The shimmering, echoey, and hopeful sounds of The Edge's guitar announced to the world that a band that was not so much rooted in the past but moored to the future had arrived as I Will Follow blasted from the needle of record players through hi-fi wires and out stereo speakers into the universe and beyond. U2 had arrived with the martial wallop of Larry Mullen Jr.'s bombastic drumbeats, Adam Clayton's unorthodox bass lines, and Bono's earnest, if not quite yet refined shouting (I mean, singing). I Will Follow might be the best lead-off track of any debut album in rock history. 45 years after the fact, the song and the album still sound fresh. If all U2 had ever released was the album, Boy, it would have been enough to cement them as rock legends. And yet, this first record of theirs is "only" #7 on this countdown of U2's albums from worst to first.
U2 were not the most skillful musicians when they released their initial full-length album, but for the previous four years they had created a unique sound on the "toilet bowl" touring circuits of Ireland and the UK. Since they weren't God's gift to musicianship, they were forced to create their own quirky, yet cool songs, rather than simply cover other artists works. This, in the long run, forced them to craft their tunes in unconventional ways and when their playing caught up to their imaginations, they were on their way to the rock'n'roll hall of fame!
Boy explores the journey that all adolescent males traverse as they transition from boys to men, from teenagers to adults. It is an album of loss and discovery. It is a record of innocence as it transitions to the naive belief that you've arrived and have it all figured out at the age of 18, 19, or 20. Boy is the journal in song of going, not so much from innocence to experience, but innocence to a false summit. Oh, but what vistas are available, even from these pseudo-peaks. If education is the path from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty, then Edge, Adam, Larry, and especially Bono are as confident and self-assured as any young man might be on their debut album. Sure, at this point, they don't know what they don't know, but this first record of theirs is all the better for it.
U2 Boy - Released, October 20, 1980.
Album Charts - #52 UK, #63 US.
Worldwide Sales to Date - 5.7 Million
Single - I Will Follow, #81 US Charts.
Standout Songs - I Will Follow, Out of Control, The Ocean, A Day Without Me, The Electric Co.
Weakest Track - Twilight
Hidden Gem - The Ocean
Boy is one of the most underrated debut albums of all time. - Shay
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