid-eighties, guitar-led music has lost its place as the driving force in pop. Rock bands now can often only make #1 with a lead single, such as this, propelled to number one thanks to their fanbase (see also Queen’s ‘Innuendo’, and Iron Maiden’s ‘Bring Your Daughter…’) Rock has made a comeback of sorts in the 1990s, but under limited terms. Never again will it be the default sound of the charts.

616. ‘Desire’, by U2

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

Go on, who had this down as the song that finally gave U2 their first #1…?

Desire, by U2 (their 1st of seven #1s)

1 week, from 2nd – 9th October 1988

For as good as this record is, and it’s a great little rocker, it’s not the first U2 song that springs to mind for most people. There haven’t been many bluesy chart-toppers, and the ones that have appeared came in the mid-sixties for the likes of the Stones and the Animals. But this one bangs straight in with a Bo Diddley beat, and a tale of an irresistible woman – She’s the candle, In my room… Or is it about drugs – I’m the needle, Needle and spoon…? Either way, it’s about something you just can’t say no to.

For a band not afraid of grandiosity this is a simple song; and all the better for it. They were influenced in recording it by The Stooges, and released what had been the demo version after deciding that the finished take was too polished. It’s short, sharp, and possibly one of Bono’s best vocal performances. Say what you want about Bono (and I just might, over the course of U2’s seven #1s) he’s a great rock star, when he remembers that he is a rock star, and not Jesus. Here he stutters, he growls and he soars, and sounds genuinely like a man crazed with desire.

Then there’s the harmonica which, after ‘He Ain’t Heavy…’ makes it two #1s in a row that have been heavy on the tin sandwich. And whisper it, but is 1988 turning out to be a good year for rock music…? I wasn’t expecting it in the era of SAW and house music, but chart-toppers for Fairground Attraction and Billy Bragg, Beatles covers, glam rock samples, a re-release for the Hollies, now this… It feels like it’s come out of nowhere, but it’s certainly welcome!

‘Desire’ was the lead single from ‘Rattle & Hum’, the follow-up to U2’s worldwide breakthrough album ‘The Joshua Tree’. They were probably the biggest rock band on the planet in 1988, and so whatever they released first from their new album may well have rocketed to the top. I’m glad it was this, though. A lot of U2’s music suffers, in my eyes, from the same problem ‘He Ain’t Heavy…’ suffered: grandiosity, and not a little pomposity. Not this one (and to be fair, not too many of their UK #1s – they usually like to announce a new album with a rocking single).

And so, U2 are up and running as a chart-topping force. Off the top of my head, they’re the 4th most successful rock act in terms of #1s, behind only the Beatles, the Stones and Oasis. But sadly, after me making such a big deal of it, this is where 1988 stops rocking… A block-busting ballad looms over the horizon.