Posted 08.19.2008
U2 rises from ‘Boy’ to ‘War;’ plus Blondie radiates ‘Parallel Lines’
By Mike Cote
Revisiting U2’s first three albums offers a refreshing journey back to a time when Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. were just four young lads from Ireland hoping to forge a career as rock musicians.
U2 Boy: Deluxe Edition (Island)
U2 October: Deluxe Edition (Island)
U2 War: Deluxe Edition (Island)
Bono was at least 20 years from becoming a Nobel Prize contender, and the Edge’s guitar created a sound that seemed to have traveled here from another planet.
Picking up on the sonic upgrade and bonus cuts reissue treatment begun with The Joshua Tree last year, U2 has released Boy, October and War in double-disc slipcased editions, with the CDs housed in miniature hardbound books.
Liner notes in these types of packages tends to brim with superlatives, but credit the band for letting the writers give each disc a proper assessment, praising both the highlights and the misfires.
“I Will Follow,” the lead-off track from the band’s 1980 debut, Boy, still resonates with freshness and naiveté. It’s hard to believe the singer of this wide-eyed anthem would become the self-important megastar we know today. But these guys were wiser than their years: They knew enough to reject producer Steve Lillywhite’s acoustic-heavy mix of “I Will Follow,” which appears on the bonus discs along with B-sides and rather raw live cuts.
Writer Neil McCormick pulls no punches with the band’s 1981 sophomore effort, October, a collection that shows the band expanding its sonic palette and earnest as ever but failing to come up with more than a couple of actual songs. “Gloria” and “I Fall Down” have held up well, however.
Under the gun for a commercial breakthrough, U2 bounced back with War in early 1983, setting the stage for their eventual rise to superstardom. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day” would become set-list staples, while “40” instantly became an audience sing-along. That the band would hit the Top 40 by addressing such grown-up concerns—geopolitical conflict and the suffering it brings—made it clear it would endure.
During the tour for War, the band stopped at Red Rocks and recorded a video and an eight-song live album that helped to popularize the Morrison amphitheater around the word. (A reissue of the film and CD comes out in September.)
BLONDIE Parallel Lines: Deluxe Collector’s Edition (EMI)
If you haven’t replaced your vinyl copy of Blondie’s 1978 breakthrough by now, here’s your bait: a bonus DVD with three videos that depict singer Debbie Harry in all her sultry sex kitten glory.
Oh, yeah, and there’s great music on Parallel Lines, too. Somehow these new wave upstarts fabricated a disco song from a “Heart of Glass” and managed to make it cool. And “Sunday Girl”—here in both its English and French versions—remains pop perfection.
But too bad “One Way or Another” got licensed for that damn Swifter commercial. Imagining Harry as a middle-aged housewife makes you want to “Fade Away and Radiate.”
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